Communication styles and teamwork -1

 

The Secrets of Great Teamwork

Author: 

Martine Haas

 and 

Mark Mortensen

Teams today differ from teams in the past because they are significantly more diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic (with frequent changes in membership). Although teams face new challenges, their ability to work effectively together still depends on a fundamental set of skills.

Let's look more closely at how to foster an environment that enables diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic teams—or what we like to refer to as 4-D teams—to achieve high performance-

Compelling direction:

Every successful team is built on a vision that energizes, centers, and engages its members. Without explicit goals and a clear sense of what they are working toward, teams cannot be inspired. Those goals should be challenging (modest ones don’t motivate) but not so difficult that the team becomes dispirited.

Strong structure:

In addition, teams require the ideal composition and compositional balance of members, well-designed tasks and procedures, and standards that discourage negative dynamics and encourage positive ones.

Teams that perform well have a balance of abilities among their members. Each member of the team does not necessarily need to have exceptional technological and interpersonal skills, but both are necessary for the team as a whole. Teams can be more creative and avoid groupthink by embracing diversity in knowledge, views, and viewpoints as well as in age, gender, and race.

Supportive context:

The third prerequisite for successful teamwork is having the appropriate support. This entails preserving a system of rewards that encourages performance, a system of information that allows access to the data required for the job, a system of education that provides training, and last but not least, securing the physical resources necessary to complete the task, such as funding and technological support.

Shared Mindset:

As Hackman and his coworkers demonstrated, establishing the first three enabling conditions will pave the way for team success. But according to our study, modern teams demand more. They are particularly vulnerable to the issues of "us versus them" thinking and incomplete information because of distance, diversity, digital contact, and changing membership. Building a common mentality among team members is the answer to both problems, which team leaders can achieve by encouraging a shared identity and comprehension.

Evaluating Your Team:

The four enabling factors work together to create a recipe for creating a successful team from start. The four fundamentals can help you set the stage for your team's success even if you inherit an established one.

Conclusion and my personal views:

Although it has never been simple, teamwork has grown significantly more difficult in recent years. As teams become more global, virtual, and project-driven, the patterns that make it harder seem likely to persist. It can make all the difference to analyze your team's readiness for success and pinpoint areas that require improvement using a methodical strategy.

Link for this article: Haas, M., & Mortensen, M. (2023, March 28). The secrets of great teamwork. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved March 28, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2016/06/the-secrets-of-great-teamwork