Why does working in teams result in enhanced performance?

Teamwork is important for organizations, especially in today’s highly digital world. Studies show that organizations that emphasize teamwork innovate faster, see mistakes more quickly, find better solutions to problems, and attain higher productivity.

Improving teamwork aims to increase productivity and performance for the benefit of the organization. For example, salespeople thrive on healthy competition, but they close more deals, and the organization benefits when they work as a team.

The benefits of team building in the workplace

Teamwork is essential because it maintains an enjoyable work environment

Teamwork builds strong employee relationships because the more employees work close to each other, the more they get to know each other and develop a liking for each other. The more they work together, the more they learn and learn to live with each other’s likes, dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. When they work together for a long time, the team naturally becomes more collaborative, and this leads to a more enjoyable work environment for everyone. A pleasant work environment leads to higher productivity, and this helps organizations realize their goals quickly.

Docket’s meeting management software improves collaboration by keeping team members informed and aligned. A free trial starts here.

Another importance of working together as a team is that it Increases work efficiency

Statistics show that employees who work as a team accomplish tasks faster and much more efficiently than those who work individually. Working as a team on different assignments minimizes workloads for all employees by sharing ideas and responsibilities. Employees, especially salespeople, have a lot of pressure to meet sales goals in a shorter time scale. Teamwork is important because it enables your team to share ideas and responsibilities, which helps reduce stress on everyone, allowing them to be meticulous and thorough when completing tasks. This will enable them to meet sales goals quickly.

Teamwork increases learning opportunities

Employees in an organization differ in terms of the level of work experience, expertise, and skills they possess. Collaboration enables these employees to interact with each other in a project. This interaction is a great learning opportunity for new employees because they can acquire skills they didn’t have from more experienced employees. Also, more experienced employees can get fresh and innovative ideas from new employees. Also, the importance of teamwork in business is that it allows new and more experienced employees to challenge each other’s ideas and ways of doing things to come up with an agreeable, effective solution that helps employees complete the tasks at hand.

Teamwork leads to increased accountability

Employees who work individually are likely to experience low morale and be less accountable. With teamwork, no member wants to let others down, and therefore confidence is maintained. Also, working as a team makes every employee accountable, especially if they are working with experienced, respected employees who have a reputation for hard work and accountability. Organizations can benefit significantly from teamwork because employees will complete projects ahead of the deadline due to increased productivity and efficiency.

The importance of communication in teamwork

Encouraging how to improve teamwork in an organization is a bright idea, but if communication lacks in the team, all that effort will go down the drain. For teamwork to be efficient, organizations must foster communication. Where there is trust, communication can be effective. The problem is that trust is not automatic. It has to be nurtured. There must be open communication in the team for trust to develop. If team members can’t speak openly, the integrity of the team will be lost. Teamwork lessons are important to nurture effective communication.

Research shows that organizations that emphasize the importance of communication in teamwork complete tasks quicker and efficiently than teams that don’t. Effective communication allows team members to learn and understand their roles to avoid duplication of functions. It also enables team members to know the needs and goals of the project, which allows them to focus on realizing those goals.

Disruptions associated with lack of effective communication

Teams that lack effective communication usually end up wasting time doing trivial tasks and accomplishing nothing because they don’t understand what needs to be done. The team members also don’t understand each other’s personalities, which often results in conflict and trust issues within the group. All of this can create a toxic work environment, which can affect the organization’s growth.

Docket’s meeting management software improves communication by keeping team members informed and aligned. Start a free trial here.

Why teamwork matters

Eliminates toxic work culture

One of the benefits of teamwork in organizations is that it eliminates toxic work culture. A toxic work culture is characterized by drama, fighting, low morale at work, lack of communication, and the boss’s fear. Plus, the organization focuses on policies instead of people. A toxic work culture affects the productivity and wellbeing of employees. This makes it impossible for the organization to achieve its strategic goals.

Reduces higher employee turnover

Organizations that lack teamwork across all departments often experience lower levels of productivity and growth. As a result, it becomes harder for them to operate efficiently, which is why they fail to realize their long term objectives. When employees find out that they can’t carry out their responsibilities, they become frustrated and quit. A focus on the importance of teamwork leads to a friendly environment where employees can easily carry out their responsibilities, which helps to minimize employee turnover.

Helps employees remain focused on the organization’s goal

No organization is perfect. That means every organization faces difficult and challenging times. For example, the current Covid-19 has affected businesses, individuals, and families. During challenging times like this, team members can rely on each other for guidance and support. This enables them to focus on the organization’s goals and carry out their duties and responsibilities effectively.

Docket supports teams with meeting management software that helps everyone be more engaged and productive. Start a free trial here.

If you’re a leader in your organization, you likely spend a lot of time trying to come up with or implement ways to improve team performance or team effectiveness.

Team improvement ideas abound, but we think we have some valuable suggestions based on proven tools such as The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team™ and Everything DiSC® that can help you and your team maximize your potential to achieve the results you need.

Defining Your Goals: Set the Action Plan for Improving Team Effectiveness

As a leader, establishing and clearly defining what success will look like for a given project is of paramount importance. Second to that is successfully communicating the idea of success you’ve developed to your team in a way that clarifies both goals and expectations.

