Effective Teamwork
Effective teamwork involves collaboration, communication, and synergy among team members to achieve common goals. It requires clear roles and responsibilities, mutual trust, and respect. Successful teamwork fosters innovation, productivity, and a positive work environment, ultimately leading to improved business performance.
8 Key excerpts on "Effective Teamwork"
eBook - ePubAssistive Technologies and Environmental Interventions in Healthcare
An Integrated Approach
- Lynn Gitlow, Kathleen Flecky, Lynn Gitlow, Kathleen Flecky(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...Leader may seek input, but decide by authority rule. Leadership is shared among members. There are specific, well‐defined goals that are unique to the team and members value the goals. Effectiveness is measured directly by assessing team accomplishments. Team efforts are celebrated as well as individuals' contributions to the team. Membership is ongoing; change requires re‐establishment of norms, roles, identity. Team members work at maintenance tasks to ensure that the team can work effectively. Meetings have open‐ended discussion and include active problem‐solving. In meetings members discuss, decide, and do real work together. Decisions are made by consensus. When teamwork is effective, a group of individuals with diverse training and knowledge come together to contribute ideas, information, and direction based upon their unique perspective. Effective Teamwork is also dependent upon individual team members' ability to share their knowledge and opinions and collaborate to make appropriate decisions that can be successfully implemented. Why work in teams? Michael West, in Effective Teamwork: Practical Lessons from Organizational Research West (2012), identified seven evidence‐based reasons why a team approach is effective and frequently used in medical, educational, and business environments. He makes the following key points and supports them with research about team functioning: Teams are a very good way to enact organizational plans. Teams enable organizations to speedily develop and deliver products and services. Teams can integrate with other teams and link in ways individuals cannot. Teams enable organizations to learn more effectively. Team‐based organizations focus on improvement and promote change. Organizations that are team‐based can be managed more effectively. Teams can undertake system‐wide change (West, 2012, pp...
eBook - ePub- Roy Horn(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- CIPD - Kogan Page(Publisher)
...Other essential elements such as supporting, communicating and networking are carried out efficiently and quickly. Communication – The team communicates effectively and frequently with each other. Effective internal communication allows the team to make balanced decisions, handle conflict constructively and provide each other with valuable feedback. The effective team communicates clearly with external stakeholders. Involvement – Everyone has a role on the team and carries out that role. Team members support other team members in carrying out their roles. Despite differences in roles, perspectives and experience, team members feel a sense of partnership with each other. Contributions are respected and expected. True consensus is reached when appropriate. Process skills – High-performing teams have a large number of process skills they can use when needed. Process skills include problem-solving tools, planning techniques, regular meetings, agendas and successful ways of dealing with problems, behavioural agreements and ways to improve and develop those processes within the team. Continuous improvement – The team understands the importance of continuous improvement and has the tools, knowledge and time at their disposal to make continuous improvement really happen. All improvement efforts are done in support of the organisation’s goals and objectives. MANAGER COMMENT Since I became an experienced manager I will not work with teams I do not trust or those that do not trust me. Trust is everything. Most people do not have a very good feel for their own personal level of trust. When I first meet a new team I carry out this little icebreaker. I sit the new team around a table and ask someone for a pound coin. I then just sit quietly while there is a bit of fidgeting in the chairs and a few looks to each other...
