• What is Teamwork and Why is it Beneficial in The Workplace?
• Can Teamwork Help You in Your Career Development?
• Are Teamwork And Collaboration The Same Thing?
• 5 Elements Required For Effective Teamwork
• Combining Teamwork And Individual Work 
• 10 Effective Teamwork Skills You Need to Develop
• Can Teamwork Improve Workplace Morale?
• What Teamwork Most Definitely Isn’t, And When Teamwork Fails 
• 5 Ways Teamwork Improves Workplace Productivity
• Designing Your Office to Boost Teamwork Endeavours 
• What to do When Teamwork Fails
• 5 Ways to Improve Teamwork in The Workplace
• Conclusion 

How often do you hear phrases like “let’s go team!”, or something like “there is no “i” in team”? 

It seems like teams are everywhere, but in order to really benefit from teamwork in the workplace, we need to understand the complexities of pulling groups of people together, ensure that a common aim is established, and create motivation within the team, to ensure that everyone is pulling in the same direction.

The truth is that there are many things which can go very wrong when you group people together into teams and expect them to work closely. Personalities clash, conflicts arise, egos get in the way, and everything can go south very quickly. 

However, if you’re experienced in teamwork management, you understand the importance of teamwork in an office environment and you possess the skills to diffuse any problems before they arise, teamwork could be the one thing which moves your business from the ‘maybe we will succeed’ bracket, to the ‘destined for greatness’ bracket. 

Teamwork is a little more complex than many people give it credit for. You can’t just lump people together into teams and expect them to achieve wonderful things. You need to ensure that you get the blend of personalities right, that you make sure everyone is clear in their role and has a certain sense of responsibility in terms of doing everything they can for the common aim. This is something which is developed over time, not something which simply happens overnight.

Despite that, all the best teams have certain qualities, and by emulating those, you can create teams within your workplace which increase productivity and as a result, increase profits along the way.

It might sound complicated, but this guide is going to give you all the information you need to know on how to create an effective team working environment within your office, and how to overcome any problems that may come your way. You’ll be left with no doubt that teamwork really is the single best way to get things done.

What is Teamwork and Why is it Beneficial in The Workplace?

Before we move on and start talking about the finer details of effective teamwork, we first need to establish a clear definition of what it is, and what it isn’t. 

According to Wikipedia, the teamwork definition is:

“The collaborative effort of a group to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way”. 

You might wonder why you would task several people with the responsibility for completing one particular job when you could ask just one person to do it and free up the others for different tasks. That’s a fair point, but firstly, you would overload individual employees by expecting them to complete large tasks on their own; secondly, you would create an almost selfish feel to the office without the idea of working together; and thirdly, having a common aim and working towards it can mean having individual responsibilities. The common aim can, therefore, be the productivity and success of the business. 

So, why is teamwork important in the workplace?

• Teamwork improves efficiency and effectiveness
• Teamwork improves workplace morale, which has a direct impact on productivity and profits
• Teamwork reduces stress in the workplace because nobody feels like the responsibility rests squarely on their shoulders alone
• Teamwork helps to motivate employees
• Teamwork ensures that different views and opinions are taken into account, therefore increasing the quality of the work completed
• Teamwork helps employees to learn from each other, therefore increasing their own personal skillsets

It’s also far more likely that you’ll attract fresh talent your workplace, whilst retaining quality and highly skilled staff, by having a teamwork environment. 

Check out this video which highlights the importance of effective teamwork in a more visual way. 

Put simply, it’s far more enjoyable to work with other people, than it is to work solely on your own. We’re at work for many hours per day and if you spend all of that time sat behind an office screen or hiding away in a booth on your own, you’re going to quickly become isolated and rather down in your working environment. 

On the other hand, working with others means that you can share ideas, build strong working relationships, and enjoy your time far more as a result. By looking at it that way, you will be more motivated to get out of bed on a Monday morning and go to your contemporary office environment, enjoying the hours you have ahead of you. 

Life is too short to spend it hiding behind a screen at your office chair!

Can Teamwork Help You in Your Career Development?

Yes!

One skill which employers look for when searching for potential employees is teamwork skills. This means the ability to work as part of a group, collaborate effectively, share ideas, and work towards a common aim. By being able to legitimately prove on your CV that you have experience of working as part of a team, you’ll boost your career development chances in the future.

A little later we will talk about the specific teamwork skills which you need to develop in order to work effectively as part of a group, but it’s also important that you have a clear idea in your mind of what a team actually is, and what it isn’t. 

