Teamwork – Effective Team Work in the age of Remote Work – Potential.com

by Potential Staff Published on November 8, 2020

Team – Together Everyone More Achieves

Want to get better performance through better teamwork?

Then you are in the right place.

In this article, we will go over some of the essential elements to get more performance from teams through better teamwork. We will also cover some of the ways that you can apply these team building practices to remote work.

“Employees who acted collaboratively stuck at their tasks 64% longer than their solitary peers, whilst also reporting higher engagement levels, lower fatigue levels and higher success rates.” – Forbes.com

So, what is teamwork?

Teamwork is a term used when members in a project, sport, or business work together to achieve a common goal.

Smart leaders encourage good teamwork and give teams the authority to make decisions based on what they see is right. They empower their team members to do what is needed to perform better. You see this in sports, schools, and of course in work environments.

Given the increase in remote work, it has become harder to get teams to work together when they are not in the same physical space.

It’s even much harder to do team building remotely given that new team members sometimes don’t know each other and don’t have as many opportunities to bond outside of the core job.

This Teamwork Guide will take you through a step by step process of how to build a collaborative in-person or remote team

This will, in turn, help you develop a productive and effective teamwork culture.

Are you ready?

As Micheal Jordan said,” Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

In the coming sections, we will provide you with practical tips that could be used to maximize your teamwork effectiveness.

Teamwork

5 Reasons Why Effective Teamwork is Important in Sports, School, and Work

Teamwork is a term used for joining the efforts of bringing members to achieve a common goal. Members of the team, work together effectively as a group with the aim of increasing productivity and performance.

5 reasons why effective teamwork is essential in business, school or sports – in-person or remote:

1. Teamwork Creates a smoother and looser structure by developing a friendly environment, where leaders are not trying to be bosses but rather work together with members of a team. This helps build strong bonds between the members.
2. Encourages flexibility since by working and communicating together teams enable different perspectives to be considered and thus allow the business to respond to change faster.
3. Enhances problem-solving by combining different solutions, abilities, and talents into one big productive unit and allows new ideas to flourish and goals to be achieved faster.
4. Improves productivity since the performance and knowledge of an individual are limited compared with a group of varied skill sets.
5. Motivates the workforce and creates a healthy environment between the team-members as which is essential given that most people spend time with their colleagues more than they do with their friends.

Smart leaders encourage good teamwork and give teams the authority to make decisions based on what they see is right. Smart individuals learn how to work well within a team since that is becoming more and more important in all fields of work.

Great teamwork translates to great team performance when it is managed well.

“None of us is as smart as all of us.” -Ken Blanchard

5 Steps Creating Effective Team Work

Effective teamwork helps to combine a group of talents efficiently to reach a common goal.

Here are 5 steps for creating effective teamwork:

1. Acknowledge the different skills you have by assigning a suitable task for each employee accordingly. Keeping in mind the goal you want to achieve helps you maximize the use of talents available to get it.
2. When hiring, always try to accommodate a broad range of performances and experiences. By diversifying the set of employees chosen for the project, you have the chance to view your goals and problems from more than one angle.
3. Don’t be a boss! Give your employees access and authority to whatever they need to expand their horizons. Working well together and supporting each other will help you reach your goal faster.
4. Verify Progress by monitoring your team regularly. Checking that they are on the right path but always giving them a chance to do it on their own. This improves their confidence making them stronger and more responsible with time.
5. Gratitude is always a key element for building trust, friendship, and respect between the employees. Thanking them motivates new responsibilities with an ongoing effort to do things better in the future.

As explained, creating a team that you can count on and that can work together effectively is an important element of a successful business.

Diversity is Good for Teamwork

Diversity is including many different aspects of society, tradition, culture, race, gender and background experiences into a team.

It can be considered as a strategy for better productivity and creativity.

Diversity in teams can be useful for the following 5 reasons:

1. By combining different cultures and experiences you will have a broad range of understanding of what the consumer needs. This improves your connection with your clients showing that there are many shared interests between both of you.
2. Showing your team that your business is a source of acceptance to all differences makes them feel more trusted, respected, and thus strong friendships will grow among all. By developing their social skills, you motivate them to always give more.
3. Once your business’s reputation is seen as an open, un-discriminative and globally-accepted firm, a diverse range of employees will be attracted to work in your environment. This opens up your way to different perspectives and opportunities in the future.
4. Equality and diversity in the workforce encourage individual contribution and responsibility thus giving birth to new ideas raising your business to a whole new level.
5. By applying diversity strategies, you fill gaps in your business giving your organization a competitive advantage. This leads to an improvement in your market share and therefore growth of your business.

The above 5 reasons will guide you to why smart businesses encourage diversity. As a summary, it can bring better opportunities, innovation, use of skills and thus excellent performance to your business!

5 Essential Stages of Team Development

Building a team takes time and effort, especially in the age of remote work. Do not expect a group of people to work together smoothly for the first time.

Without proper leadership and management skills, you will not be able to build an exceptional team. Communication between members is also very important when developing a team.

