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The Secrets of Great Teamwork
- Martine Haas
- Mark Mortensen
Over the years, as teams have grown more diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic, collaboration has become more complex. But though teams face new challenges, their success still depends on a core set of fundamentals. As J. Richard Hackman, who began researching teams in the 1970s, discovered, what matters most isn’t the personalities or behavior of the team members; it’s whether a team has a compelling direction, a strong structure, and a supportive context. In their own research, Haas and Mortensen have found that teams need those three “enabling conditions” now more than ever. But their work also revealed that today’s teams are especially prone to two corrosive problems: “us versus them” thinking and incomplete information. Overcoming those pitfalls requires a new enabling condition: a shared mindset.
This article details what team leaders should do to establish the four foundations for success. For instance, to promote a shared mindset, leaders should foster a common identity and common understanding among team members, with techniques such as “structured unstructured time.” The authors also describe how to evaluate a team’s effectiveness, providing an assessment leaders can take to see what’s working and where there’s room for improvement.
Collaboration has become more complex, but success still depends on the fundamentals.
Idea in Brief
The problem.
Teams are more diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic than ever before. These qualities make collaboration especially challenging.
The Analysis
Mixing new insights with a focus on the fundamentals of team effectiveness identified by organizational-behavior pioneer J. Richard Hackman, managers should work to establish the conditions that will enable teams to thrive.
The Solution
The right conditions are
- a compelling direction
- a strong structure
- a supportive context, and
- a shared mindset
Weaknesses in these areas make teams vulnerable to problems.
Today’s teams are different from the teams of the past: They’re far more diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic (with frequent changes in membership). But while teams face new hurdles, their success still hinges on a core set of fundamentals for group collaboration.
The basics of team effectiveness were identified by J. Richard Hackman, a pioneer in the field of organizational behavior who began studying teams in the 1970s. In more than 40 years of research, he uncovered a groundbreaking insight: What matters most to collaboration is not the personalities, attitudes, or behavioral styles of team members. Instead, what teams need to thrive are certain “enabling conditions.” In our own studies, we’ve found that three of Hackman’s conditions—a compelling direction, a strong structure, and a supportive context—continue to be particularly critical to team success. In fact, today those three requirements demand more attention than ever. But we’ve also seen that modern teams are vulnerable to two corrosive problems—“us versus them” thinking and incomplete information. Overcoming those pitfalls requires a fourth critical condition: a shared mindset.
About the Research
Over the past 15 years, we’ve studied teams and groups in a variety of contemporary settings. We’ve conducted nine large research projects in global organizations, undertaking more than 300 interviews and 4,200 surveys with team leaders and managers. The teams involved worked on projects in product development, sales, operations, finance, R&D, senior management, and more, in a wide range of industries, including software, professional services, manufacturing, natural resources, and consumer products. In addition, we have conducted executive education sessions on team effectiveness for thousands of team leaders and members; their stories and experiences have also shaped our thinking.
The key takeaway for leaders is this: Though teams face an increasingly complicated set of challenges, a relatively small number of factors have an outsized impact on their success. Managers can achieve big returns if they understand what those factors are and focus on getting them right.
The Enabling Conditions
Let’s explore in greater detail how to create a climate that helps diverse, dispersed, digital, dynamic teams—what we like to call 4-D teams—attain high performance.
Compelling direction.
The foundation of every great team is a direction that energizes, orients, and engages its members. Teams cannot be inspired if they don’t know what they’re working toward and don’t have explicit goals. Those goals should be challenging (modest ones don’t motivate) but not so difficult that the team becomes dispirited. They also must be consequential: People have to care about achieving a goal, whether because they stand to gain extrinsic rewards, like recognition, pay, and promotions; or intrinsic rewards, such as satisfaction and a sense of meaning.
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On 4-D teams, direction is especially crucial because it’s easy for far-flung members from dissimilar backgrounds to hold different views of the group’s purpose. Consider one global team we studied. All the members agreed that serving their client was their goal, but what that meant varied across locations. Members in Norway equated it with providing a product of the absolute highest quality—no matter what the cost. Their colleagues in the UK, however, felt that if the client needed a solution that was only 75% accurate, the less-precise solution would better serve that client. Solving this tension required a frank discussion to reach consensus on how the team as a whole defined its objectives.
Strong structure.
Teams also need the right mix and number of members, optimally designed tasks and processes, and norms that discourage destructive behavior and promote positive dynamics.
High-performing teams include members with a balance of skills. Every individual doesn’t have to possess superlative technical and social skills, but the team overall needs a healthy dose of both. Diversity in knowledge, views, and perspectives, as well as in age, gender, and race, can help teams be more creative and avoid groupthink.
