Teamwork – Achieving more at workplace

A team is a group of people working towards a common goal. Many people working together in a team bring with them their experience, knowledge, talents, skills and attitude which benefit the organisation in many ways.

 

Initially, it may be a daunting task to build up an effective team: a team in which there is no supremacy of individual goals over the team goals and the interests of individuals merge into the interest of the team. However, Bruce Tuckman demonstrated in his Team Development Model that a team must pass through four stages namely Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing to become an efficient and cohesive team.

 

A team working together fosters trust, strength, creativity and learn conflict resolution skills. It not only helps the organisation, but also contributes to employee’s personal growth. While working together as a team, the team members own the result of their combined efforts, be it a success story or a lesson learnt from failure. It strengthens the work relationships, gives a sense of ownership, and develops confidence and risk-taking abilities as they know that they have the back of their team members. Thus, the employees feel connected with the company.

 

To allocate the right role to each member of the team, it is very important to know their strengths and weaknesses. Belbin’s Team Roles Model has broadly classified human personality into three categories. Once the personality traits of each team member are recognised, the roles to team members can be assigned. This leads to effective and optimal utilisation of the individual talents and reduces the chances of conflicts between the team members.

 

The leader plays a vital role in building up an effective team. It is the duty of the leader to provide constant coaching and mentoring to his team. It is mandatory to keep a check on the individual’s behaviour in a team. An individual can be very harmful for a team if he is constantly criticizing, judgemental, dominating or manipulating whereas an individual can contribute much more if he or she is open-minded, supportive, helpful and have respect for others’ opinions.

 

Summarising all, great teams are not built in one day. It takes immense nurturing, efforts, care and trust. If proper coaching and mentoring is provided, the teams can do wonders.

 

For CIC Academy

Rimpika Kumar

English language trainer and assessor

Melbourne, Australia