eBook - ePub- Mike Woodcock(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Co-operation implies that individuals are committed and willing to be involved in the work they do, and that they are ready to share their skills and information with the rest of the team, knowing that the others will reciprocate. People trust each other and encourage others to use their ideas. Everyone in the team is open about their strengths and weaknesses, knowing that they are accepted. This in itself places a great responsibility on the team to foster and maintain the spirit of co-operation and one finds that the members of the team remind and help individuals who may be falling behind with some task. Co-operation implies that individuals trust other members' ability to consider their interests equally with their own and are willing for people to undertake assignments that contribute to the group's objectives. People are less suspicious of individuals' motives in carrying out important assignments. Without trust and openness co-operation cannot occur. It is essential that people are able to talk frankly and without fear of looking foolish. The group leader and members need to work hard at achieving co-operation, for without it there is no real teamwork. When there is a co-operative atmosphere members are more ready to be involved and committed, and information is shared rather than hidden. Individuals listen to the ideas of others and build on them. People find ways of being more helpful to each other and the team. Co-operation encourages high morale - individuals accept each others' strengths and weaknesses and contribute from their pool of knowledge and skills. All abilities, knowledge and experience are fully utilized by the team and individuals have no inhibitions about using other people's abilities to help with their problems. Problems are shared. Where true co-operation is alive a degree of conflict is also seen as a necessary and useful part of organizational life...
eBook - ePub- Christopher Mabey, Rosemary Thomson(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...new ideas? (From Anderson et al., 1992) The critical success factors of Effective Teamworking At the outset we asked what it was that differentiated a group of individuals from a cohesive, high performing team. The Counselling and Career Development Unit (University of Leeds) identifies nine such distinguishing criteria, which summarize well the ground we have covered in this chapter. An effective team: 1 Shares clear objectives and agreed goals • clarifies roles; • agrees on what differences are tolerable; • discusses values, and a general consensus on the underlying philosophy of the team is reached. 2 Has a climate of support and trust • people display the relation-building skills of conveying respect, genuineness and empathy; • feelings are recognized and dealt with; • strengths are built upon; • people give and ask for support; • people spend time together. 3 Has open lines of communication • positive and negative feedback is given; • each person’s contribution is recognized; • people are skilled at sending and receiving messages in face to face communication; • people talk to one another about issues horizontally as well as vertically in the organization; • discussions about work are the same inside and outside the organization; • people are open to being influenced. 4 Recognizes that conflict is inevitable and can be constructive • issues are dealt with immediately and openly; • people are assertive; • people are encouraged to contribute...
eBook - ePub- Gillian Watson, Stefanie Reissner, Gillian Watson, Stefanie Reissner(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- CIPD - Kogan Page(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 8 Effective Team-building and Communication G ILLIAN W ATSON OVERVIEW Teamwork is a common feature of contemporary organisations and it is critical for today’s and tomorrow’s managers to understand how they form and perform and how they can be led effectively. This chapter discusses the key theories of building, managing and working in teams, with a particular focus on team roles and the behaviours and skills of individual team members. It also considers the need for communication and giving feedback in a team context. This chapter ends with a discussion of conflict in teams, including the emergence of conflict and different ways of handling it. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this chapter, provided you engage with the activities, you should be able to: • identify various stages in group/team development • evaluate a range of methods to aid team-building and development • critically evaluate the worth of team role when compiling a team • explain how a virtual team works and what leadership skills may be employed to manage such a team • evaluate the need for interactive communication and feedback in teams • understand the emergence of conflict in teams and how it can be managed. 8.1 INTRODUCTION Groups and teams are naturally occurring features in organisations as the notion of organisation itself implies that several individuals work towards a common goal. All members of a group, team or organisation bring in their personality, life stories and prior experiences, which often results in complex group, team or organisational dynamics. Ideally, these group dynamics lead to improved organisational performance (Jackson and Carter 2000). To achieve its maximum potential, a group or team is more than just a collection of individuals. A group or team is a collection of individuals in which there is social interaction, a relatively stable pattern of relationships and the sharing – and working towards – a common goal...
