A Great Team Scales A Business & Makes It Greater. How True Is This Statement? I Give You 5 Reasons Why It Does

Over the past few years, you’ve probably noticed people talking a lot more about the importance of teamwork and collaboration. Open-office layouts have become the norm and team productivity tools have exploded in popularity.

Some see this emphasis on open collaboration as a passing fad or a way to lower overhead. But a growing body of research confirms that when people work together, smartly, it can unleash energy that boosts creativity, productivity, engagement, communication, and efficiency.

Each individual has unique gifts, talents and skills. When we bring them to the table and share them for a common purpose, it can give companies a real competitive advantage. Additionally, team members benefit just as much as the corporations they work for. In today’s knowledge economy, most of our jobs involve interacting with others that are not even in the same line of profession. The need for effective teamwork is critical for any business. The ability to simultaneously perform as an individual and together with your colleagues or employees in effective teamwork is key to attaining growth and success.

Benefits Of Awesome Teamwork:

1. Great Ideas Come When Geniuses Think Together 

Albert Einstein gets all the credit for discovering the theory of relativity, but the truth is that he relied on conversations with friends and colleagues to refine his concept. And that’s almost always the case.

Behind every genius is a team. When people play off each other’s skills and knowledge, they can create solutions that are practical and useful.

2. Diverse Perspectives Help You Come Up With Winning Innovations

Most people think success comes from surrounding yourself with others that are like you. But true success and breakthrough innovation involves discomfort. Discomfort pushes you to grow. This is where difference of experience, opinion, and perspective come in. Diversity is a well-documented pathway to unlocking new opportunities, overcoming new challenges, and gaining new insights.

A recent report from McKinsey & Company backs this up. It found teams made up of members from diverse backgrounds - gender, age, ethnicity, etc are more creative and perform better by up to 35% as compared to more homogeneous teams. Instead of looking at an issue from your individual vantage point, you get a 360-degree picture, which can lead to an exponential increase in ideas.

3. When You Work In A Team, You Also Grow As An Individual

There may be no “I” in team but being part of a team can help you grow. By sharing information and essentially cross training each other, each individual member of the team can flourish. You might discover new concepts from colleagues with different experiences. You can also learn from someone else’s mistakes, which helps you sidestep future errors.

We all have blind spots about our behaviors and strengths that we may be unaware of, and feedback from a team member can expose them. Recognizing these strengths and addressing the weaknesses can make you a better team member, and even a better person. 

4. Sharing The Workload Eases Burnout

A recent Gallup study of nearly 7,500 full-time employees found that 23% of employees feel burned out at work very often or always. Another 44% say they sometimes feel this way. What helps? Sharing the load. Team members can provide emotional support to each other because they often understand the demands and stress of completing work even better than managers. The study also found that knowing your boss has your back also protects against burnout.

5. Dividing The Work Lets You Grow Your Skills

Collaboration in the workplace isn’t unlike teamwork on the cricket field. When the batsmen, baller and fieldsmen each excel at their individual roles, the team has a better chance of winning. Off the playing field, that idea is more important than ever. Changes in technology and increased globalization mean that organizations are facing problems so complex that a single individual simply can’t possess all the necessary knowledge to solve them. When team members use their unique skills to shine in their own roles, it creates an environment based on mutual respect and cooperation that benefits the whole group.

In Conclusion…

Steve Jobs changed the whole pattern of living with his innovative and creative mind. Do you think this would have been possible without his team of hard-working professionals and their abilities? His innovations would not have reached the hands of millions around the world, isn’t it? In effect, teamwork is important and essential in order to accomplish the overall objectives and goals of an organization.