This is one area where 4-D teams often have an advantage. In research we conducted at the World Bank, we found that teams benefited from having a blend of cosmopolitan and local members—that is, people who have lived in multiple countries and speak multiple languages, and people with deep roots in the area they’re working in. Cosmopolitan members bring technical knowledge and skills and expertise that apply in many situations, while locals bring country knowledge and insight into an area’s politics, culture, and tastes. In one of the bank’s teams, this combination proved critical to the success of a project upgrading an urban slum in West Africa. A local member pointed out that a microcredit scheme might be necessary to help residents pay for the new water and sanitation services planned by the team, while a cosmopolitan member shared valuable information about problems faced in trying to implement such programs in other countries. Taking both perspectives into account, the team came up with a more sustainable design for its project.
Team members from diverse backgrounds often interpret a group’s goals differently.
Adding members is of course one way to ensure that a team has the requisite skills and diversity, but increased size comes with costs. Larger teams are more vulnerable to poor communication, fragmentation, and free riding (due to a lack of accountability). In the executive sessions we lead, we frequently hear managers lament that teams become bloated as global experts are pulled in and more members are recruited to increase buy-in from different locations, divisions, or functions. Team leaders must be vigilant about adding members only when necessary. The aim should be to include the minimum number—and no more. One manager told us that anytime she receives a request to add a team member, she asks what unique value that person will bring to the group and, in cases where the team is already at capacity, which current member will be released.
Team assignments should be designed with equal care . Not every task has to be highly creative or inspiring; many require a certain amount of drudgery. But leaders can make any task more motivating by ensuring that the team is responsible for a significant piece of work from beginning to end, that the team members have a lot of autonomy in managing that work, and that the team receives performance feedback on it.
With 4-D teams, people in different locations often handle different components of a task, which raises challenges. Consider a software design team based in Santa Clara, California, that sends chunks of code to its counterparts in Bangalore, India, to revise overnight. Such 24/7 development is common as firms seek to use time zone differences to their advantage. But in one such team we spoke with, that division of labor was demotivating, because it left the Indian team members with a poor sense of how the pieces of code fit together and with little control over what they did and how. Moreover, the developers in Bangalore got feedback only when what they sent back didn’t fit. Repartitioning the work to give them ownership over an entire module dramatically increased their motivation and engagement and improved the quality, quantity, and efficiency of their work.
Destructive dynamics can also undermine collaborative efforts. We’ve all seen team members withhold information, pressure people to conform, avoid responsibility, cast blame, and so on. Teams can reduce the potential for dysfunction by establishing clear norms—rules that spell out a small number of things members must always do (such as arrive at meetings on time and give everyone a turn to speak) and a small number they must never do (such as interrupt). Instilling such norms is especially important when team members operate across different national, regional, or organizational cultures (and may not share the same view of, for example, the importance of punctuality). And in teams whose membership is fluid, explicitly reiterating norms at regular intervals is key.
Supportive context.
Having the right support is the third condition that enables team effectiveness. This includes maintaining a reward system that reinforces good performance, an information system that provides access to the data needed for the work, and an educational system that offers training, and last—but not least—securing the material resources required to do the job, such as funding and technological assistance. While no team ever gets everything it wants, leaders can head off a lot of problems by taking the time to get the essential pieces in place from the start.
Ensuring a supportive context is often difficult for teams that are geographically distributed and digitally dependent, because the resources available to members may vary a lot. Consider the experience of Jim, who led a new product-development team at General Mills that focused on consumer goods for the Mexican market. While Jim was based in the United States, in Minnesota, some members of his team were part of a wholly owned subsidiary in Mexico. The team struggled to meet its deadlines, which caused friction. But when Jim had the opportunity to visit his Mexican team members, he realized how poor their IT was and how strapped they were for both capital and people—particularly in comparison with the headquarters staff. In that one visit Jim’s frustration turned to admiration for how much his Mexican colleagues were able to accomplish with so little, and he realized that the problems he’d assumed were due to a clash between cultures were actually the result of differences in resources.
Shared mindset.
Establishing the first three enabling conditions will pave the way for team success, as Hackman and his colleagues showed. But our research indicates that today’s teams need something more. Distance and diversity, as well as digital communication and changing membership, make them especially prone to the problems of “us versus them” thinking and incomplete information. The solution to both is developing a shared mindset among team members—something team leaders can do by fostering a common identity and common understanding.
In the past teams typically consisted of a stable set of fairly homogeneous members who worked face-to-face and tended to have a similar mindset. But that’s no longer the case, and teams now often perceive themselves not as one cohesive group but as several smaller subgroups. This is a natural human response: Our brains use cognitive shortcuts to make sense of our increasingly complicated world, and one way to deal with the complexity of a 4-D team is to lump people into categories. But we also are inclined to view our own subgroup—whether it’s our function, our unit, our region, or our culture—more positively than others, and that habit often creates tension and hinders collaboration.
