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“Teamwork makes the dream work.”
Teamwork and the 2012 Olympics ~
What is Teamwork?
Teamwork is defined in Webster's New World Dictionary as "a joint action by a group of people, in which each person subordinates his or her individual interests and opinions to the unity and efficiency of the group." This does not mean that the individual is no longer important; however, it does mean that effective and efficient teamwork goes beyond individual accomplishments. The most effective teamwork is produced when all the individuals involved harmonize their contributions and work towards a common goal.
In order for teamwork to succeed one must be a teamplayer. A teamplayer is one who subordinates personal aspirations and works in a coordinated effort with other members of a group, or team, in striving for a common goal. Businesses and other organizations often go to the effort of coordinating team building events in an attempt to get people to work as a team rather than as individuals.
Fostering teamwork is creating a work culture that values collaboration. In a teamwork environment, people understand and believe that thinking, planning, decisions and actions are better when done cooperatively. People recognize, and even assimilate, the belief that “none of us is as good as all of us.”
It’s hard to find work places that exemplify teamwork. In America, our institutions such as schools, our family structures, and our pastimes emphasize winning, being the best, and coming out on top. Workers are rarely raised in environments that emphasize true teamwork and collaboration. Organizations are working on valuing diverse people, ideas, backgrounds, and experiences. We have miles to go before valuing teams and teamwork will be the norm.
Think of team building as something you do every single day.
· Form teams to solve real work issues and to improve real work processes. Provide training in systematic methods so the team expends its energy on the project, not on figuring out how to work together as a team to approach it.
· Hold department meetings to review projects and progress, to obtain broad input, and to coordinate shared work processes. If team members are not getting along, examine the work processes they mutually own. The problem is not usually the personalities of the team members. It’s the fact that the team members often haven’t agreed on how they will deliver a product or a service or the steps required to get something done.
· Build fun and shared occasions into the organization’s agenda. Hold pot luck lunches; take the team to a sporting event. Sponsor dinners at a local restaurant. Go hiking or to an amusement park. Hold a monthly company meeting. Sponsor sports teams and encourage cheering team fans.
· Use ice breakers and teamwork exercises at meetings. I worked with an organization that held a weekly staff meeting. Participants took turns bringing a “fun” ice breaker to the meeting. These activities were limited to ten minutes, but they helped participants laugh together and get to know each other – a small investment in a big time sense of team.
· Celebrate team successes publicly. Buy everyone the same t-shirt or hat. Put team member names in a drawing for company merchandise and gift certificates. You are limited in teamwork only by your imagination.  What it Takes to Be #1 with Audio CD and FREE DVD Take care of the hard issues above and do the types of teamwork activities listed here. You’ll be amazed at the progress you will make in creating a teamwork culture, a culture that enables individuals to contribute more than they ever thought possible - together
Strengths – Weaknesses – Opportunities – Threats (SWOT): Questions To Answer
What are your team’s strengths?
What are your team’s weaknesses?
Does your team have any opportunities?
What is threatening your team?
The key as the team leader is to take action
Team-Work & Team-Roles Assessment
Ideally, team-work proceeds sequentially from initiation to ideation, elaboration, and completion. But research shows that teams often diffuse their efforts by spending time on work they prefer to do, oftentimes skipping essential phases. Pinpoint which phases of group work interest your teams most and identify which behavioral role(s) team members habitually play or ignore with Team-Work & Team-Roles. This 18-item assessment is a powerful tool to help individuals and teams understand and improve team performance. Learning Outcomes Identify preferred individual and team-roles and work phases Learn how to deliberately cultivate the missing team-roles and work phases Discover how to resolve team-roles that conflict Explore the strengths and weaknesses of teams that are “stuck” in various team-work/team-role combinations Theory The model for Team-Work & Team-Roles is based on research in the areas of team-roles and team effectiveness. This model assigns 8 specialized roles to 4 phases of the Team-Work Cycle. How It Works Using an 18-item assessment, team members rank-order sets of 4 statements describing their manner of working in a team. A team profile (created by compiling individual profiles) and group discussion then help the teams to discover how they can modify their behavior to ensure roles and phases are addressed. Uses for Team-Work & Team-Roles Team-Work & Team-Roles is effective when used as a stand-alone instrument as well as a component of a larger training program. It has been used in a variety of settings and in numerous companies, including public seminar organizations, computer manufacturers, banks, hospitals, public utilities, municipal and state governments, and the federal government. Some uses for Team-Work & Team-Roles include: Management Training – to train/develop supervisors and managers and train colleagues in teamwork skills Team Training – To help teams accomplish specific projects, programs, and tasks; to assist in designing teams; to diagnose strengths and weaknesses of potential teams; and to integrate team formation with the problem-solving processes of time-bound teams Team Building – To help resolve internal personal conflicts Self-Managed Teams – To help these types of teams decide how to carry out their work What to Order/Product Contents Order one Facilitator Guide per facilitator and one Participant Guide per participant. Facilitator Guide includes Administrative guidelines Optional 2-hour workshop Experiential learning methodology Description of the Team-Work Cycle and Team-Roles Model Interpretive information Technical information including validity and normative data Sample training designs Training outline template 4 supplemental activities CD-ROM containing PowerPoint® presentations and reproducible masters including a certificate of achievement, training evaluation, and handouts Sample copy of the redesigned Participant Guide Convenient binder format Participant Guide includes 18-item assessment Pressure-sensitive response form Description of the Team-Work Cycle and Team-Roles Model Diagrams for charting scores/creating profiles Interpretive information Team-Work Style Descriptions Tips for building on team strengths/overcoming weaknesses Exploration questions/action planning.Find this tool at HRDQ.
Discover more at HRDQ, click below and then go to Teams:
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