Importance of Teamwork in Organizations

This report discusses the importance of teamwork in organizations, including how it promotes unity, offers differing perspectives, improves efficiency and productivity, provides great opportunities, promotes synergy, and teaches conflict management skills. It also addresses issues related to teamwork and provides ways to encourage teamwork.

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5/30/2019

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Importance of teamwork............................................................................................................3
 Team work motivates unity.............................................................................................3
 Team work offers differing perspectives and feedbacks.................................................4
 Team work provides improved efficiency and productivity...........................................4
 Teamwork provides great opportunities..........................................................................4
 Team work promotes synergy.........................................................................................5
 Teamwork teaches conflict management skills...............................................................5
Issues and problems related to teamwork..................................................................................5
 Trust................................................................................................................................5
 Absence of team identity.................................................................................................6
 Lack of open communication..........................................................................................6
 Difficulty in decision making process.............................................................................6
 Inability to solve the conflicts.........................................................................................7
 Deliberating team characteristics....................................................................................7
 Ineffective leadership......................................................................................................7
Ways to encourage team work...................................................................................................8
 Define goals and set roles...............................................................................................8
 Share information and listen to others............................................................................8
 Be patient and inspire the team.......................................................................................8
 Give team active roles in decision making.....................................................................8
 Reward excellent teamwork............................................................................................9
 Maintain balance of work................................................................................................9
 Give constant feedback.................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10

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REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
In this report the following question is discussed “Is the ability of individuals to work in a
team important and how collaboration is encouraged or is privacy an issue that precludes
collaboration.” Teamwork is a kind of work that the teams are best configured to do. It is a
kind of work that helps the individuals to use their strengths in order to complement each
other, this helps the people to come together and build relationships (DeChurch, and Mesmer-
Magnus, 2010). Teamwork also helps to share vision so that their strengths are used in a
common direction or towards a common goal. Teamwork can be built in a lot of ways. It can
be built by aligning and blending the strengths of the individual so that they are able to
complement each other, it is also done to align the sense of togetherness of people’s vision
and the goal reaching of the people and teamwork helps in building the strengths towards the
common goal or a direction. In order to build effective teamwork in the environment there
are various characteristics that the team members should have in order to produce effective
teamwork. The effectiveness of the team depends on the personality type of the team
members and the size of the team. This report discusses about the importance of teamwork,
issues in teamwork and the ways to improve the teamwork (Pronovost, and Freischlag, 2010).
Importance of teamwork
Team work is way or a collaborative effort of individuals in order to achieve the common
goals of the organizations so that the organization can work in an effective and efficient way.
Team work is required everywhere like schools, workplace and etc. Team work is a very
important factor in today’s world because of the following reasons:
 Team work motivates unity
Teamwork has an environment that helps and promotes the atmosphere and also
foresters the relationship, loyalty and friendship. All these kind of relationships
motivate the people to support each other and work hard. Individuals have various
talents, weakness, habits and communication skills and when teamwork is not
encouraged in a place than there can be various challenges that an individual can
face such as reach the overall goals of the organization therefore teamwork creates an
environment which focuses on promoting the strengths and achievements of the

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people and helps them to reach a common goal together (Steinemann, Berg, Skinner,
and Speck, et al , 2011).
 Team work offers differing perspectives and feedbacks
Good and effective teamwork helps the organization to have thought diversity and,
creativity of thought; it gives people different and new perspectives, opportunities and
also good problem solving approaches. A good and a proper teamwork can help the
people in the particular environment to brainstorm collectively as it helps in
increasing the success and solves the issues and problems that occur (Manzoor, Ullah,
Hussain, and Ahmad, 2011). Effective teamwork also helps in bringing innovation
which also creates competitive edge in achieving the goals of the organization. There
are always different people in the team. Sharing different opinions and experiences
can help the individuals to build decision making skills. Teamwork also helps in
getting feedback and a lot of other skills can be learned from teamwork which can
help in supporting the work of any individual. Teamwork can help a person build
skills like designing, implementing and planning (Weaver, Rosen, Diaz, Granados,
Lazzara, Lyons, Salas, Knych, et al, 2010).
 Team work provides improved efficiency and productivity
When and individual tries to incorporate the strategies of teamwork they become
more productive and efficient as teamwork allows them to share the load of work
with other individuals, which reduces the pressure on one person and it also makes
sure that the work or the task is completed in the given time. Teamwork is
something which makes sure that the goals are more attainable, optimises the
performance of the individuals and also helps in the job satisfaction and increases the
work pace. Teamwork is better than an individual working alone as it promotes a
more effective and efficient workplace environment.
 Teamwork provides great opportunities
Teamwork helps individuals to learn from the mistakes of the others. Teamwork helps
people to avoid the mistakes in future and helps them to gain the perspectives from
different angles and they are able to learn thing from more experienced colleagues.
Teamwork helps the individuals to expand and enhance their skills, discover the new
ideas from the new colleagues or the teammates and it also helps the people to learn