The team’s problems were due to differences in resources, not to a cultural clash.
This was the challenge facing Alec, the manager of an engineering team at ITT tasked with providing software solutions for high-end radio communications. His team was split between Texas and New Jersey, and the two groups viewed each other with skepticism and apprehension. Differing time zones, regional cultures, and even accents all reinforced their dissimilarities, and Alec struggled to keep all members up to speed on strategies, priorities, and roles. The situation got so bad that during a team visit to a customer, members from the two offices even opted to stay in separate hotels. In an effort to unite the team, Alec took everyone out to dinner, only to find the two groups sitting at opposite ends of the table.
Incomplete information is likewise more prevalent in 4-D teams. Very often, certain team members have important information that others do not, because they are experts in specialized areas or because members are geographically dispersed, new, or both. That information won’t provide much value if it isn’t communicated to the rest of the team. After all, shared knowledge is the cornerstone of effective collaboration; it gives a group a frame of reference, allows the group to interpret situations and decisions correctly, helps people understand one another better, and greatly increases efficiency.
Digital dependence often impedes information exchange, however. In face-to-face teams, participants can rely on nonverbal and contextual cues to provide insight into what’s going on. When we walk into an in-person meeting, for example, we can immediately sense the individual and collective moods of the people in the room—information that we use (consciously or not) to tailor subsequent interactions. Having to rely on digital communication erodes the transmission of this crucial type of intelligence.
Some effects of incomplete information came to light during a recent executive education session at Takeda Pharmaceuticals in Japan. The audience was split roughly 50/50 between employees based in Japan and those based in the United States. One of the U.S. managers took the opportunity to ask about something that had puzzled him. Takeda’s “share the pain” strategy for dealing with time zone differences alternated the scheduling of conference calls between late nights in America and late nights in Asia, and he wondered why his Japanese colleagues seemed to take their late-night calls in the office, while he and his U.S. colleagues always took them at home. His Japanese colleagues’ responses revealed a variety of motivations for this choice—desire for work/life separation, a need to run language questions by coworkers, and the lack of home office space in a typical Osaka apartment. But the result was the same: Though Takeda executives had intended to “share the pain,” they had not. The Americans left the office at a normal hour, had dinner with their families, and held calls in the comfort of their homes, while their Japanese colleagues stayed in the office, missed time with their families, and hoped calls ended before the last train home. In this case, however, the incomplete information wasn’t about the task; it was about something equally critical: how the Japanese members of the team experienced their work and their relationships with distant team members.
Fortunately, there are many ways team leaders can actively foster a shared identity and shared understanding and break down the barriers to cooperation and information exchange. One powerful approach is to ensure that each subgroup feels valued for its contributions toward the team’s overall goals.
Returning to Alec, the manager of the team whose subgroups booked separate hotels: While his dinner started with the Texas colleagues at one end of the table and the New Jersey colleagues at the other, by its close signs had emerged that the team was chipping away at its internal wall. Over the following weeks, Alec stressed the important roles members from the two offices played in achieving the team’s exciting and engaging goal—designing new software for remotely monitoring hardware. He emphasized that both subteams contributed necessary skills and pointed out that they depended on each other for success. To build more bridges, he brought the whole team together several more times over the next few months, creating shared experiences and common reference points and stories. Because of his persistent efforts, team members started to view the team not as “us and them” but as “we.”
You can prime teams for success by focusing on the four fundamentals.
Many participants in our field research and executive education sessions promote shared understanding through a practice called “structured unstructured time”—that is, time blocked off in the schedule to talk about matters not directly related to the task at hand. Often this is done by reserving the first 10 minutes of teamwide meetings for open discussion. The idea is to provide an opportunity for members to converse about whatever aspects of work or daily life they choose, such as office politics or family or personal events. This helps people develop a more complete picture of distant colleagues, their work, and their environment. However, team leaders must make the discussion’s purpose and norms clear or else face 10 minutes of awkwardness as everyone waits for someone to speak.
One team we came across had a related tactic: Its members initially “met” over desktop video and gave one another virtual tours of their workspaces. By simply panning the camera around the room, they were able to show their remote colleagues their work environment—including things that were likely to distract or disrupt them, such as closely seated coworkers in an open-plan space or a nearby photocopier. After the tours the team members found that they were better able to interpret and understand distant colleagues’ attitudes and behaviors.
Evaluating Your Team
Together the four enabling conditions form a recipe for building an effective team from scratch. But even if you inherit an existing team, you can set the stage for its success by focusing on the four fundamentals.