When the members of an effective team know what is expected of them, they are much more likely to perform to their full potential. When that understanding spreads across the team, you have set yourself on the path to success.

Setting the Stage for Effectiveness: Clarifying Goals, Roles, and Responsibilities

Your next step is to determine who’s responsible for what tasks and responsibilities. Some of those duties will be decided by the team leader, and some will need to be decided as a group.

When fleshing out tasks and roles, everyone is going to need an established foundation of trust and understanding that will allow your team to engage in healthy conflict and help you assign work to be done.

Spirited discussion, or at least the opportunity for everyone to feel they have been given the opportunity to weigh in, is necessary to ensure everyone buys into the project. In order to buy in, those who have to produce the work need to know that everyone is on the same page and is behaving in the organization’s best interests.

This foundation, which is based on The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team, will foster a positive environment that is more immune to many of common workplace distractions:

• Jealousy
• Claims of unfairness
• Gossip
• Skepticism
• Interpersonal conflicts over territory
• Fear of personal attack

The increase in engagement you’ll get from teammates who trust each other and have honestly bought in will set the wheels in motion for greater productivity and creativity, which leads to increases in both quantity and quality of work produced — a win for everyone.

Recognize When It’s Good Enough to Start: Productivity Requires Action

Once everyone knows what the project is trying to accomplish, what success looks like, and what everyone’s roles are, strike while the iron is hot.

Going back again and again to further clarify or give ever greater detail can, in some cases, drastically reduce people’s ability to utilize their training, creativity, and other natural attributes (which are likely the reasons you hired them in the first place).

Hesitation and doubt can cripple an individual or team, and too much planning or too great a delay between decision and implementation can lead to insecurity and paralysis.

It’s time to have faith in your team and the process.

Conduct Meetings With a Clear Objective in Mind

It’s important to remember that meetings cost resources: time, money, and energy. Meetings can propel a team forward, or they can distract from the primary objective of getting the work done. Unfortunately, too many organizations fall into the second category.

Be specific about what needs to be accomplished during this valuable time. Whatever type of work your organization does, it’s likely that time in meetings is time away from getting the actual work done.

Remember to allow for a healthy exchange of ideas and necessary conflict, but keep it directly related to the goal of the meeting.

Place time limits to keep everyone focused on accomplishing the meeting objective. Side conversations and offshoots can be taken care of in email exchanges, quick one-on-one conversations, or at the coffee station.

Exchanging Feedback Fosters Accountability

Communication allows everyone to know where everyone else is at in terms of fulfilling their responsibilities, and that provides a serious layer of accountability. Valuable employees don’t want to be the person holding the team back.

Sufficient feedback from the boss and from other team members also allows for course correction if any one task or role has gotten out of sync with the others, saving valuable time and resources before things go awry.

(When it comes to giving feedback and holding each other accountable, understanding each other’s personality style is helpful — read about personality styles here.)

Guide Without Micromanaging: Don’t Get in the Way of Your Team’s Effectiveness

As the leader, it can be tough to not interject yourself too much and begin micromanaging teams and individuals as they produce the work their duties and roles require.

A little advice or course correction could go a long way, but too many starts and stops that focus on tiny details can break momentum and cause people to become hesitant and overly cautious.

In simpler terms, an excessive amount of direct involvement by the leader can gum up the gears of production and stifle the creativity and inspiration your amazing team members bring to the table. (Again, that’s why you have them on the team.) Be judicious with your direct involvement, so that it has the necessary impact needed to enhance your team’s performance, but doesn’t become counterproductive.

There are dozens of tricks, tips, and hacks out there, but focus on the big things that matter most and make an overall difference. In other words, focus on the overall mission, and let your teams work out the smaller details.

Practicing the judicious use of your involvement will require some patience and a willingness to lean on the foundation of The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team that you’ve established:

• Vulnerability-based trust
• Your team’s buy in or investment in the direction of the project
• Team members’ ability to hold each other accountable.

You’ve crafted and invested in this foundation of effective team behaviors. Now it’s time to let the process work for you and pay dividends.

Monitor Your Team’s Communication

One way you can utilize your role as the boss to impact productivity is to monitor the communication between teams and amongst the individuals on a team.

If you want to measure your team’s effectiveness, you should be:

• Measuring interactions
• Observing conflict
• Demonstrating understanding

(Click here to learn more about measuring team effectiveness.)

Providing coaching or support in areas of communication that need improvement will result in increased employee engagement, meaning that:

• Work gets done with fewer unnecessary interpersonal interruptions
• Team efficiency improves
• Quality goes up
• Absenteeism and turnover goes down

Learn More About Ways to Improve Team Performance Through Superior Engagement

Leaders are always coming up with ideas and strategies to improve team performance.

At Integris, we’re confident these suggestions can help you get the most from your team’s potential. Your team is filled with talented individuals who can produce amazing work when allowed to engage fully and given proper guidance.

Learn more about how to improve your team’s performance in our comprehensive guide on the subject — click to get started.