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new and effective approaches with solution about the tasks. A good engagement in the
task helps in future innovation and encouragement which helps in generating new
ideas and solving the problems effectively and efficiently.
 Team work promotes synergy
Corporation and encouragement, mutual support shared goals all of these things
provides synergy. Having these things makes the team members feel more special and
they feel a sense of accomplishment and they are also able to perform at higher levels.
When team members are able to know their own responsibilities and roles then they
are able to give more good outputs. Team member with the help of these things are
able to share the same goals, vision and mission and thus it helps the workplace where
the environment is totally based on fellowship, support, trust, respect and cooperation
(O'Leary, Ritter, Wheeler, Szekendi, Brinton, and Williams, 2010).
 Teamwork teaches conflict management skills
Conflicts happen in every organization or even schools and teamwork is a thing in
which conflicts can happen most of the time as different group of people are put
together in a group, there are different perspectives, cultures, knowledge and taste of
every Individual in the group. Unique and different viewpoints can build a successful
workplace but it can also create a lot of issues like conflicts among the people in the
team, conflict is something which can affect the positive environment of the
teamwork. However teamwork helps in building conflict management skills as the
individuals are forced to work together and are forced to solve the issue or the conflict
on their own as they cannot turn to the management with their issues and this thing
helps in making the individual learn the skill of conflict management and it also helps
the individuals to learn the importance of respecting others cultures, difference of
thought and it also encourages a positive workplace environment. Hence teamwork is
important in an organization (Valentine, Nembhard, and Edmondson, 2015).

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Issues and problems related to teamwork
 Trust
The first and the most important issue that comes in teamwork in the lack of trust
among the team members of the team. The reasons behind this can be poor leadership,
remote locations, diversity among the members of the team, lack of the structure and
the process, unclear vision of the team and the organization. A good and effective
leadership is something that brings trust among the member of the team. In order to
have a positive culture in a team it is important to have trust among the members of
the team as it is one of the main ingredient in building and maintain a great team.
Trust is something which a team can build only when they feel comfortable while
working with each other.
 Absence of team identity
The members of the team sometimes do not feel accountable to one another for the
goals and the objectives of the team. There is lack of vision and effort in the team
apart from this there is high level of conflicts among the team goals and the personal
goals altogether there is a very poor collaboration. The main reason behind this issue
is lack of cohesive unit. It is important for the team members to value each other in
order to achieve the common goals of the organization as when team are too cohesive
there are often chances of more conflicts among the team members in the organization
(Farh, Seo, and Tesluk, 2012).
 Lack of open communication
This is a major issue almost in every team. In teamwork people mostly suffer from
poor communication. Poor communication is something that can lead to
misunderstandings, inefficiency, mismanagement and various other issues. Lack of
communication is also the main reason behind the lack of trust among the people. It
first starts with the things that go unnoticed and the business goals are also taken for
granted and slowly the lack of communication spreads like a virus in the organization,
people are not able to understand each other and thus everyone fails to reach the goals
and objectives of the organization (Gallie, Zhou, Felstead, and Green, 2012).

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 Difficulty in decision making process
This is also a major issue as people different ideas, values and believes and sometimes
individuals cannot agree on the same thing (Gaba, 2010). This thing causes a lot of
issues and difficulties while making decisions in an organization and team members
usually have various arguments rather than having new and good information or
discussion. There is an informal flow of decision making in the organization.
 Inability to solve the conflicts
There are a lot of conflicts that take place and conflicts are very common when a
group of people work together towards a common goal. Communication issues are
also the reason behind difficulty in resolving the issues in the team. Conflicts are
something which can be seen as a vehicle of growth and transformation. Conflicts are
something which cannot be resolved and these usually take place when the tension in
an organization is high as people try to make person attacks. This can only be solved
by good leadership and by developing emotional intelligence among the members of
the team as this makes conflicts useful and productive (Miller, Crandall, Washington
and McLaughlin, 2012).
 Deliberating team characteristics
The team characteristics also play an important role. Team characteristics such as the
size, location, diversity, demographics and diversity these all things play important
role in the behaviour of the team members in the team. For example in some of the
cases in some teams there are too many members and all efforts might not be effective
in such cases. The best team size is six to eight people. If the team is very diverse then
there will be more people that will help each other and there will be new and different
perspectives which can help people (Moe, Dingsøyr, and Dybå, 2010).
 Ineffective leadership
Leaders should convey their message such as the goals of the team and the
organization very Cleary to the team members. Team members should know there
purpose and role clearly in the organization. Leaders play an important role in build a
team. A bad leader can fail a team by not defining the goals and objectives of the
organizations to the team clearly. Leaders should be aware of imbalance in the

