Teamwork is an essential skill required by employers. Successful teams have several key attributes: they are motivated, strive to understand each other, create psychological safety to encourage participation and honest communication, and desire to help both individuals and the team improve. The article discusses five principles of effective teamwork - motivation, understanding, prosocial motivation, psychological safety, and open communication - and explains how applying these principles can improve workplace environments, increase success, and boost productivity and unity.

1. Sarah Keuhl
11/2/2016
THE IMPORTANCE OF TEAMWORK

2. The Importance of Teamwork
Teamwork is a skill that is no longer a desire of employers, but required. When the art of
teamwork is practiced within a company, members are open to being creative, willing to share
ideas for improvements and new approaches, expand their perspectives and create connections
beyond the workplace. Teams that experience success have built themselves upon the principles:
enabling attributes, productive interpersonal interactions, prosocial motivation and psychological
safety. What is the secret recipe to the perfect team?
First, Motivation. Today, teams are more “diverse, digital and dynamic” than ever before.
Authors Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen, claim that success still depends upon a set of core
fundamentals. Fulfilling its title, “The Secrets of Great Teamwork,” suggest that there are four
“enabling attributes” that allow teams to experience success: direction, strong structure,
supportive context and a shared mindset.
 Direction: Having a compelling direction will give teams the ability to have open
and honest communication.
 Strong Structure: High-performing teams have strong structures that include
members with a diverse balance of skills.
 Supportive Context: When companies provide reward, information, and training
systems.
 Shared Mindset: Diversity, distance, and digital communication requires an
attitude of “us versus them,” or a team versus individual efforts.

3. Second, Understanding. The book “Opening Doors to Teamwork Collaboration: 4 Keys
That Change Everything,” written by Katz and Frederick, adds to the idea that success depends
upon a set of core fundamentals. Katz and Miller propose four additional keys; “lean into
discomfort, listen as an ally, share your intent and intensity and share your street corner.”
 Lean into discomfort: Build a place of trust where opinions are shared, issues addressed,
and trust built.
 Listen as an ally: Allows a team the ability to understand, learn, and make connection one
with another.
 Share your intent: The way a team openly communicates with reason and purpose.
 Share your street corner: Value the people around you and their decisions, values, and
differences.
Third, prosocial motivation. “Making a Difference in the Teamwork: Linking Team
Prosocial Motivation to Team Processes and Effectiveness,” written by Hu and Liden, combine
their expertise in focusing on the importance of prosocial motivation. A team can accomplish
nothing without the motivation for success, but a great team can’t fulfil its potential without the
desire to make a contribution to an individual, society or team. Their study observed prosocial
motivation activities within team effectiveness, cooperation, sustainability, positive group
behavior and member turnover.
Fourth, psychological safety. Charles Duhigg wrote about Project Aristotle in the article,
“What Google learned on its Quest to Build the Perfect Team.” While successful groups vary
tremendously, the team made the conclusion on two factors that all successful teams shared:

4.  Equal participation of its members
 Equal levels of social sensitivity.
To have a successful team you must create a safe or “psychological safety” environment to help
teams make necessary changes and have equal level of participation
Fifth, in the article “Why Business Leaders are demanding Teamwork,” Gloria Larson,
the author explains, team work allows us to be creative, share new approaches, expand our
perspectives, and connect with people. We learn to understand one another, and understanding
brings safety. A place where open and honest communication lives.
All teams have the potential to have success. But they must be motivated, strive to
understand and learn from one another, build a safe place where open communication and
collaboration takes place, have participation from all team members, and finally all must have
the desire to improve and help themselves and others. If teams were to apply these principles in
the workplace, environments would be better, success would increase and teams would produce
productivity and unity always.

5. REFERENCES
Hu, J., & Liden, R. C. (2015). Making a Difference in the Teamwork: Linking Team Prosocial
Motivation to Team Processes and Effectiveness. Retrieved from:
http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.ldsbc.edu/.
Katz, J. H., & Miller, F. A. (2013) Opening Doors to Teamwork and Collaboration: The Four
Keys that Change Everything. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Retrieved from:
http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.ldsbc.edu/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook?sid=87187b8d-9c2e-
4838-8538-0a75d193cae8%40sessionmgr106&ppid=pp_Cover
Haas, M. & Mortensen, M. (2016, Jun) The Secrets of Gr eat Teamwork. Harvard Business
Review. 70-76. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2016/06/the-secrets-of-great-teamwork
Duhigg, C. (2016, February 25). What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect
Team. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine
Larson, G. (2016, May 19). Why business leaders are demanding teamwork. Huffington Post.
Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gloria-larson/why-business-leaders-are-
_b_10027558.html