How will you know if your efforts are working? Hackman proposed evaluating team effectiveness on three criteria: output, collaborative ability, and members’ individual development. We have found that these criteria apply as well as ever and advise that leaders use them to calibrate their teams over time. The ideal approach combines regular light-touch monitoring for preventive maintenance and less-frequent but deeper checks when problems arise.
For ongoing monitoring, we recommend a simple and quick temperature check: Every few months, rate your team on each of the four enabling conditions and also on the three criteria of team effectiveness. Look in particular at the lowest-scored condition and lowest-scored effectiveness criteria, and consider how they’re connected. The results will show where your team is on track as well as where problems may be brewing.
Does Your Team Measure Up?
To see how your team is doing, evaluate it on the three classic criteria of team effectiveness. Then look at how well it meets the four conditions that drive the success of teams in a diverse, dispersed, digital, dynamic business. Underperformance on the criteria and weaknesses in the conditions are usually linked. Understanding the connections between them can help your team identify ways to improve.
- Are our customers happy with our output—with its quality, quantity, and delivery?
Collaborative ability
- Do our team’s dynamics help us work well together?
Individual development
- Are individual team members improving their knowledge, skills, and abilities?
Compelling direction
- Do we have a common goal that is clear, challenging (but not impossible), and consequential?
Strong structure
- Do we have the right number and mix of members?
- Are people responsible for tasks from beginning to end?
- Do we have clear norms for acceptable conduct?
Supportive context
- Do we have the resources, information, and training we need?
- Are there appropriate rewards for success?
Shared mindset
- Do the team members have a strong common identity?
- Do we readily share information with one another and understand one another’s constraints and context?
This assessment draws on the seminal research of the organizational-behavior expert J. Richard Hackman. You can find more of his insights in Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performance (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2002).
If you need a deeper diagnosis—perhaps in the face of poor performance or a crisis—block out an hour or more to conduct an intervention assessment. Carefully examine the links between the lowest-rated conditions and team effectiveness criteria; managers who do this usually discover clear relationships between them, which suggest a path forward.
You can conduct both the quick check and the deeper intervention on your own or assess overall alignment by having all team members assign ratings separately. For a team-based check, you should compare results across the group. For a team-based intervention, you can increase the impact by holding a full-scale workshop, where all the members get together to discuss and compare results. Not only does this give you more-complete data—shining a light on potential blind spots—but it also reveals differences among viewpoints and opens up areas for discussion. We have found that it is frequently through the process of comparing assessments—a leader’s with the team’s, and the team members’ with their peers’—that the deepest insights arise.
Teamwork has never been easy—but in recent years it has become much more complex. And the trends that make it more difficult seem likely to continue, as teams become increasingly global, virtual , and project-driven. Taking a systematic approach to analyzing how well your team is set up to succeed—and identifying where improvements are needed—can make all the difference.
- Martine Haas is the Lauder Chair Professor of Management at the Wharton School and Director of the Lauder Institute for Management & International Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on collaboration and teamwork in global organizations.
- Mark Mortensen is an associate professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD.
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The importance of teamwork (as proven by science)
Healthy teams enjoy benefits that go far beyond the company’s bottom line.
5-second summary
- Research shows that collaborative problem solving leads to better outcomes.
- People are more likely to take calculated risks that lead to innovation if they have the support of a team behind them.
- Working in a team encourages personal growth, increases job satisfaction, and reduces stress.
Anyone who thought the rise of remote and hybrid work would would be the downfall of teamwork has probably changed their tune by now. The truth is, teamwork is more important than ever.
“The use of teams and collaboration expectations have been consistently rising,” says Dr. Scott Tannenbaum , a researcher and president of the Group for Organizational Effectiveness. “And when I say teams, I’m talking about all types of teams, whether it’s stable work teams [or] whether it’s teams that now, in the current environment, are operating virtually.”
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Teamwork is essential to a company’s success, says John J. Murphy, author of Pulling Together: 10 Rules for High-Performance Teamwork . “Each individual has unique gifts, and talents and skills. When we bring them to the table and share them for a common purpose, it can give companies a real competitive advantage.”
But here’s the real magic of teamwork: when done right, it has benefits that go far beyond boosting the company’s bottom line. (Learn about some classic models that can lead to stronger teamwork here .)
10 benefits of teamwork
1. better problem solving.
Albert Einstein gets all the credit for discovering the theory of relativity, but the truth is that he relied on conversations with friends and colleagues to refine his concept. And that’s almost always the case.
“Behind every genius is a team,” says Murphy. “When people play off each other’s skills and knowledge, they can create solutions that are practical and useful.”
Science reinforces the idea that many brains are better than one . “We found that groups of size three, four, and five outperformed the best individuals,” says Dr. Patrick Laughlin a researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “[We] attribute this performance to the ability of people to work together to generate and adopt correct responses, reject erroneous responses, and effectively process information.”
