the importance of the team work

1. TEAM stands for Together Everyone Achieves More
What is Teamwork?
Teamwork can be defined as the ability of team members to work together, communicate effectively,
anticipate and meet each other's demands, and inspire confidence, resulting in a coordinated collective
action. However, a clear and direct answer to the question ‘What is teamwork?’ has not been provided.
According to McIntyre and Salas (1995), teamwork is a critical component of team performance and
requires an explanation of how a team behaves. There are four key behavioral characteristics that
compose teamwork: (a) performance monitoring, (b) feedback, (c) closed-loop communication, and (d)
back-up behaviors.
The first requirement of teamwork is that team members monitor the performance of others while
carrying out their own task. Monitoring ensures that members are following procedures correctly and in
a timely manner, while also ensuring that operations are working as expected. Performance monitoring
is accepted as a norm in order to improve the performance of the team in addition to establishing a
trusting relationship between members.
Next as a follow-up activity to monitoring, feedback on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of
performance is passed along to members being monitored. Team members must feel at ease when
providing feedback for teamwork to be effective. No obstacles (i.e., rank, tenure) should stand between
members who are giving and receiving this vital information. Free-flowing feedback exists in the highest
level of teamwork.
Teamwork involves the effective communication between a sender and receiver. Closed-loop
communication describes the information exchange that occurs in successful communication. There is
a sequence of behaviors that is involved in closed-loop communication: (i) the message is initiated by
the sender; (ii) the message is accepted by the receiver and feedback is provided to indicate that it has
been received; (iii) the sender double-checks with the receiver to ensure that the intended message was
received. This type of communication is especially apparent in emergency situations.
Finally, back-up behaviors (i.e., the willingness, preparedness, and liking to back team members during
operations) are required for effective teamwork. Team members must be willing to help when they are
needed and must accept help when needed without feeling they are being perceived as weak. This
requires that members know the expectations of their jobs while also knowing the expectations of others
with whom they are interacting.
These four complex behavioral characteristics—performance monitoring, feedback, closed-loop
communication, and backing-up behaviors—are necessary for effective teamwork. A failure of one of
these aspects could result in ineffective team performance. Next, team training and four training
strategies will be defined.
The Nature of Effective Teamwork
Teamwork has traditionally been described in terms of classical systems theory, which posits that team
inputs, team processes and team outputs are arrayed over time. In particular, team inputs include the

2. characteristics of the task to be performed, the elements of the context in which work occurs and the
attitudes team members bring to a team situation. Team process constitutes the interaction and
coordination that is required among team members if the team is to achieve its specific goals. Team
outputs consist of the products that result from team performance (Hackman, 1987; Ilgen, 1999;
McGrath, 1984). Thus, teamwork per se occurs in the process phase, during which team members
interact and work together to produce team outputs. Finally, teamwork does not require team members
to work together permanently; it is sustained by a shared set of teamwork skills, not by permanent
assignments that carry over from day-to-day (Morey et al., 2002). However, simply installing a team
structure in an organization does not automatically result in effective teamwork. Effective team
performance requires team members' willingness to cooperate for a shared goal. Moreover, effective
teamwork depends on effective within-team communication and adequate organizational resources and
support. In short, teamwork requires team members to develop a shared awareness of one another's roles
and abilities. Without this awareness, serious but avoidable adverse outcomes may result from a series
of seemingly trivial errors that effective teamwork would have prevented.
Generally speaking, team competencies are the attributes team members need to engage successfully in
teamwork: As has been suggested, “…It is essential to understand the nature of competencies required
to function in a team as a means to define selection criteria, design and conduct training, and assess team
performance” (Guzzo & Shea, 1992). To explicate this understanding, Cannon-Bowers and colleagues
identified three types of competencies that are critical for effective teamwork: (1) teamwork-related
knowledge, (2) teamwork-related skills and (3) teamwork-related attitudes.
Teamwork
Teamwork is the bringing together of people who each contribute from complementary specialties. It is
a collective competency which gives to the players what they need to get the job done right. The needs
might be information, a service, or a product. A team or teams may be the security group or the security
group in tandem with various product suppliers and consultants. Team composition will vary according
to the mission, with each member contributing a different set of skills and abilities. Teamwork calls for
sustained leadership and goal orientation.
Transferable Skills
Teamwork is a key to success in helping researchers acquiring funds. Developing applications and
managing funds should be a collective journey. A good team should be put together based on
complementary competencies. Hence a typical team will consist of a leading researcher, a few research
partners inside and outside the host institution, a few PhDs and postdocs, and a research adviser and a
finance officer. Composing such a team you pick people based on what they are good at. Academic
personnel are of course experts in the scientific parts of the process, the research adviser and the financial
officer takes care of the administrative and economic part. Together they are dynamite.
Adjusting to Change

3. Teamwork is essential to managing change, and the CSO engenders it via the following:
•
Creating an atmosphere that encourages open discussion.
•
Persuading, listening, reflecting, and demonstrating flexibility.
•
Ensuring that the people who have accepted change-creating tasks possess the requisite
knowledge and skills.
•
Empowering people to act, giving them trust and encouragement, and supporting them
logistically.
•
Helping people improve performance of their change-creating tasks by affording developmental
opportunities.
•
Addressing conflicts fairly and openly and resolving them with integrity.
•
Allowing people to learn from their mistakes without fear of punishment.
Team confidence is a natural by-product of the constructive exchange of ideas and assurance that
conflicts can be raised and resolved fairly. High confidence and high morale are not by themselves
guarantors of good results, however. Success in managing change requires three attributes. First is the
ability to create a sense of teamwork and functionality. This involves helping team members do their
individual jobs well and in harmony with one another. It also means delegating authority to make task-
related decisions. A second attribute is the ability to create within the team a high expectation of service
delivery. Excellence is the sole criterion; good work is not good enough. Third is an ability to correctly
evaluate team performance. Note also that feedback from the team to the CSO is useful. Security officers,
for example, are superb conduits for obtaining evaluations from the users of security officer services.
“How are we doing?” is an easy-to-ask question that can produce valuable insights.
References