How Teamwork Helps in Enhancing Productivity

As per the standard OXFORD dictionary, it stands for the combined action of a group, especially when effective and efficient.

Team players need to be in total sync with each other as well as with the overall objective of the team. This perfect synchronization is what ideally teamwork should be all about.

Is teamwork important?

In the modern competitive corporate world, it is wrong to assume that individuals can attain organizational goals, working all by themselves, in solitary and stand-alone positions. However qualified and talented an individual may be, his thoughts, ideas, and skills will always be restricted to a certain limit – because no human being is perfect.

However smart and knowledgeable you might be, there would always exist alternate ways to look at problems and multiple other solutions to the problem.

IF YOU WANT TO GO FAST, GO ALONE.
IF YOU WANT TO GO FAR, GO TOGETHER.

In a team, the individual limitations are overcome quite easily, provided all the team members are at the same level and share an equal passion towards achieving the objective. Higher the motivational levels of the team members, the better will be the work and the result.

In a team, like in a team meeting, where issues are discussed and people sit down to make decisions, and where everyone has a say, the inputs, ideas, thoughts, feedback, and reviews come in from different minds that view the same problem from different mindsets and angles. Therefore, the collated effort in a team meeting will always be more qualitative and enhanced compared to a single person coming up with a couple of solutions, all on his own.

Thus, the essence of teamwork is about resolving issues and problems more effectively. From the solutions that come up, team members brainstorm further to shortlist the ones that seem good and viable. All these solutions, systems, and approaches would be more justifiable and productive compared to solitary decisions. Thus, teamwork is an essential component of an organization – it is today the lifeblood of all commercial entities that can create success stories if properly done.

Productivity

The results of all tasks and efforts are measured in terms of productivity. It shows how good or bad the performance was or in other words, from the desired results, how deviated was the performance.

Productivity in the corporate world stands for efficiency, throughput, and yield. A commercial business organization that is set up to earn profits and revenues would lay great emphasis on productivity. The better the performance of the entity, the more successful it is considered. At the end of the day, the desired result of a business organization is to register substantial gain from the business and if it has been able to do so, the performance will be considered productive.

In the super-competitive world today, where each business unit – big or small – is vying hard for securing a good share of the pie, productivity becomes the central theme of all organizations that are working for commercial gains.

Everyone wants to be the best; every corporate entity aims to become the market leader and every organization works for its customers. It’s a die-hard hard-core competition out there and organizations that are not proficient or are below the productive level will soon go down the drains. To be the best and number one, your business needs to be a hundred percent productive.

How does teamwork impact productivity levels?

Teamwork and productivity go together. But corporates/leaders often ignore this. Even today there are organizations and more importantly team leaders that promote negative competition between its team members – they believe in divide and rule – because they feel that the intra-competitive spirit will drive people to work better and harder.

Scientific and psychological researches prove otherwise. The more you divide your team into individuals and small factions, the lower will be their performance. While conflict, psychologists say is good for the overall health of the team, fierce rivalry and competition can only spell doom for teams and organizations. This is because team members here are no longer focused on the work in hand, they are more worried about defeating the other set of people within the same team and put their brains together to rout the other individuals and factions.

Some facts:

• Scientists have found that when people bond with each other in a team, a hormone called oxytocin is released. This is a hormone that is also known as the love drug or the cuddle hormone and is released in quite a good amount when a person is sexually satisfied. The hormone gives a peaceful and calming effect on a person. This means that when people work together in a team in an amicable, satisfied and motivated environment, they tend to enjoy their work. As a result, they put in earnest and honest efforts in the achievement of set goals.
• Good teams work extraordinarily well when everyone is treated equally and fairly. Leaders are generally viewed with skepticism and when people start to dominate, it usually leaves others feeling resentful. Such a feeling is not desirable at all for it will certainly do more harm than good to the productivity of the team.
• While Newton and Einstein were undoubtedly brilliant, in the modern world, solos cannot survive for everyone who needs support and assistance. Creativity and innovativeness are virtues that come to the forefront today only when a group of people works in perfect synergy.
• There is an ideal size for the ideal team which researchers point to anywhere between 5 to 9 members. When team members are from mixed ages and sex, they tend to perform better than same-age and same-sex teams.

The other aspect is that teams today are a mix of people who come onboard with varying experiences, educational qualifications, inherent skills and talents, socio-economic backgrounds, and community. Each has their own set of expertise and specialization. When all of them sit down to discuss and brainstorm, the ideations will be richer in content. This information, data or content can be used and should be used effectively by the team leader, manager and the organization to obtain the best and the most optimized resolutions.

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Good teams that are high on teamwork work in a united manner, they share values and visions of the organization, there are trust and respect for each other’s ideas and opinions, there is proper understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each team member, there are compatibility and collaboration, work is delegated where each member is made to feel important, each other’s strengths are utilized and there is an encouragement for one another to overcome their challenges and weaknesses.

Such a positive environment will leave the employees happy and motivated to contribute their best to the achievement of the team goals. When each member readily and willingly participates a hundred percent in the attainment of the target set, it is bound to be achieved optimally. It is also highly likely that the team over-achieves the target set and excel. This is the kind of results that any organization today – be it local or international, small or big – would love to achieve without a doubt.

To get to that kind of results, what is needed is that the internal stakeholders – the employees – are motivated and inspired to work together to produce that kind of performance.

How to attain maximum productivity?

Communication is vital and more than anyone else, it is the job of the team leader or the manager to create that kind of environment that his team members feel comfortable and safe to voice their opinions, to come up and share their experiences and emotions, raise doubts and questions. The more clarity there is, the smoother will the functioning be and the better will the efficiencies be. Besides having an open channel of communication, leaders also need to ensure that the communication is meaningful and not over-indulged for that will distract employees and can also hurt their morale. There needs to be a proper balance here on the type and content of the communication.

Also, trust is an important element to strengthen teams. Not only do team members need to have unfailing faith in each other, the vertical flow of trust between team members and managers and the senior hierarchy also needs to be thorough and honest. This gives the employees an upper hand, raising their self-esteem and boosting their confidence.

The teamwork mustn’t be limited to just the office, but team members are taken out of the office space for bonding and getting to know each other better. Feedback, appreciation, praises and positive criticism are all different ways that team leads keep boosting the motivational levels of their team members. Since these are time-tested methods, they work fine and should be an integral part of every corporate culture.

Teamwork doesn’t happen in isolation. Every member of the team needs to be equally committed, there needs to be a perfect delegation of work and team members be given the space and the independence to work so that the efficiencies levels are at the highest which in turn is a promise of enhanced productivity.