Teamwork: essence, motivation, achievements and development

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Any leader strives to create a well-coordinated and well-functioning team. To do this, it is necessary to be able to correctly place accents, smooth out conflicts, and competently plan events. It is believed that teamwork on a project can bring more profit than working alone. Meanwhile, it is the first in practice that causes a lot of concern and a negative reaction. This is mainly due to the inability to properly organize such activities. Consider the principles of teamwork below.

General information

What is teamwork? It is worth saying that not every group of specialists can become a friendly and highly professional team. A team is a small number of employees with complementary skills, connected by a common idea, striving for common goals and bearing equal responsibility for their implementation. In such a collective, individual interests are relegated to the background. Each member of the group must have a high professional level, the ability tomake decisions and interact with other members. Teamwork implies the dependence of specialists on each other. In this regard, a constant exchange of information is carried out within the group.

Specific organization

Coordinated teamwork is the result of competent management activities. The team must go through several stages:

1. Adaptation. At this stage, mutual information and assessment of the tasks set is carried out. Group members communicate with each other carefully, threes or pairs are formed. In the process of adaptation, people in some way check each other, determine mutually acceptable behavior patterns. Teamwork efficiency at this stage is very low.
2. Grouping. At this stage, people converge on interests and sympathies. At the same time, discrepancies between individual motivation and the goal of team work are revealed. Group members can oppose the demands. This determines the degree of permitted emotional reaction. For example, the secretary throws papers and evaluates the reaction of the others to this action.
3. Cooperation. At this stage, the group members realize the desire to work on the task at hand. Constructive and open communication begins, the pronoun "we" appears for the first time.
4. Rationing work. At this stage, schemes of interaction in the team are created. At this stage, trust appears, and interpersonal communication moves to a higher level.
5. Functioning. At this stage, constructivedecisions about the task at hand. Each participant has his own role. The team openly manifests and eliminates conflicts. At this stage, true teamwork begins. A favorable climate is formed within the group. All participants understand the value of planned indicators, take actions aimed at achieving them. Teamwork at this stage is considered the most successful.

Phenomena

Psychologists describe some of the effects that arise when working in a team. Among them it is worth noting:

1. Volume phenomenon. The result of teamwork will depend on the number of group members.
2. The phenomenon of quality composition. Teamwork tasks will be most successfully implemented if group members are of different ages and genders, but with almost the same social characteristics.
3. Conformism. The change in participants' beliefs or behavior is driven by imagined or real group pressure. The value of public opinion is high enough for each member. Accordingly, all participants respect the norms developed jointly.
4. Deindividualization. It involves the loss of self-awareness and the emergence of a fear of evaluation in conditions of anonymity that do not focus on a particular person.
5. Risk shift effect. The group makes the least or most risky decisions compared to those that would be developed by the participants individually.
6. "Rounding" thinking. The group members are looking for a solutionwhich would suit everyone. At the same time, quite realistic options are discarded.
7. Public laziness. When sharing responsibility equally among all participants, they begin to worsen their performance indicators all together.

Signs

Teamwork involves continuous discussion between participants. It aims to improve cooperation. All specialists feel part of the working community. They feel competent, perform certain actions independently and are responsible for the consequences. Each participant freely proposes the ideas he has and criticizes the others. Members of the group are aware of the tasks of others, they have a certain idea of the abilities and talents of each. This means the presence of mutual respect and interest of all participants. At the same time, all members of the group strive for an open dialogue. Information moves quickly, constantly and purposefully from one participant to another.

Common mistakes

Teamwork skills are developed over time. It is impossible to immediately create a successful and friendly team from a group of specialists. The leader has a special role in this. It is on him that the effectiveness of the team depends to a greater extent. Meanwhile, in practice, leaders make serious mistakes in organizing collective activities. They significantly reduce work efficiency. Among the most common are the following:

1. Mismatch between leader, team and typethe task set before the people.
2. Unsuccessful choice of specialists to create a group.
3. Lack of a clearly defined goal or criteria for its implementation.
4. Unfavorable socio-psychological climate.

Conclusions

All these mistakes can be avoided. Almost every person is motivated to work by three components: payment, interest and social significance. The first two components are given quite a lot of attention in practice. At the same time, the social significance of a person is often forgotten. Meanwhile, team members must be sure that they are implementing an important project that will bring profit to the enterprise.

Team leader

He has a special role. In addition to direct leadership, planning and control, the leader must be able to motivate and organize the team, develop the foundations of self-government in it. Due to the human factor, it is quite difficult to implement these tasks in practice. The key criterion for choosing a leader is his idea of organizing the activities of the team. Positive and negative feedback will act as the main instrument of influence. Effective teamwork will largely depend on the personal qualities of the leader. He will represent the team in interaction with others, remove external obstacles.

Reduce conflicts

As mentioned above, at the initial stagesWorking in a team comes with a certain amount of tension. Often there are conflicts. The head of the enterprise must take into account their likelihood and treat the group members with a certain degree of loy alty during this period. You can reduce tension by using different trainings, work on creative tasks, during which the group will feel like one organism. In addition, it is important to pay attention to the development of clear rules of conduct. At the same time, they must be formulated and accepted directly by the members of the group. It is also necessary to approve responsibility for their violations.

Nuances

Usually a team feels like a team when they achieve their first success. This must be taken into account by the head of the enterprise. The first task for the team should be difficult, but at the same time quite feasible in a relatively short period. In some cases, it happens that the group becomes overly immersed in its activities and loses touch with the real world. This may have negative consequences. To prevent this phenomenon, the leader should organize the flow of external information to the participants and the outflow of information from them. This helps keep the team on track. It is impossible to learn and apply all the subtleties of the process. Any teamwork involves the presence of weaknesses. In successful teams, they are compensated by the strengths of the participants.