Promote Teamwork at Your Workplace

No matter what profession or occupation you hold you will need to work with others to meet your goals. This is especially true if you work with a team directly. Without a real sense of unity in your work-group progress may suffer or may never be made at all. By putting into practice certain team building principals you can help foster a feeling of connectedness as you and your team meet your professional goals together.

Steps

Building Your Team

  1. Discuss teamwork with your group. Before you can work together as a team, your group will need to be made aware of the benefits that can come from teamwork. It's possible that everyone will not be willing to work as a unit and careful examination and explanation of the benefits that teamwork can bring changing minds and building a stronger team.[1]
    • Ask people to write down positive and negative ideas they have about teamwork.
    • Work together to address negative concerns or attitudes.
    • For example, someone might be concerned that teamwork can hurt an individual and their expression of ideas. The ways in which a team can actually help empower an individuals ideas should be highlighted in response.
  2. Understand team member styles. It is thought that there are a number of team member “styles” that might be found in any group. These styles describe how an individual acts within a team and can suggest which roles they might best play in the group as well as allow you to create a well balanced team. Take a moment to review the following four main team member styles:[1]
    • Contributors tend to focus the team on specific and immediate tasks.
    • Collaborators usually focus on the group and project as a whole.
    • Communicators strive to create open, positive, and constructive communication amongst the team.
    • Challengers like to highlight difficulties and push the team to higher levels of quality and performance.
  3. Practice effective leadership. There are a few different types of leaders and studies have shown that some leadership styles are more effective than others. More importantly some leadership styles can actually result in negative performance from teams under such leadership. If you are leading a team try to embody one of the following styles of leadership:[2]
    • The transformational leader inspires the team by creating and sharing a vision for the teams mission. They urge team members to challenge standards and think outside the box to achieve goals.
    • The empowering leader will urge team members to take on self-leadership and let them and their choices inform the direction of the team.

Setting Structure

  1. Create a team that is the right size. There are certain sizes that work best when it comes to team work. The number of people will affect how easily they are able to communicate and how clearly roles and responsibilities are defined. Keep your team size balanced to help maintain effective teamwork.[3]
    • The ideal size for a team is between two to five members.
    • A five to ten member team is possible. However it may prove difficult to manage.
    • Any teams larger than ten members will likely need to be divided into smaller sub-teams.
  2. Set concrete due dates for the team's goals. Although your team will likely have an ultimate deadline for the total project, breaking the goal down into smaller goals and deadlines can help the team stay on target. Try making the larger team goal into smaller goals each with their own deadlines.[4]
    • For example, you might create a planning phase where the team coordinates their efforts by a certain time.
    • Each phase will have a sequential due date, culminating in the final project and deadline.
    • Breaking goals down can help the team keep track of their progress.
  3. Establish protocols for team interaction. Your team will need to work well together and creating proper protocols and inter-team responsibilities can help facilitate this. By making these instructions clear your team will effectively be able to communicate and achieve their goals together.[4]
    • Set deadlines for responses to phone messages or emails.
    • Make attendance to meetings mandatory.
    • You might offer a form for your team mates to sign indicating they have read and are committed to the team policies.
  4. Make each member's goals clear. A good team will have clear cut and very well defined roles and responsibilities for each team member. These will help them to focus on their specific tasks as well as understand what other members are currently working on. Delegating work in this way lets everyone work effectively both individually and as a team.[3]
    • Without clear goals team members may overlap and perform redundant tasks.
    • Clear goals for each team member will help the effectiveness of the entire team.
    • Objective goals allows for evaluation and improvement of performance on both individual and team levels.

Fostering The Best Relationships

  1. Express the value of cooperation. If your team doesn't see the value or believe that working together cooperatively is a wise choice then the team will fail. Whenever you are assembling a team each member must fully believe in and be committed to working together to achieve the aim of that group.[3]
    • Any member or members who aren't convinced that teamwork is a good idea will hurt the entire team effort.
    • Make sure each member is ready to fully work together towards the team's goals.
  2. Share team members strengths. Chances are a team member will already know their own role and skills that they bring to the team. However it is just as important that each team member be aware of the strengths and skills of the other team members. This allows for each team member to help others or fulfill other roles more effectively.[3]
    • During any bonding or socializing events make sure to include a portion where everyone has an opportunity to present their skills or strengths.
    • When each team member knows what the others are capable of team efficiency will benefit.
  3. Manage conflict effectively. A benefit of working together is the introduction of multiple ideas and view points, allowing the team to find solutions that an individual might have missed. Unfortunately, team work can also cause conflict to arise when ideas or discussions clash. Have your team work through conflict, using it to their benefit.[4]
    • Conflict can cause team effectiveness to fail.
    • Try to resolve conflict before it grows into a more serious issues.
  4. Cultivate emotional awareness in your team. Part of being a human is having and feeling emotions. While many emotions can lead to a positive and healthy team there are some that can pose a threat to the cohesion of the group. By training your team in matters of emotional intelligence you can help avoid any emotional difficulties or outbursts that could injure the team effort.[5]
    • The first step in emotional awareness is being aware and managing ones own emotions.
    • Self motivation to work as a team is critical to the overall effort.
    • Being aware of others emotional states is important when working with others constructively.

Tips

  • Create clear goals for each team member.
  • Make clear the value of working together as a team.
  • Ensure that each member is fully committed to team work.
  • Try to be or encourage great leadership.
  • Manage conflicts quickly and learn from them.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.clemson.edu/OTEI/documents/teamwork-handbook.pdf
  2. ↑ https://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol2iss3/yun/YunCoxSimsSalam_Vol2Iss3.pdf
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/planning/pdf/teamwrk.pdf
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/instructionalstrategies/groupprojects/design.html
  5. ↑ http://www.aacn.nche.edu/qsen/Teamwork-Resource-Paper.pdf
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