The line “there is no “i” in team” is true. If you have one person pulling in one direction, simply for selfish reasons, whilst everyone else is trying to meet the same aim, it’s just not going to work.

It’s also important that you are also able to work alone when you need to. It’s very unlikely that you will find a career opportunity which asks you to work with other people 100% of the time. It’s far more likely that you will be part of a wider team, but you’ll be tasked with individual work occasionally, which forms the greater focus of the team. This means you need to be able to focus on close work, concentrate at your designer office desk, and know when the time for collaboration is and isn’t. 

Are Teamwork And Collaboration The Same Thing?

Speaking of collaboration, is this the same thing as teamwork?

These are two terms which are often used interchangeably, but they are a little different in a subtle way. Understanding the differences is vital if you want to ensure your teamwork understanding is up to scratch.

Put simply, teamwork is the combined effort of several people towards one single goal. Collaboration is several people, not necessarily within a team, pulling together ideas and input in order to complete a project. 

Let’s put an example together to clear up any confusion.

Within a business you may have different departments. You might have a sales department, a finance department, an art department, an admin department, etc. Within those departments, you will have teams of colleagues who work together to complete their common aim. So, within the finance department, the team will have an aim to ensure all data is inputted into the system and balanced before the month-end. 

However, you may also have inter-departmental collaboration going on too, which is designed to increase the customer share of the department. So, the art department might work together on a collaborative project with the sales department, to put together a new marketing campaign. This is collaboration. 

Can you see the subtle difference?

5 Elements Required For Effective Teamwork

What is good teamwork exactly?

In order to answer that question, we need to look at the elements you need for an effective team to be formed in the first place. 

• Communication - A quality team has open lines of communication. This means effective methods to talk to each other and keep everyone up to date. If something happens within the team or there is a useful piece of information everyone needs to know, there is a specific way to communicate this information, to ensure everyone gets to know. 
• A common goal - In order for a team to actually succeed, it needs a goal that everyone is pullings towards. The goal needs to be clear and concise, and everyone needs to know their own specific responsibilities in order to reach that overall goal. 
• Motivation - The leader of the team (more on that shortly) needs to be effective at motivating the team to work hard and effectively. They also need to know how to overcome issues and possible conflicts. 
• Delegation - Work needs to be delegated amongst members of the team fairly and equally. No one member should have more work than anyone else, and if someone is struggling, team members will look to help them out, for the good of the overall team and the common goal. 
• Interpersonal skills - Aside from communication skills, all team members need to have the ability to get along with each other. This means putting aside differences and potential conflicts, overcoming issues, and working together, rather than attempting to complete and go over and above another team member. 

Of course, every quality team needs a quality leader. Hig- quality leadership and teamwork literally work hand in hand. Team members need someone they can look towards for guidance, someone who is experienced and someone who is influential and a good role model. A leader needs to be able to motivate and inspire their team members, overcoming potential issues and dealing with conflicts quickly and effectively. Basically, a  good leader needs to create a teamwork environment by leading in the right way. 

Check out this infographic which talks about the most common mistakes leaders make when working alongside other people and teams. This should give you some food for thought in terms of what to avoid!

Source - https://leaderchat.org/2016/03/10/infographic-what-is-the-biggest-mistake-leaders-make-when-working-with-others/

Combining Teamwork And Individual Work 

There will always be times when you need to work alone, but doing work which is part of the team’s greater aims. The best example here is working within an open plan office department. 

For instance, you are part of the admin department and you work together as a team to ensure that the administrative needs of the business are completed every week. As part of your team aim, you are responsible for data input. That may mean that when you’re not brainstorming or collaborating around the modern boardroom tables, you need to sit quietly at your operator chair and input the required data into a software package.

The agile working model pulls in this example perfectly. In this particular working situation, employees decide where they’re going to sit and work that day, according to the task they are given and need to complete. So, if you’re responsible for that data input in the admin team, you will probably choose to sit within the quiet zone and work in a quieter and more focused way. 

However, the next day you might be part of a brainstorming activity, which pulls the team together and explores different ways to approach a specific task. In that case, you would base yourself in the collaborative area. 

The agile working approach means that you can work either with others in an active and vocal manner, or you can sit somewhere quietly and focus on individual work. This model appreciates the fact that every single office will have the need to do both types of work at any one time. Just because an office has a team, it doesn’t mean that it’s all collaboration, brainstorming, and team building activities. There will come a time when people need to sit down and actually do the work as a result of the ideas that came from those brainstorming sessions. 

