What Is Teamwork? Definition And Practical Tips For Your Next Collaboration

Teamwork is increasingly considered an essential component of work in the 21st century, with many hiring managers ranking “communication” as one of the most important skills for prospective employees. In addition to things like strategic planning, clearly established goals, and proactively addressing conflicts, many people can benefit from communications training and psychotherapy aimed at improving interpersonal skills. 

Defining teamwork

The teamwork definition provided by Merriam-Webster is, “work done by a group acting together so that each member does a part that contributes to the efficiency of the whole.” Other people who define teamwork may emphasize the importance of a common goal for the whole team—such as launching a new program or scoring a goal during a soccer match. When functioning well, each team member contributes their unique skills and knowledge to help reach the goal, which enables greater effectiveness and efficiency than the individuals could have achieved on their own.  

To visualize teamwork in action, consider a basketball game. The team shares the goal of winning the game. To win the game, the team must strategize and build trust, and each teammate must use their unique skillset and position (such as a point guard, center, or power forward), to accomplish certain tasks that set the team up to score. The teammates must also communicate effectively and be willing to sacrifice their own personal motivations if it’s not aligned with the team’s goal.  

Though teamwork may be a straightforward term to understand, it can be more complicated in practice. For example, low motivation, lack of accountability, poor leadership, groupthink, and hostility can all be signs of negative team dynamics. These issues can impede the goal and lead to issues like stress, tension, burnout, or resignation. 

The teamwork skills everyone needs

The U.S. Department of Labor identifies that these eight habits are essential for working collaboratively: 

• Cooperation: Members are willing to adjust and problem-solve as needed to collaborate and accomplish the goal. 
• Contribution: Each person is prepared and involved routinely. 
• A sense of responsibility:  Team members are accountable and dependable. 
• Respect for different ideas and preferences: Team members treat each other with respect and consideration, even if they have opposing views. 
• Ability for each member to participate in decision-making: Each person willingly and honestly shares their insight and ideas.  
• Active listening: As an effective communicator, team members must listen to and respect the opinions of others. 

For a team to be successful, each person must act respectfully, keep the overarching goal in mind, and be willing to turn to the group leader when it is in the interest of the common goal. 

Tips for better teamwork 

Improving teamwork can have many benefits, such as reduced stress, greater productivity, higher quality of work, more innovation and creativity, reduced burnout, and increased job satisfaction. The following strategies can make for a more effective collaborative environment:  

• Define teamwork: Teamwork means different things to different people. Discussing the rationale behind working together and how it will help you all achieve your goal can give the entire team a greater sense of purpose. 
• Try incorporating active-listening exercises: There are many activities that can help teams harness active-listening skills, such as pun battles, blind maze games, mirror image drawing, or body language detective games. 
• Keep in touch: Many teams benefit from weekly check-in meetings to assess priorities and assign internal deadlines. This can help clarify confusion and ensure projects stay on track. 
• Use small groups: Large groups are vulnerable to cognitive bias of conformity, called groupthink. Harvard Business Review recommends working in groups of three to five for this reason. 
• Practice clear communication: Information that’s misinterpreted can be harmful for teamwork. To minimize this risk, teams may want to prioritize in-person or video conferencing for serious discussions. Additionally, teammates should use active listening skills, such as asking each other follow-up questions and summarizing each other’s ideas to ensure they understand them. 
• Assign roles: Clear roles can help organize teams, improve efficiency, and ensure everyone contributes to achieving the goal. Roles may include things like team spokesperson, editor, delegator, and notetaker. 
• Be clear about the objective: The purpose of collaboration is reaching a shared goal. Team members should clearly define their goal, and how each person contributes meaningfully to advancing towards that objective. 
• Establish systems for accountability: Some teams struggle with equity issues, with some members contributing significantly more or less than others. Establishing systems for accountability ensures that each member knows what’s required of them. Team leaders can also inspire good work by emphasizing the purpose and impact the goal has. 
• Get to know each other: Camaraderie can build a more dynamic workplace, which can encourage confidence, trust, and a positive outlook. Team members may want to do things together, like attend happy hours, play trivia, or join a recreational sports team. 
• Value everyone’s input: Diverse perspectives can be a major strength of good teamwork. Each team member should be given space to talk without interruption. During this time, the other teammates can practice active listening, and then ask follow-up questions to ensure they understand each other.
• Allow space for failure: Many people are afraid of failure, but it often plays an important role in innovation and creative environments. As Albert Einstein said, “Failure is success in progress.” Teams can create a safe space for failures by building trust, reminding the group that failure is an important part of the process, and celebrating mistakes as valuable learning opportunities. 
• Make constructive feedback part of the process: Team’s may benefit from scheduling routine meetings to discuss any challenges and concerns. Constructive, but kind, feedback can help each member build strong teamwork skills. 

