The importance of teamwork
The importance of teamwork cannot be stressed enough. For any machine to work efficiently all the parts must be well oiled, in good working order and know their part to play in the whole picture.
There is a saying a master of one trade or the “Jack of all trades”. A Jack of all trades is willing to do any job bit unfortunately is not that good at any one job and can cause issues when working in a team environment. The master of the trade knows exactly what he must do for the team and his role to play for a winning, successful team. Think of a rugby or football team. Out of those eleven or in the case of rugby, fifteen, there are the play makers, the Ronaldo and Messi types but without the work horses behind them just doing their job the team can suffer badly.
To get a team to work efficiently there must be a leader to call the directions to help and assist the team along. A leader must be a people person, not a doer. A leader who cannot get on with people is a failure, simple as that! The leader must be able to give clear and concise vision for the team and possess a lot of emotional intelligence.
Let us take a look at the importance of teamwork and five main reasons why it is so important, not just in the sports industry but in many other industries:
- Teamwork motivates unity in the workplace; Vital that teamwork promotes a feeling of trust, loyalty and a general good working environment. If peers start to compete with each other to take the kudos then this creates a poor working environment which will ultimately lead to failure of reaching the goals and objectives. When teamwork is working properly, the whole team will be motivated and create unity to hit and achieve the goals and objectives.
- Teamwork offers differing perspectives and feedback; By creating an effective teamwork environment helps teams to brainstorm, greatly improves problem-solving and a general feeling of trust. This type of environment where team members feel open to express and exchange ideas gives further advantages and benefits to achieve all the objectives and goals of the organisation. A team effort increases output by obtaining quicker feedback and different skill sets come into play to help support the organisation. When the team is functioning well, areas like design, planning and implementation will be delivered with effective and efficient results.
- Good teamwork improves efficiency and productivity; By operating an efficient team efficient and productivity will increase. This is mainly due to the workload being shared and no one individual feels under pressure. The demands are shared. Tasks will be completed within budget and one time.
- Teamwork provide a learning environment; By working as a unit this allows team members to learn from each other, the successes and the mistakes. There is no harm making mistakes as long as we learn from the misstates. This goes with other team members who make mistakes. By learning from one another helps to increase team members learning capabilities and create new skills.
- Teamwork promotes workplace synergy; Buy having mutual support and shared goals along with co-operation and encouragement creates a workplace synergy. A good example of this in sport is the current Liverpool side. Jurgen Klopp has created mutual respect within team members, everyone knows their job and what role to play in certain matches. Effective teamwork creates a sense of accomplishment and a collective responsibility outcomes. With teamwork in place, trust, openness, respect are paramount this all leads to successful goals.
The importance of teamwork – Discuss
- Think of a disjointed team, not working together. As a leader what would you implement to get the team working together?
- How would you address a team problem with one team member who appeared dominant and over-ruled other members ideas?
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