Can you imagine yourself working on a project alone at the office and no one there to support and assist you? Definitely not! Today, teamwork has been widely embraced by business, so if you want to succeed in your career, it’s very important to be a team player.
Teamwork is not a modern phenomenon. It has been part of the human experience since the early days of nomadic hunter-gatherers. Our early ancestors were successful because they teamed up to hunt and gathered together for safety. In recent times, teamwork is frequently referred to as a “concept” in the management jargon. Being a good team player is seen to be important, if not more so, than having a skill.
Teamwork is defined as an activity or a set of interrelated activities done by more than one person to meet a common goal. The following example illustrates the importance of putting together a team in order to get things done efficiently in a company.
A telephone company lands a big contract and asks Project Manager Julia to develop a team of professionals to install the equipment. She looks over the names of technicians available and carefully picks out four people according to their talent, skill and attitude. Roberto is first on the list because he is a great team player. He is an excellent communicator, and is not afraid to come up with ideas. Even better, if his ideas are turned down, he doesn’t complain. Yolanda comes second. She knows how to keep the project under budget and her cheerfulness will make everybody happy, even when they don’t like her budget figures. Sam and Henry are next on the list. They are the best in the business when it comes to laying lines and making the connections. Because Julia has collected a group of people with different but specific skills, her team is likely to be successful and the work will be efficiently completed.
We can see that teamwork can benefit companies as well as individuals in many ways. It is no doubt that effective teamwork yields efficiency which contributes to the overall success and growth of a company or organization in a competitive world. Employees tend to learn and grow faster in a team, because teamwork helps individuals to complement each other’s weaknesses with their strengths. When there is a continuity of interaction between team members, employees often build a strong emotional bond and a sense of group-belonging. As a result, effective teamwork improves job satisfaction as well as performance.
Next time your team starts with a project, remember the motto: “Together Everyone Achieves More”.