Even when teams do everything right, occasional miscommunication and stress may be inevitable. When issues come up, it’s often important to promptly resolve conflict. This may be done one-on-one, or with a mediating party, such as the team leader or a manager. 

Improving your communication Skills 

While there are strategies that can help improve team dynamics, it’s often helpful for everyone to work independently on building their emotional intelligence, too. 

Unlike hard skills, effective communication is rarely taught in school or on the job. However, it’s often considered one of the most important skills for achieving success, with ineffective communication costing U.S. businesses approximately $1.2 trillion each year. Furthermore, strong communication skills can promote healthy interpersonal relationships and improve mental health.  

Here are some steps you can take that may help you work on your interpersonal skills: 

• Communications training

According to Blake Morgan, a senior contributor at Forbes, every employee should have communications training. If your workplace does not already hold routine communications training, you might want to ask your manager to consider it. Training events can be valuable, teaching employees’ things like how to ask for what they need or how to reduce the risk of miscommunicating.

• Talk therapy 

Studies have repeatedly found that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be effective for mental disorders such as anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. A 2019 study also found that CBT can also increase employee well-being, engagement, confidence, and performance, and reduce the symptoms of burnout. 

Though talk therapy can be effective, it may be difficult for working people to access in-person therapy during business hours. In these circumstances, online CBT, which is offered through platforms like BetterHelp, may be a good option. A 2020 applied study found that online CBT was effectively improved work outcomes for people with anxiety, depression, social phobia, or insomnia. 

Furthermore, some people may prefer online therapy over in person therapy because it’s often more convenient, and sessions can be attended from the comfort of your own home. 

• Self-help

There are some steps you can take on your own if you’ve noticed that you’re routinely finding it difficult to communicate effectively with your colleagues, family, or friends. Practice the following: 

• Be clear, upfront, and concise: Consider what you want to say before you say it. 
• Prep before meetings: You might want to brainstorm before you have serious conversations or meetings with colleagues. Consider what message you want to convey, and how you might respond to criticism. 
• Use active listening skills: When someone else is talking, genuinely listen to them without thinking about what you want to say. Avoid interrupting while they’re talking, except to ask clarifying questions or to make sure you understand what they’re trying to convey. 
• Pay attention to non-verbal gestures: Practice reading the non-verbal cues of others. If a person’s acting one way, but saying something else, it may indicate that they’re not being honest. For example, someone may verbally agree with you, but they may be uncomfortable if they’re crossing their arms or avoiding eye contact. 

While these self-help strategies may be useful to employ on your own, many people benefit from comprehensive care that includes talk therapy, self-help, and training. 

Takeaway 

Teamwork can “make the dream work,” but it often requires careful planning and frequent communication. Team building exercises, prompt conflict resolution, using proper communication channels, encouraging failure as part of the creative process, and limiting groups to small sizes can be effective strategies for improving teamwork. 

If you’re experiencing difficulties with teamwork, or you just want to further improve your communication skills, you may want to consider trying some self-help strategies or speaking with a therapist.