06.02.2018
Pulling towards one direction is extremely important in any activity especially in the workplace where employees are expected to work with each other for at least 8 hours per day in the same office space. This surely brings a number of challenges as different characters interact with each other keeping one aim in mind – reaching the organisation’s common goals.
This is why most employers during a job interview never fail to ask the question ‘How are you at working in a team?’
If teamwork fails or there is lack of communication within the organisation, the organisation fails. It is for this reason that teamwork has become increasingly important.
But why is teamwork such a big deal?
Creativity and learning
Brainstorming is essential in almost every job, whatever it entails. This will be more fruitful when working together as a team, which results in generating more ideas from different people with contrasting mindsets. Such activity provides different outlooks to the table, which might help the organisation access collective intelligence and most importantly learning from one another.
Better results
When employees work together in a team, they start understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each other. This understanding leads to a better division of tasks so that the assigned jobs will be done by the most qualified and proficient people in a particular area within the team. This will surely empower the employees as the workload will be divided equally between all and there will be the removal of constraints which may prevent someone from doing the assigned job properly. More efficiency will be recorded at the workplace.
Resolve conflicts
By understanding one another, employees will be in a better position to offer a number of solutions when conflicts arise. Moreover, when faced with a challenge, team members should handle the challenge together as if one tries to handle it on his/her own, there will be a risk that the individual will become overwhelmed and make unreasonable decisions. Hence, good teamwork will help resolve conflicts.
Different opinions
Although it’s extremely important to have and share a common mission and vision within an organisation, it is likewise important to have different opinions within the team of employees. When new and different opinions as well as attitudes are brought to the table, the discussion might be more challenging but ultimately there will be fresh and exciting perspectives that will help more to reach the common goal at the end of the day.
Ultimately we all have to keep in mind what the former American professional basketball player, Phil Jackson, says;
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team”.