The following are 5 essential stages that a business goes through during team development:

Team development stages

1. The first stage is the ‘Forming’ Stage. Over here, members are getting to know each other. They are trying to understand the roles that must be taken and the goals that are addressed to achieve. The leader at this point is working together with the colleagues directing them to what this is all about.
2. The second stage is the ‘Storming’ Stage. In this stage, conflicts arise. Members are uncomfortable with their fellow colleagues. Competition for roles and leadership arises. Differences in perspectives and experiences collide with each other. At this point, the leader steps in to reduce tension.
3. Next comes the ‘Norming’ Stage. In this stage, members are starting to communicate together. Trust is starting to build among them. By now, everyone knows what their role is. Leaders at this point are settling communications between members enabling the start of stable teamwork.
4. Now we reach the ‘Performing’ Stage. In this stage, a high level of communication, understanding, and trust has been achieved between the team members. Individuals are working together efficiently to achieve their common goals. Group decision making, collaboration, motivation, and effective development is happening here. At this point, leaders offer gratitude to the members individually and also as a team for their striving performance.
5. The last stage is the ‘Adjourning’ Stage. In this stage, the delegated roles have either been completed effectively or not. The goal has been achieved or not. According to the accomplishments, the team either becomes permanent or temporary. Some members are forced to go back to the early stages due to their incapability of achieving what was desired. Others remain as a stable team taking on more responsibilities on future projects.

As explained, team development goes through 5 stages that we advise to help you lead your employees to a joint effort.

Achieving hard-working, trustful, and excelling teamwork is similar to achieving a VALUABLE GEM for your business. Over the years, if taken care of, its value increases giving prosperity to its owner!

Handling many events by doing teamwork is effective and can be successfully done most of the time, just like teambuilding Frankfurt wherein their goal is to promote cooperation and unity as a whole.

6 Steps Building a Collaborative Team Environment

Team Collaboration in an organization is working with others efficiently leading to a productive future.

If achieved correctly, the collaboration between team members can really strengthen your business performance.

Here are the 6 steps we advise you to follow:

1. Investing in social development and making them accessible to employees at all times allows them to mingle comfortably with other colleagues within the business environment. Improving communication between them improves their performance both individually and as a team.
2. Allowing your personal collaborative behavior to be visible so as to be a good example for all to follow. Communicating diversely and filling gaps in any task needed, helps you set a good image in front of your team members encouraging the same performance.
3. Giving sufficient time to your members is important to encourage communication. Informal teaching on a daily basis builds trust and valuable bonds within the business team members.
4. Training employees for the skills needed for collaboration are essential. Some employees have the will to communicate but no skills. Without skills, effective team collaboration will not be achieved. Discuss the common goals, the reason behind the team’s existence, the methods used to resolve conflicts, the importance of diversification and program management abilities.
5. Always support group events, structure your team to have good network connections and encourage long-distance shared interests. Building a strong community within one’s organization is definitely the path to a successful business.
6. Define roles and make it clear to all who has to do what. But always keep a vague path to the common goal to give a chance to the team members to approach with different perspectives and strategies. This strengthens the relationship between the team members and gives them the power to solve issues effectively as a group!

As explained, team collaboration is essential to guide the path to a successful future.

Over time, strong bonds within the organization will allow your business to evolve into a family-oriented community. Every individual’s participation is needed in achieving such a community.

We suggest you follow the above steps to WOW your way to the creation of an exceptionally productive family!

If you want more, you can read 3 Tips for Building the Right Team.

7 Ways to Know the Team is Not OK

Like many things in life, problems will always tend to arise and teams sometimes will not work out. Do not panic. Identify where is the teamwork problem and work on addressing it.

Lack of communication leads to bad teamwork

Here are 7 signs to help you determine that your team is not ok:

1. There is no commitment, neither to the other team members nor to the project itself. Here we have a lack of effort individually and as a group.
2. There is no decision making. Making the right choice as a group is something this team is not able to produce.
3. Members are not able to resolve conflicts or find solutions as a group. Tension is accumulating resulting in diminishing performance.
4. There is no proper communication and members are unable to reach an understanding. Some members are always silent while some impose on others.
5. There is no group thinking and members are not able to accept differences and perspectives.
6. There is no creativity. Here we have limited talents, limited innovation and possibly wasting opportunities.
7. There are no effective leadership skills. Great teamwork cannot be achieved without proper management. Leaders must know what to do and how, so the team can work.

These 7 ways will let you know that something is wrong.

See also: Supervisory Skills

Teamwork to perform 

Review all the previous tips to find what you have missed. Reorganize groups and build the skills of employees to improve teamwork. Set effective managers and leaders to guide the members on the right track to achieve team collaboration.

To ensure a successful business, efficient teamwork is needed so we suggest you do WHATEVER you can to make it happen!

If you want a more in-depth overview of how to build great teamwork, we would suggest John Maxwell’s book – Teamwork 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know

What are your thoughts? 

So above you can see some of our tips on how to develop great teamwork.

What are the tips that you think are most relevant in your case? What other tips do you recommend?

We’d love to hear from you.

Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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Article Name

Teamwork - Effective Team Work in the age of Remote Work

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Teamwork is essential to achieve great performance in sports, school and work. Effective teamwork is difficult, especially in the age of remote work. Here are a few tips to help you develop great teamwork.

Author

Shada Wehbe

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Potential.com

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