Not everyone processes information in the same way. Some people like to jump into problem-solving mode immediately, while others prefer time to gather their thoughts and consider multiple options before making a contribution. Asking people to provide input asynchronously in a tool like Confluence allows everyone the space to work in a way that’s comfortable for them.
2. Increased potential for innovation
According to Frans Johansson, author of The Medici Effect , some of the most innovative ideas happen at “the intersection” – the place where ideas from different industries and cultures collide.
“Most people think success comes from surrounding yourself with others that are like you,” says Johansson. “But true success and breakthrough innovation involves discomfort. Discomfort pushes you to grow. This is where difference of experience, opinion, and perspective come in. Diversity is a well-documented pathway to unlocking new opportunities, overcoming new challenges, and gaining new insights.”
Master these 7 essential skills to level-up your teamwork game
A recent report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company backs this up. It found teams made up of members from diverse backgrounds (gender, age, ethnicity, etc.) are more creative and perform better by up to 35 percent, compared to more homogeneous teams. Instead of looking at an issue from your individual vantage point, you get a 360-degree picture, which can lead to an exponential increase in ideas.
Research from Tufts University suggests that just being exposed to diversity can shift the way you think. A study on a diverse mock jury found that interacting with individuals who are different forces people to be more open minded, and to expect that reaching consensus will take effort.
3. Happier team members
As part of our ongoing research on teamwork, we surveyed more than 1,000 team members across a range of industries and found that when honest feedback, mutual respect, and personal openness were encouraged, team members were 80 percent more likely to report higher emotional well-being.
Having happy employees is a worthwhile goal in itself, but the company benefits, too. Research from the University of Warwick in England suggests happy employees are up to 20 percent more productive than unhappy employees. And who couldn’t benefit from a happiness boost?
4. Enhanced personal growth
There may be no “I” in team , but being part of a team can help you grow. “By sharing information and essentially cross training each other, each individual member of the team can flourish,” says Murphy. You might discover new concepts from colleagues with different experiences. You can also learn from someone else’s mistakes, which helps you sidestep future errors.
You might even learn something new about yourself, says Dr. Susan McDaniel, a psychologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center and one of the guest editors of America Psychologist’s special edition on “The Science of Teamwork .”
“We all have blind spots about our behaviors and strengths that we may be unaware of, and feedback from a team member can expose them,” she says. Recognizing these strengths and addressing the weaknesses can make you a better team member, and even a better person. “Maybe working in a team you’ll discover you could be a better listener. That’s a skill you can grow in, and then take home and use to improve your family interactions,” McDaniel points out.
5. Less burnout
A Gallup study of nearly 7,500 full-time employees found that 23 percent of employees feel burned out at work very often or always. Another 44 percent say they sometimes feel this way. What helps? Sharing the load.
Team members can provide emotional support to each other because they often understand the demands and stress of completing work even better than managers, says Ben Wigert, lead researcher for Gallup’s workplace management practice.
Managers reading this: you’re not off the hook. The study also found that knowing your boss has your back also protects against burnout.
6. More opportunities for growth
Collaboration in the workplace isn’t unlike teamwork on the baseball diamond. When the pitcher and outfielders each excel at their individual roles, the team has a better chance of winning.
Off the playing field, that idea is more important than ever. Changes in technology and increased globalization mean that organizations are facing problems so complex that a single individual simply can’t possess all the necessary knowledge to solve them, says Wigert. When team members use their unique skills to shine in their own roles, it creates an environment based on mutual respect and cooperation that benefits the whole group, notes Murphy.
7. Boosted productivity
Getting a pat on the back from the boss can boost an employee’s motivation, but receiving kudos from a team member may be even more effective.
The TINYpulse Employee Engagement and Organizational Culture Report surveyed more than 200,000 employees. Participants reported that having the respect of their peers was the #1 reason they go the extra mile at work.
There’s no I in team, but there’s one in “team branding”
8. smarter risk taking.
When you work alone, you might be hesitant to put your neck on the line. When you work on a team, you know you have the support of the entire group to fall back on in case of failure. That security typically allows teams to take the kind of risks that create “Eureka!” ideas.
But here’s one place where size does matter. The most disruptive ideas often come from small teams, suggests recent research in the journal Nature , possibly because larger teams argue more, which can get in the way of coming up with those big ideas.
Wharton Business School researchers also discovered that small is the secret to success: they found that two-person teams took 36 minutes to build a Lego figure while four-person teams took 52 minutes to finish — more than 44 percent longer.
There’s no definitive ideal small team size, but consider following Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ 2 Pizza Rule : no matter how large your company gets, teams shouldn’t be larger than what two pizzas can feed.