So, if you want to stand out and perhaps look toward a different role in the future or maybe reach towards a promotion, you need to be equally as adept at teamwork and individual work, appreciating that there is a time and a place for both, and they both complete the full cycle of the common goal. 

10 Effective Teamwork Skills You Need to Develop

To date, we’ve talked a lot about why teams are important and the benefits of creating a teamwork environment in your business. However, what teamwork skills do you need to have yourself, in order to thrive within a team environment?

1. Organisational skills - You need to be able to organise yourself and your own time in order to fulfil your duties as part of the team. If you’re poorly organised, you’re always late, and you’re always losing important documents, your team members are going to become quickly annoyed with you, you’re going to miss deadlines, and as a result, the common goal of the team becomes less likely to happen. 
2. Decision-making skills - Whilst you won’t be responsible for making final decisions for the team, unless you’re the leader, you do need to possess firm and quick decision-making skills, to help you hit deadlines and complete tasks in the best way. These are good teamwork skills to have, but in general, the ability to make solid decisions is a characteristic of a good employee too. 
3. Creative Problem Solving Skills  - Can you think on your feet and come up with creative solutions to problems? If so, you already possess one of the best teamwork skills there are! Within every team there will always be problems, and it’s likely that you all gather around the boardroom furniture to try and brainstorm ways to overcome the issue. Your creative thinking and problem solving skills to certainly help the overall goal of the team.
4. Communication skills - One of the biggest characteristics of effective teamwork is the ability to communicate clearly and properly, and also to understand that not all words are said verbally, and some are said nonverbally too. Effectively communicating information to the relevant people is key, but you should also be adept at understanding body language, tone of voice, and perhaps be able to pick up on cues that a member of your team is feeling less than their best. By doing this, you can help them out, and help the team continue towards success.
5. A lack of ego - There is no room for ego or over-confidence in a teamwork environment. Remember, any success isn’t about you, it’s about the team, and someone who has an ego and wants to make everything about them is not likely to thrive well in a teamwork environment. As such, one skill you need to develop is humility and the ability to put your own needs onto the back burner occasionally. 
6. Real listening skills - Do you really know how to listen? Do you hear words and take them in, or do you really listen and read between the lines? We’ve already mentioned about non-verbal cues and body language, but solid listening skills is about combining all of this together and coming to a conclusion about what isn’t being said, rather than what is being said. This is key in teamwork environments. 
7. Conflict resolution skills - There will always be the odd clash between team members, and whilst you can’t cut out the chances of it happening completely, you can learn conflict resolution skills and help to calm the waters before they become extremely choppy. This means having an open mind, understanding both sides, and mediation skills. 
8. The ability to ‘bite your tongue’ occasionally - Within a team, there are always going to be times when someone says something which makes your heckles rise. You might want to bite back and say something in retaliation, but what good would that do? One of the best teamwork skills is one of the least known, and that’s the ability to bite your tongue and take a deep breath. By doing that, you’re avoiding conflict and you’re placing the importance of the team first.
9. Time management skills - Again, this goes back to keeping your end of the bargain in terms of the tasks you’ve been given and doing your best to finish them within the right timescales. Time management skills will help you to do that, and will also serve you very well in your professional life in general. 
10. Motivational skills - The ability to motivate yourself when you’re feeling lacking in energy, but also the ability to perhaps help to motivate your team-mates when they’re feeling the same, is key. 

These are some of the biggest teamwork skills you should be working on right now. It’s likely that you’ve already gone most of them or at least some of them, but if you can’t place a tick at the side of every one, you have some homework to do! Of course, it’s also important to realise that we never stop learning, and you can always develop the skills you already have to greater levels.

Check out this infographic which highlights a few other specifics which make up the ideal team player. 

Source - https://www.totalteambuilding.com.au/tag/teamwork/

What Teamwork Most Definitely Isn’t, And When Teamwork Fails 

Now we know what a quality team is, what isn’t it?

What is poor teamwork?

When you have poor team dynamics, e.g. everyone is fighting and competing with each other, you’re not looking at a particular successful picture, either now or in the future. In this case, the common goal of the team has been forgotten and everyone is out for themselves. 

The importance of good teamwork should never be underestimated 

Check out this video which highlights a few good vs bad teamwork points. 

Let’s check out a few examples of what teamwork most definitely isn’t.

