We are all taught the importance of teamwork from an early age; whether you were part of a sports team or with your school projects, we learnt that assisting others and allowing them to assist us through teamwork is essential.

So when did things change?

Once I began working in corporate environments the existence of teamwork was never really evident. Instead I would often witness people coming into the office in the morning, sitting at their desk, working for eight hours, leaving, then doing it all over again. I have witnessed this scenario too often and believe workplaces and individual’s attitudes need to change to include teamwork as an essential part of their role.

Teamwork should be encouraged by managers and embraced by staff. It can be a great means for professional development of staff as well as a means of making ones work easier. Ensuring and encouraging teamwork in your business is so important for an endless amount of reasons including improved team dynamics, increased staff retention and increased efficiency. Staff working together are working collaboratively for a common goal/objective. This in term makes the actual process of the work more efficient and allows the business to take on more work and be successful in more tenders/projects. ‘More hands on deck’ working together for a common goal will ultimately make the business more successful.

A business team will consist of any number of people who have come from various cultures/ethnicities, professional experience and academic accomplishments. This combination will foster a myriad of ideas, points of discussion and allow all to gain inspiration and insight from one another. By discussing and sharing ones thoughts you will improve your communication skills and confidence rather than work autonomously to be solely responsible for ideas and fulfilling the job brief. Not only are the ideas, concepts and responsibilities shared amongst the team but so too the entire workload itself. We’ve all been in the situation where you’re at work with what seems to be an endless pile of work to be completed in your in tray, emails rolling in and your manager demanding their task to be completed at once. You at that moment look around the office and notice that same person who everyday at the same time neatly packs up, turns their computer off and waves goodbye for the day. You secretly hate them, but mainly the fact that they do not understand the concept of team work. Knowing that if you spend that extra 5-10 minutes helping a fellow colleague they will assist you when you need.

This example proves also a recent study undertaken by Stanford University which concluded that when people are treated as partners or team members, their motivation increases. It is important though that once an effective team has been established the cohesive continues. This is achieved through regular established communication lines and monitoring the groups output. The main attributes that every team needs to ensure success are:

1. Openness – All members need to feel they can contribute
2. Trust – All members need to trust one another
3. Respect – When something goes wrong it’s important not to focus on who is to blame but instead work out how to fix it