9. Fewer mistakes
If your team has good energy – you encourage and inspire each other, and you have fun together – you’ll feel less stressed, says Murphy. “Studies show that stress makes us stupid, and leads us to make more mistakes,” says Murphy.
Of course, the converse is also true: when your team feels less frazzled, you’ll make fewer errors. That’s worth keeping in mind, especially if you’re one of the 61 percent of workers who cite work as a significant source of stress .
10. Expanded creativity
Stale solutions often come out of working in a vacuum. When people with different perspectives come together in group brainstorms, on the other hand, innovative ideas can rise to the surface – with one caveat. Research shows this can only happen when communication within the team is open and collaborative, notes Wigert. The most creative solutions can only come up when there’s a level of trust that lets team members ask ‘stupid’ questions, propose out-there ideas, and receive constructive criticism.
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Lost Password
Teamwork Essay
A team is made up of a group of people; it can be anyone either a group of co-workers, or some friends, or business partners. People work in groups to achieve success in less time. When you work alone you think and also execute your plan alone as per your own knowledge.
Short and Long Essays on Teamwork in English
Whereas when you work in a group you will get ten more new ideas and thoughts to execute your plan. Find here some nicely written essays on teamwork to get some new ideas about.
Teamwork Essay 10 Lines (100 - 150 Words)
1) Teamwork refers to when more people work together to accomplish a common goal.
2) Teamwork is the unbreakable strength of every task.
3) Teamwork makes the task simple and reduces the efforts.
4) Teamwork is the necessary pillar of every field.
5) Teamwork is the key to every success and helps in growth.
6) It helps you to achieve a goal that cannot be fulfilled alone.
7) Communication is the most important need of teamwork.
8) While working in teamwork, everyone should be allowed to put their opinions.
9) Teamwork needs proper management to attain success.
10) A good team leader is responsible for the success of teamwork.
Essay 1 (250 Words) - How to Work in Teamwork
Introduction
When two or more people come together to complete a task then it is termed as teamwork. A team can have endless people but all of them should be focused on the same aim.
Teamwork can be seen in a sport, in-office work, in completing a school project, in dance, choir, etc. I can say that when we can’t complete a task alone, we need someone’s help and together we figure out something best.
How to Work in Teamwork
We can take an example of a school project; suppose you want to make a model within two days. It is quite sure that you will need some preparations and when you will do it all alone there is a probability of forgetting something. And when you do the same task in a group you can distribute the work.
In this way, everyone can have their part of work and they will do it in a correct manner without skipping any step. This will also help you to get good results. So, I can say that teamwork improves our performance.
There are different skills necessary for a good project or to complete a certain task. But the main thing is teamwork; if you have a great team you can execute any of your plans successfully. Whereas a group of fully skilled people without having proper bonding cannot perform teamwork well. If you are a sports lover then you can easily analyze the importance of teamwork, it is not a single good player can win the match, the entire team needs to play well and together they can do anything.
Essay 2 (400 Words) - What is Teamwork and How does it Work?
You would have seen many teams with a caption or a person on the lead role, all of the team members work hard for their team to perform well. Although there is a single person recognized as the best one, the fact is they are nothing without the rest of the team, it was their teamwork that makes them perform well. So, when a group of people performs a task then it can be termed as teamwork. Either it was our fight for independence or a simple hockey match. Teamwork is important everywhere.
How Does Team Works?
All of us have different strategies but a team works on the same strategy with some principles and they are:
- Analyzing the Task : The very first thing is, a team should analyze the task and assign work as per interest. It helps us to know how much time it could take and how smoothly they can work.
- Motivation : It is not always possible that we may succeed so rather feeling sad and disappointed it is the duty of a team leader to always motivate the team members. When we are motivated or awarded the dopamine (a neurotransmitter) gives positive signals to our brain which directly affects our productivity and creativity. So, motivation is a necessary key to success.
- Reducing Conflict: A team should not be filled with opposite thoughts and full of conflicts, this will never allow a team to work. So, there should be a team leader and all of the team members should strictly obey him. It is the duty of a team leader to make smart decisions to avoid any kind of conflict among the team members.
- Frequent Training : A team should be trained at frequent intervals; one side helps the team leader to know the updates and on the other side he can also help if someone is facing any problem in a certain work. Sometimes a team member has a very good idea, then a team leader should organize training for other team members to execute their tasks in a proper way.
- Independence : Although you are working in a team, each and every team member should be free to think and have their own idea to polish their part of work. This will bring out the best of them and will definitely make your work decent and best.
It is all about how well you can coordinate with others, the better the coordination will be the best the team will be. You would have seen many successful business persons having a wonderful team. The very best example of teamwork is Mr. Narender Modi and Amit Shah. Both are very good friends and have experts in different areas and with their help, they have achieved such a big success in elections. Really a good team wins everywhere.
