Why is Teamwork Important in the Workplace

The most important reason why teamwork is important in the workplace is to achieve the goals the organization has set up. Achieving the goal cannot be the handiwork of just one individual.

Teamwork is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as work done by several associates, each doing a part but all subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole. In simpler words, teamwork is a set of activities performed by team members to fulfill a common goal decided by the organization. It is not only a corporate concept — mankind has worked in teams since the primitive days of civilization, hunting and wandering together in groups; only in recent times has it been developed as a "concept" in management jargon. A popular reminder of its value is the acronym often made of the word itself: TEAM — Together Everyone Achieves More.

Creating a team at work is easy — just put a few people together. The real work is creating teamwork, a bond that keeps members together by promoting strength, reliability and support. When team members trust each other, reaching common goals becomes far easier. Below are the main reasons teamwork is important in the workplace.

Achieve Goals Faster

Teamwork helps achieve the common objective in less time. When a problem arises and all members are involved, a solution is found quickly, and drawing up an action plan and assigning people to tasks happens faster. With many people handling a single project properly, the overall speed of work increases and the team completes the project within the given time frame.

Creativity

Teamwork leaves more scope for creativity, as ideas evolve out of interaction. Little bits of advice from colleagues often help a member come up with far more new ideas than they would working alone.

Better Learning Curve

Team members continually learn from each other's knowledge, knowingly or unknowingly, enhancing their own skills and capabilities. The experience of older members helps newcomers grasp concepts quickly and avoid mistakes.

Enhanced Communication and Bonding

Working in a team requires members to communicate, which is how ideas pass from one person to another and how miscommunication is avoided. Continuous interaction — working together all day, sharing meals, joys and sorrows — also builds bonds of friendship and unity, some of which last a lifetime.

Equal Distribution of Work

Because the team is committed to a goal, work is delegated across all members, so no one is overburdened and everyone contributes toward the common objective.

Personal Accountability

Working in a team increases personal accountability: every individual has targets for which they alone are responsible, and when each member reaches their goal, the larger organizational goal is achieved faster.

Healthy Competition and Job Satisfaction

A team lets people compete to excel while still helping and assisting each other — a healthy dynamic possible because everyone is emotionally bonded. Teamwork is also one of the most important reasons for employee job satisfaction, improving performance while making work more enjoyable and motivating.

Conflict Resolution

Because members form a bond, it is easier to clear the air when a conflict arises — both interpersonal conflicts and disagreements over finishing assigned tasks can be resolved with the team's help.

What Makes Teamwork Succeed

A tight-knit team is a group of competent individuals who care deeply about each other, are committed to their mission, and are motivated to combine their energy and expertise toward a common objective. Observation of teamwork in the workplace points to three primary conditions that must be met for higher team performance and member satisfaction:

• Resources and Commitment — a strong personal commitment and genuine investment of time and energy, especially in the early stages when teams need non-task time to establish identity, expectations, spirit and bonds. Teamwork is intangible; it cannot be measured like corporate assets and requires care, sensitivity and patience to pay off in the long run.
• Ownership and Heart — members must feel genuine ownership of the mission rather than being driven only by a compensation package or the direction of a single authoritative figure.
• Learning — a willingness to keep learning, coaching and changing behavior in line with team principles.

A common obstacle is competition aimed at the wrong target: too often we direct our competitive energy at looking better than a colleague or another department — "friendly fire" — instead of the real competition. Amazing things can be accomplished when members and leaders trust and commit to joint problem solving, consensus decision making, shared leadership and win/win conflict resolution.

Good teamwork goes a long way toward increasing productivity and reaching the ultimate goal faster, with maximum utilization of manpower as non-productive hours are reduced. In the initial phases members may find it difficult to cope with one another; at such times the organization should take the initiative to develop a cohesive team.