eBook - ePub- Leena Mikkola, Maarit Valo, Leena Mikkola, Maarit Valo(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...3 TEAM COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE Mitra Raappana and Tessa Horila Introduction Team and group work have become established ways to organize work and respond to the intense demands of the constantly changing context of working life. Knowledge-intensive work in particular is based on collaborative interaction carried out in teams. Here, teams refer to the various work groups in working life. The most common benefits and expectations associated with teamwork are strengthened commitment to work, improved job satisfaction, and organizational savings. Other advantages include a weakening of the workplace’s hierarchical structures, shared authority, higher-quality results, and efficient work rates (Harris & Sherblom 2011). Moreover, teams are often considered a forum for combining or giving rise to various forms of expertise (Kozlowski & Bell 2003). They are expected to provide synergy as well as more innovative outcomes than individuals alone can provide. Communication in modern working life is at least partly technology-mediated, which allows teams to operate across organizational and geographical borders. Despite the expectation that teamwork represents an answer to the demands of today’s dynamic, ubiquitously digital working life, taking advantage of its benefits is neither simple nor well understood (Gilson, Maynard, Jones Young, Vartiainen, & Hakonen 2014). Successful teams are vital to organizations, but not all teams perform in the same way. Teams exist, perform, and develop based on communication. Analyzing communication is essential to understanding how to reap the best benefits from teams. There are several perspectives and key assumptions concerning group communication and thus several ways to understand groups or teams (Hollingshead et al. 2005). The aim of this chapter is to review perspectives that could help any member of any type of team to understand teams as complex communicative realities...
eBook - ePubBeyond Team Building
How to Build High Performing Teams and the Culture to Support Them
- W. Gibb Dyer, Jeffrey H. Dyer(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
...Not surprisingly, performance in the branches began to improve, and the new marketing initiative began to be implemented more effectively. Moreover, based on feedback from employees generated during these meetings the president also decided that he need to launch a more aggressive television advertising campaign to further support the marketing efforts of his employees in the branches. In short, the branch teams, now rewarded for having team meetings, and receiving more support from the corporate office, were much more effective than they had been in the past. The Importance of Context What we have learned from our own experience in consulting with teams over the years is this: context matters! Without a team-supportive organizational context, creating effective teams is difficult, even impossible. The president of the financial institution couldn't get the teams in his branches to even meet together for any length of time because the context didn't support teamwork—there were no incentives for the teams to meet on a regular basis. To create an organizational context that will support teamwork, the team needs to consider a variety of factors which we will address in this chapter. How Important Is Teamwork for the Team to Succeed? Although all teams represent a collection of people who must collaborate to some degree to achieve common goals, some tasks require more collaboration than others. Figure 2.1 represents a continuum of the teamwork or collaboration needed for a team to function. The continuum is based on the notion that the importance of teamwork will vary according to the task environment, notably the degree of interdependence required to complete the team's tasks. Figure 2.1 Continuum of Teamwork Modular Interdependence Sometimes the nature of the task doesn't require the team to work closely together because the team tasks are largely individual in nature...
eBook - ePubBest Team Skills
Fifty Key Skills for Unlimited Team Achievement
- Lewis Losoncy(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...Teammates arrive on the scene at different times from various backgrounds and dissimilar cultures, sometimes speaking divergent languages, as well as having unique training and skills, separate personalities, assorted levels of motivation and distinctly personal needs. Each unique, self-centered individual (who, being human, might suspect the world revolves around him or her) is brought together under one small umbrella called “the team.” Despite everyone having a different personality and assuming different responsibilities, each individual has to cooperate if the team is ever going to fulfill its potential. If one out of three marriages doesn’t work and a marriage involves only two people who are usually from similar backgrounds and who have willingly chosen each other, can you imagine what a monumental task it is to build a winning team? Only one team wins the World Series. The best team is always the one where everyone chooses at some point to rise above self-interest and make a commitment to the team’s dream. This leap involves a higher-level view of what is best for everyone. You’ll have a vantage point with the vision that understands that the only way we can become part of a winning team is if we encourage everyone on our team to give it his or her best. Unfortunately, most people never make the simple connection between (1) the more I rise above my self-interest and encourage the team to grow, (2) the more I will grow as a teammate. The Best Teams Believe Encouragement Is Everyone’s Business Work is a mental-physical-technical experience done in a social and, at times, even an emotional setting. The major reason why people are discouraged at work is not physical fatigue, strain, technical inability or lack of skill. The major source of stress is social. Job stress means feeling stressed around people. When we experience stress around people, we become discouraged at work...