Essay 3 (500 - 600 Words) - Teamwork: Definition & Some Rules of Teamwork
Teamwork is an important term that tells a lot about how to coordinate with others. All of us can do our work properly but what about when you are asked to pair up with others. It sounds normal but it is really a tough task because when you pair with others, all of us have to maintain respect and stay away from conflicts. It is not all of us have the same patience level. Some would have a dominating nature, where some can be polite enough. But when we talk about a team it should be different personalities with one aim.
What is Team Work?
When we contribute our part to complete a task then it is known as teamwork. All of us have different mental ability and also temperament. Some of us can be of dominating nature so when we are in a team; we should take care of our nature and should never allow our nature to hinder our work. Sometimes due to personal conflicts, we oppose and don’t like to work with others.
But when we work together and learn then we can also grow like a superpower. Teamwork is especially seen in the office, where many of us work on a project. Some of them handle costing, whereas some work on the product, some on presentation, and some on the marketing. When all these things combine together, perfect product launches.
Teamwork is very important sometimes because we get a time limit and it is not possible for a single person to do all such things at a time. And a team works together and can complete it as soon as needed. A very good example of teamwork can be seen in the construction industry. You would also have read these examples in your Maths book as there are 5 workers and they complete a task in ten days and when we increase the number of workers the time automatically decreases. Here, the workers work in a team.
Some Rules of Teamwork
There are certain rules that should be followed by everyone in a team, they are;
- Discipline Must Be Followed: There is always a time limit for a task and when you are in a team you should take care of the time and should complete your task accordingly. Apart from the time, there is also some other disciplinary task, that should be followed. We should respect our team leader and other experienced workers because experience speaks more than knowledge. You might be having a lot of knowledge but practical knowledge is something that can save you from failure.
- Good Communication Skills among Team Members : Suppose there are five members in a team and all of them just follow their leader or senior. But there should also be freedom of expressing your thoughts and views, a team does not mean just following the orders but they should also be free to express their thoughts and ideas. This makes a good team and all of the members feel that they are really important and they perform in a very good way.
- Clear About Your Goal : It is the responsibility of the team leader to make sure that all of the members should know first what the project is. What they really have to do? And what else new they can add? All these things will help others to think in the right direction, otherwise, when a team is not clear it cannot produce new ideas and ways to complete their task.
- Keep Your Ego Aside : When you are working in a team you should always take care that your ego should not clash with others because everyone has some ego but they keep it apart when they are working in a team. This is one of the basic rules of a team. Otherwise, a team cannot generate profitable ideas.
- Work Should be Assigned as per Interest and Ability : All of us have different abilities and should be given work as per interest for good results. We should keep on learning but when there is a time boundation, we should work smartly for good results.
Working in a team also helps us to learn new things and helps us to maintain the same decorum in our day-to-day life. It helps us to opt for a habit of obeying others and this develops as a habit which is definitely a very good thing.
FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions
Ans . Teamwork means working together with all the members of a group to achieve a common goal.
Ans . Good communication, focus on goals, and good leadership is essential for good teamwork.
Ans . The work gets divided among the members of the team and thus gets completed in an efficient and faster way.
Ans . Every member of the team itself is strength of a team in teamwork.
Ans . Bruce Tuckman gave the concept of teamwork in 1965.
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Ankita Yadav
Ankita has completed her master's degree from Banaras Hindu University (BHU). She is interested in blogs and articles writing very creatively and elaborating her ideas and views on different topics for her readers. She is a nature lover along with the spirit to save the environment from destruction. She loves traveling and explores her creative ideas in her writings.
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Essay on Teamwork | Teamwork Essay for Students and Children in English
May 26, 2020 by Prasanna
Essay on Teamwork: One of the most important that everyone should learn is teamwork. You can define collaboration as the coming together of people to complete a particular task or activity. All the members have different tasks to complete to achieve the goal.
Teamwork is one of the bare minimum requirements for any organization to function and achieve all its goals. All organizations are divided into many sections or teams which work to accomplish the tasks.
The absence of teamwork will hinder the working of any organization. When any organization functions without cooperation, it won’t be able to complete the tasks.
You can read more Essay Writing about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.
Long and Short Essays on Teamwork for Students and Kids in English
In the next section, you will find two essays on teamwork, one of the essays is of 400-500 words. Another essay of 200 words. Both essay’s teamwork are in English.
Long Essay on Teamwork 500 Words in English
The long essay on Teamwork is for children studying from classes 7,8,9 and 10 and competitive exam aspirants.
Teamwork is when a group of people comes together to complete the tasks which are set before them. It’s one of the basic need or necessity for any organization to achieve all its goals.