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organization. If there is maturity level in the team then the team members lead to
cohesive teams. A good team should always have a clear vision and objectives,
should participate in all the activities, share information with the other team members,
review performance, communicate well and should also think ways to improve. A
good leader is like mediators in a team who make the team member understand the
objectives of the organization and solves the conflicts in the team a leader can direct
the team member and provide them with road map to reach goals (Lingard, 2012).
Ways to encourage team work
 Define goals and set roles
In order to encourage the team work the leaders should outline the responsibilities of
the team as this is one of the most important factors while building a team. It is also
important to make the members of the team understand the importance of their role in
the team. Team members should also develop their individual goals; members of the
team should decide the long term and the short term goals as this will help them to
reach the goal of the organization easily (Capella, Smith, Philp, Putnam, Gilbert, Fry,
and et al, 2010).
 Share information and listen to others
In order to be productive and reach the goals of the organization it is important that
the member of the team respect each other and trust each other, this can be done by
being open and honest to each other. The team members should listen to each other
and they should be open to the ideas of the team. Listening to each other helps in
understanding the perspective of others and also resolves the conflicts if any. It is
important to listen to the suggestions given by all the team members in the team as
every member of the team are important (Finn, Learmonth, and Reedy, 2010).
 Be patient and inspire the team
All the team member should understand that it is not important that they will get
along at first, but a team should give time to each other slowly team members will be
able to get along with each other. A leader should encourage and motivate the team to
work together and should inspire them to remove the differences in order to reach the

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goals of the organization. A leader should also deal with any kind of conflicts or
problems as the arise in order to keep the culture of the organization positive and
healthy (Riebe, Roepen, Santarelli, and Marchioro, 2010).
 Give team active roles in decision making
This thing helps a lot in building a team as by giving the team member’s chance in
decision making makes them feel important in the organization and gives them
motivation and confidence which also helps them to reach the goals of the
organization. Decision making helps the team members to learn the skill of
communicating and listening which is a very important skill to learn (Hunziker,
Johansson, Tschan, Semmer, Rock, Howell, and Marsch, 2011).
 Reward excellent teamwork
In order to build fellowship and relationship in a workplace it is important to have
good recognition programs as this is the best way to appreciate and praise the
employees for their performance and the achievements in teamwork. It is Important to
praise an employee if an employee goes beyond their role in order to help the
organization and it is not important that it always relates to the goals of the business,
it can be in any way for example helping others or showing a good behaviour towards
others and being friendly towards the co-workers or the teammates. In a place where
the teammates are rewarded for their work the teamwork is improved natural.
Recognition can come in a lot of ways; kit can be in the form of good words from the
managers, photo in the company’s newsletter (Hughes and Jones, 2011). Teamwork
cannot be forced on the people a good teamwork comes from within when there is
good and healthy environment, employees and teammates respect each other and there
is open communication. Things like dogmatic and stick to management principles do
not work now as they were effective 100 years ago. It is important for the company to
take out best from the employees and make a team that work effectively and
efficiently in the work environment (Weller, Boyd, and Cumin, 2014).
 Maintain balance of work
In a team it is important to maintain balance of work as different team member’s work
on different tasks and everyone try their best to work hard in order to reach the goals
of the organization. However sometimes there is a lot of mismanagement in the teams

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and some people are given more workload then the other this can frustrate the
employees and can bring negative culture in the team. In order to have a good culture
and good teamwork, it is important that the everyone in the team has same level of
workloads in the group. There should not be only one person to bear the entire burden
as the main aim of working in the team is to work together and share load with other
people in order to create new and innovative things which one person cannot do on
their own (Andersen, Jensen, Lippert, and Østergaard, 2010).
 Give constant feedback
Leaders should give feedbacks to the team on weekly basis so that the team is aware
of their performance. Leaders should give feedback on the completed work and not
the coordination or insight issues of the team as team needs to learn the skill of
managing conflicts on their own and leader should not be part of it. A leader should
give feedback on the goal reaching of organization (Goh, Chan, and Kuziemsky,
2013).
Conclusion
Through this report it is concluded that teamwork is an important thing for any individual as
well as an organization. The report first discusses the importance of teamwork which is, team
work helps in motivation of unity, teamwork offers difference in feedbacks and perspectives,
teamwork gives improved productivity and efficiency, teamwork provides good
opportunities, teamwork promotes synergy and the most important thing teamwork teaches
conflict management skills. Next report discusses the issues and problems related to
teamwork. The issues related with teamwork are, trust, absence of team identity, lack of open
communication, difficulty in decision making process, inability to solve conflicts,
deliberating team characteristics and Ineffective leadership and lastly the report discusses the
ways in which teamwork can be encouraged. Teamwork can be encouraged in the following
ways define goals and set roles, share information and listen to others, be patient and inspire
the team, give team active roles in decision making, reward excellent teamwork.

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employee welfare. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 50(1), pp.23-46.

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