• Taking credit individually for an idea the team came up with as a group
• Using the team’s common goal as a way to further your own career aspirations
• Failing to meet your own responsibilities as part of the team on a regular basis
• Not helping other team members when you can obviously see they’re struggling
• Failing to listen to another team member, or overlooking their ideas without due attention

There are many reasons why teamwork may fail, but one of the most common is poor leadership. We’ve already touched upon the common mistakes which leaders make, but many studies have shown that managing a team is actually quite a hard task. Equally, measuring how effective a team is can be difficult too, usually because the ways to measure performance are aimed towards the individual and not really towards groups. 

Overcoming common teamwork pitfalls really comes down to awareness, knowing your team members, gelling personalities together and avoiding conflicts. In terms of performance measurement, you could simply look towards the next section’s main topic - productiveness. 

5 Ways Teamwork Improves Workplace Productivity

Productivity is the one thing which businesses all strive for. The reason is that when productivity is high, the overall success and growth picture is far more positive. Productivity also has a direct link to profitability, and let’s be honest, every business wants that to be high!

Teamwork has been shown to boost productivity, but how?

1. Teamwork helps boost productivity by generating new and creative ideas
2. Teamwork helps boost productivity by improving morale
3. Teamwork helps boost productivity by identifying the most successful common goal to work towards
4. Teamwork boosts working relationships between colleagues, which increases the chances of team success
5. Teamwork ensures that deadlines and targets are met

By learning how to create team spirit in your office environment you can look forward to grabbing the benefits of effective teamwork, therefore increasing productivity as a very positive side effect. 

Designing Your Office to Boost Teamwork Endeavours 

By now you should be pretty clear on the importance of good teamwork, but did you know that the way you design your office could have an impact on how effective your team is too?

Think about it for a second. If your office is comfortable, supportive, designed in a way which inspires creative thinking and ideas, and is geared up for many different types of work, such as collaborative and individual, it can only boost the success of your team. 

This means choosing round tables instead of regular ones, bench desks to help people share ideas, and when creating working zones, such as those seen in an agile working environment, you should think about acoustic panels and office screens, to allow those who want to concentrate to be able to do so, whilst others can brainstorm without worrying about disturbing their teammates. 

You should also think about the colour of the office itself. There are many colours which are known to increase creative thinking, so in that way, choose a colour which is ideal for teamwork! Think about yellows, blues and greens in particular, and throw in some office plants to grab the benefits of biophilic office design at the same time. 

Let’s summarise the best ways to design your office, with teamwork in mind. 

• Set working zones, so team members can work collaboratively and quietly in tandem 
• Opt for bench desks and round desks for those who want to work together
• Choose a decor colour which inspires creative thinking 
• Add in office screens, booths and acoustic panels for a quieter area
• Make sure there is plenty of space in collaborative areas, so people can walk around and come up with ideas, rather than being forced to sit down all the time
• Use office plants to utilise the benefits of biophilic design
• Make sure that office desks aren’t placed too close together, so team members still feel able to work quietly and have their own personal space

5 Ways to Improve Teamwork in The Workplace

We’re almost there! You almost know all there is to know about good teamwork and how to create the same environment in your office space. now, let’s look at 5 ways you can improve teamwork in your office currently and look forward to increased benefits in the future.

1. Ensure that your office is designed correctly for teams to communicate and work closely, whilst still maintaining the right amount of personal space. Ask your employees how they feel about the current office design and make any necessary changes as a result of what you’re told. 
2. Ensure that the common goal of the team is clear. Ask your employees what they consider the common goal is at the moment and see if everyone comes up with the same idea. If not, the goal isn’t set in stone and you need to reiterate that far more solidly. 
3. Have regular team building exercise days, such as sports days, activity days, and generally pulling everyone together and creating a sense of ‘one for all, and all for one’.
4. Ensure that everyone’s goals are clear and nobody has more work on their plate than anyone else.
5. Improve communication channels within your organisation, to ensure that everyone can communicate details easily, without problems. This could mean introducing an instant messaging software package between team members, or introducing daily team meetings first thing in the morning. Whatever works for your business.

Check out this infographic which goes into a bit more detail on how to improve teamwork relationships within your organisation.

Source - https://blog.teamwork.com/infographic-10-ways-build-team-relationships/

Conclusion

Teamwork is a vital part of the business success pattern. With everyone pulling together and working towards the same aim, how can your business fail?

We’ve talked about the characteristics of effective teamwork and by now you should be pretty clear about the skills you need to develop and work on. If you’re a manager, you should also understand why effective teamwork is so important and why leadership needs to be solid in order to get the most out of team members. 

The old adage of “there is no “i” in team” rings true, so if you can put aside your own interests and work together to reach a common goal, you’ll understand why teamwork is not only important but also really rewarding too.