Each organization is divided into various sections. All the parts of the organization do teamwork and complete the various tasks assigned to them. If there is no teamwork, the organization will fail to achieve the tasks.
One of the most significant advantages of working in a team is that the work gets divided between all the group members. When the work is shared, all the members are going too equal amounts of jobs. Hence, no one has to feel overburdened with the task assigned to them.
Every team will have at least a minimum of three members. The three members can decide between them, who should be the team leader. A team leader will make plans for the work. He or she can then assign work to each person of the group.
There are three levels of the team in every organization – Top Level, Middle Level, and Lower Level.
- Top Level: The Top Level is the highest level on the hierarchy of an organization. It’s the Level that sets the goals of the institution. Top Level is the team that works towards maximizing profits for the organization. Understanding the different needs and wants of the consumers in one of its main objectives.
- Middle Level: The Middle Level is the second on the hierarchy of an organization. Managers or supervisors are on the Middle Level in an organization. One of the managers’ main goals is to implement the goals set by the people who work on the Top Level. It allots of work to the employees so that they can accomplish the goals that are set by the company. The people working on the Middle Level, regularly check the work done by the employees and make sure that the employees meet all deadlines.
- Last Level: The last level in the hierarchy of an organization is the Lower Level. It is the Level which consists of all the employees of the company. Employees have to work towards completing all the work that is assigned to them by the managers. They have to finish the work by the deadlines, which are set by the supervisor.
Teamwork is a necessity for the smooth functioning of the Lower Level. Everyone has to contribute towards working in teams so that they can achieve the goals.
If there is a lack of teamwork, the organization, big or small, can’t function properly. It’s one of the most important things to accomplish the goals of an organization.
Short Essay on Teamwork 200 Words in English
The short essay on Teamwork is for children studying from classes 1,2,3,4,5 and 6.
Teamwork is two or more people come together to achieve a particular goal. It’s one of the most important things that you need to learn from childhood.
When people work in a group, the work gets divided. Hence, one person doesn’t have to do all the work. This is one of the features of working in teams.
One of the lessons that they teach at school is teamwork. It’s a lesson that you should never forget in your life. You will have to work in groups in your life. If you ignore the experience of teamwork, you will face lots of difficulties.
In an organization, without teamwork, no work will be accomplished. Everyone works in teams; the amount of work that is accomplished is more than what an individual alone can achieve.
When everyone works in teams, they achieve all the goals on which the organization functions. It makes things easier for every person in an organization. Therefore, working in teams helps each person in the company.
Each person in the team is dependent on the other members of the group. You can learn a lot of things from the other people on the side when you work together.
10 Lines on Teamwork Essay in English
These ten lines on teamwork are suitable for competitive exam aspirants and while making speeches.
- Teamwork is one of the most necessities of working in an organization.
- Every company consists of many teams that work towards achieving the goals of the organization.
- If a company doesn’t have teamwork, it’s structure is incomplete.
- No company can work without teams, and the absence of groups will stop the companies.
- A critical lesson that schools teach is the lesson on teamwork.
- All the games that you play in as a kid are based on teamwork. You could have played basketball or volleyball.
- Teamwork helps to learn essential lessons like trust and dependency on other people.
- It’s a quality that makes all the relationships function in your life.
- Every relationship works because of the efforts of two people working together as a team.
- You have an opportunity to learn from other people when you are working in teams.
FAQ’s On Essay on Team Work
Question 1. What does teamwork mean?
Answer: Teamwork is when people work in groups to achieve a particular set of goals.
Question 2. Is teamwork necessary for the functioning of an organization?
Answer: Yes, every organization needs to function in teams, so that they can accomplish all the goals.
Question 3. Give the advantage of working in groups?
Answer: When you work in teams, you learn many new things from other people in the groups.
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When Teamwork Is Good for Employees — and When It Isn’t On 4-D teams, direction is especially crucial because it’s easy for far-flung members from dissimilar backgrounds to hold different views...
The word ‘teamwork’ means working together as a team to achieve a particular goal. Humans are social animals. We tend to stick together and work alongside others in almost every phase of life. Be it in an office or home, everyone has his responsibilities to meet. Performing these responsibilities every day makes us a part of the team we are in.
Teamwork is working together of people to achieve a certain goal. Teamwork is the basic need for an organization to function. Furthermore, every organization has a division of several teams to perform specific tasks. Without teamwork nothing is possible. Moreover, if any organization lacks teamwork.
Teamwork means the ability of people to work together. It occurs when the members of a team work together and utilise their individual skills to achieve a common goal. It is a cooperative process that allows ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results.
10 Lines on Teamwork Essay in English Teamwork is one of the most necessities of working in an organization. Every company consists of many teams that work towards achieving the goals of the organization. If a company doesn’t have teamwork, it’s structure is incomplete. No company can work without ...