Most successful businesses aren’t held together by just one person. When teams effectively work together, they can achieve results that are impossible for one person to reach by themselves. As a company grows, more and more people will need to use effective teamwork to share resources and build on its success.
When focused and determined people put their heads together, success can be achieved by their group effort. Below are ten reasons why teamwork leads to success!
1. Teamwork Creates a Support Network
Being entirely in charge of a project’s completion can be stressful. If it spans multiple parts and will likely take a long time to finish, it’s easy to ask yourself, “Where do I even start?” But when work is evenly distributed between multiple people, feeling overwhelmed is less likely. Each team member has a stronger focus on what they need to accomplish. Ideally, if someone has trouble with a specific segment, they can ask another team member for help.
Even exclusively-solo projects can benefit from consulting with others. One example can be found in any news article – though stories are produced by an author that writes a majority of the piece, an editor reviews it before publication. This teamwork is integral to solid writing and improves the quality of the final product.
2. Teamwork Builds Confidence
Plenty of people feel anxious about speaking in front of people. One way to tackle this anxiety is by starting small and speaking amongst a small group before moving on to larger groups of people. Team collaboration can improve speaking skills, even if only in a small group. The process becomes easier after repeated meetings and over time. By working in groups, people who experience social anxiety or related struggles can identify the difficulties they face. After all, recognizing an issue is the first step toward growth.
Working in a group setting tests your confidence speaking in front of multiple people. It helps you understand what you’re willing to say or suggest to other people who aren’t necessarily long-known close friends. It helps one figure out what they’re capable of. An effective way of building confidence is by congratulating team members on the work they accomplish.
3. Teamwork Invites Constructive Criticism
In order to effectively improve ourselves, we need to embrace criticism. Constructive criticism is the best way to do this, as it calls for suggesting improvements in a helpful manner. It’s needed to recognize faults in one’s own work and fix mistakes, hopefully delivering a better result in the future. Self-reflection only takes you so far. Other people can reveal issues you may not have recognized by yourself, so being able to handle criticism is in everyone’s best interest to establish stronger teamwork.
Let’s say there is a coworker who has difficulty applying constructive criticism. Delivering criticism in a friendly, light way can make it easier for them to use it toward improvement. The best way to reaffirm their embrace of criticism is by giving congratulations on their application of it – that recognition can make them more open to receiving suggestions for improvement in the future.
4. Teamwork Leads to Innovation
Every team member has the potential for unique ideas. The source of these ideas can be traced back to a person’s background, or how they see the world. No two people experience the exact same upbringing, and the unique experiences we encounter shape our thought process.
It’s impossible to foresee every outcome, so inviting the input of team members can help with decision-making and generating ideas. Good ideas can come from just about anywhere! When multiple people brainstorm, resolutions can be reached faster through discussion and sharing opinions.
5. Teamwork Strengthens Self-Growth
By working in a team, you can improve yourself in a myriad of ways. It can help you realize what you’re capable of in a group setting, but it also teaches how you deal with stressful situations around others versus when you’re alone. The behavior you exhibit may be surprising; it’s possible for someone that is easily stressed by the hardships they face in private to be calm and collected by similar issues in a group setting.
If you’re too harsh of your own work, recognizing others’ accomplishments and what challenges they faced along the way may help. Teammates have likely dealt with similar self-criticism.
6. Teamwork Promotes Positivity
Using positive language, it’s possible to gain a more thorough understanding of coworkers’ thought process and how they work. We enjoy talking to people more when we’re feeling happy, so being positive at work is a net positive for all. When the group is friendly to each other, they feel more relaxed. If a team effort delivers positive results, being proud of the accomplishment will circle back to teamwork as one reason for success.
7. Teamwork Reinforces Structure
Following a routine can inspire a healthy lifestyle, with various health benefits stemmed from creating a regular schedule. In many cases, people benefit from structure or a routine to work effectively and live life. Waking up at a specific time, completing tasks at certain times during the day, and eating lunch around noon are just a few habits that can improve both home and work life. You can also ask team members for advice on how they maintain a regular routine in their day-to-day lives.
In the U.S., there is an ‘average’ workday of 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Society continues to function when people have a routine, which is why most people follow a specific work or school schedule each week.
Following a different schedule each day can work for some people, but not all. According to the Economic Policy Institute, in the U.S. in 2015, it was reported that “about 17 percent of the workforce have unstable work shift schedules.” These unstable work schedules can have an effect on home life, with the EPI citing, “Work-family conflict is worsened not only by longer weekly hours of work, but also by having irregular shift work.” One method to reinforce structure at work is by creating regularly scheduled status meetings, where the team checks in on each other’s progress. Due-dates for project deliverables can create more structure in an otherwise ambiguous timeline.
8. Teamwork Boosts Goodwill
The more frequently you work with a team, the better you get to know them as real people and not just strangers; each with their own personalities and opinions. For example, understanding others more effectively or learning teammates’ communication styles can allow for more productive, constructive feedback. This makes future collaboration easier.
9. Teamwork Addresses Procrastination
Many of us are guilty of procrastination, but when coworkers are relying on you, it becomes more difficult to do with the added expectations of others riding on your work. Nobody likes disappointing people, and if a group project is left waiting until the last minute, disappointment is all but guaranteed.
One way to avoid procrastinating group projects is by offering help to fellow teammates. Supportive team members can monitor each others’ work to be sure deadlines are met and each section is running smoothly. A blog post from the website Mavenlink recommends a few tips to reduce procrastination in group projects. One recommendation they offer is by introducing mini-projects for each team member, or mini-goals. Finishing mini-goals make sure that team members are on the right track, and are less overwhelmed by a large assignment. Other recommendations include staying in touch on a regular basis, as well as personally checking-in on each member’s progress from time to time.
10. Teamwork Asks for Reflection
Successful teams consider past decisions made either by themselves or competitors in order to anticipate the future. In other words, they look at history before formulating a game plan. Our past can tell a lot about what may happen in the future. After all, there are entire subjects built upon analyzing human history.
Reflecting on the past becomes easier in groups when certain areas of research can be assigned to individuals. Compiling data is often faster and less stressful when handled by multiple people, as opposed to relying on just one person for gathering data.
Positive results can be achieved when people use teamwork. By communicating ideas, being receptive of contrasting views, and embracing constructive criticism, an effective team can find success. Establishing structure has the potential to improve both individual team members’ lives and their work as a whole. Essentially, when it comes to the professional world, you can say that teamwork is a no-brainer. The benefits resulting from teamwork speaks for itself.
