Team Work

Teamwork can be defined as the ability of team members to work together, communicate effectively, anticipate and meet each other’s demands, and inspire confidence, resulting in a common goal. You cannot become successful or grow in an organization if you cannot work in a team with other professionals. In today’s economy, most of our jobs involve interacting with others that are not even in the same line of profession. The need for effective teamwork is critical for any business.

The ability to simultaneously perform as an individual with your colleagues or employers in effective teamwork is key to attaining growth and success in every aspect of a business. The diverse skills of teams are needed for reaching success. Make use of every opportunity you have to engage in teamwork so you can develop effective communication skills.

• Division of labour This is the separation of a work process into several tasks, with each task performed by a separate person or group of persons. Basically, it enables an individual or group of individuals to focus on a particular area of specialization and when all the different processes are combined, a suitable outcome is achieved. Even in our daily lives, we practice division of labour daily. In a home with six children, parents will always share chores to ensure that the house is clean. One child might wash the dishes, another might go grocery shopping, another might set the table, another might make dinner, and another might clean the table after everyone has eaten dinner. Everyone chipped in to make sure that the home is clean. Teamwork and division of labour are the same things.

Benefits of teamwork

• Teamwork allows you to learn: Being a part of a team allows you to learn from others. You can learn about their mistakes, ways they improve, new ideas, and just learn additional skills that can help you grow.

• Teamwork increases productivity: As an employee and a team member, you are tasked with one job which covers the expectation that the company has of you. You are knowledgeable about that task and you are trained to be an expert. When working in a team, you are given expectations and deadlines. You become comfortable because this is your expertise. It improves job satisfaction and improves great results.

• It enhances the strengths of each individual and ultimately the company as a whole: In today’s multidisciplinary world, team building is a crucial aspect of reaching success. If you are a student who wants to reach success by any means, you need to make sure that you are aware of the importance of teamwork. As long as your innovative and creative mind works towards attaining growth and success, keeping in mind the importance of effective teamwork can help you succeed in many of your endeavours.

• Unity and loyalty: Teamwork promotes unity among co-workers by building friendships instead of competition. When friendships are built, individuals become supportive and are willing to communicate without restrictions. These close-knit relationships motivate employees, make them cooperate, and become more productive. Individuals possess diverse talents, weaknesses, communication skills, strengths, and habits. Therefore, when a teamwork environment is not encouraged this can pose many challenges towards achieving the goal.

• Teamwork improves consumer satisfaction. Working with a diverse, multidisciplinary group of individuals makes you knowledgeable about various cultures. The diversity will give you an insight into the various ways and methods to please your consumers. That is a big deal for any organization. It also makes the employees feel appreciated because their input matters. With this, team members can feel a greater sense of accomplishment. Combined with knowing that the significance of their output is being relied upon by the rest of their team, team members will be driven to share the same vision, values, and goals.

• Teamwork teaches employees conflict resolution: Conflicts inevitably happen when you put together a group of unique people. Employees come from varied backgrounds and have different work styles and habits. While these unique viewpoints create the most successful work, they can also generate resentment that quickly turns into conflict. When conflict arises in teamwork situations, employees are forced to resolve the conflicts themselves instead of turning to management. Learning conflict resolution firsthand is a skill that employees can use to become efficient managers down the road.

Conclusion

An important question hiring managers ask when trying to place a candidate in a role is ‘Do you consider yourself a team player and why?’ This is because as we have seen, it is an essential quality. What areas of your personality do you need to work on to enable you to become better at working as a team?

Excelling in your career also requires critical thinking. You can read all about Critical Thinking here.