In January 2021, India created history at the Sydney Cricket Ground by drawing a match against Australia that everyone expected them to lose. The odds were stacked against the Indians. There was a long list of injuries during the tour that made key players miss most or all of the whole series. Moreover, the players had been away from home for almost half a year, and some were even dealing with a personal loss.
So when India came to the crease on Day 5 with 96/2 on the scoreboard and a huge target to chase, few believed the outcome could be anything other than a humiliating loss. This belief was strengthened when the captain Ajinkya Rahane quickly lost his wicket.
What followed, however, was a show of teamwork by the Indians that’ll go down in the history books. Rishabh Pant and Cheteshwar Pujara launched a stunning counter-attack against the Australian bowlers. When their wickets fell, Hanuma Vihari, who was playing with a hamstring injury, and Ravichandran Ashwin ensured they stayed at the crease for over three hours and played out more than 40 overs. India drew the match, but given the odds they overcame, it was no less than a full-fledged victory.
This triumph was possible because of the joint effort put in by the team. India’s performance on the final day of the Sydney Test highlights the importance of teamwork in a way few other instances can.
What Is Teamwork?
BusinessDictionary.com defines teamwork as “the process of working collaboratively with a group of people to achieve a goal.” Indeed, in present times, teamwork is needed more than ever to ensure success, be it in team sports or in business. The importance of teamwork in an organization can’t be over-emphasized; research has shown that efficient and smart collaboration between people enhances everything from productivity and engagement to creativity and communication. Knowing how to work successfully in a team is a crucial skill: it’s one among many skills that employers look for.
Now that we’ve established the importance of teamwork skills and the fact that businesses reap the benefits of teamwork, let’s look at some of the reasons behind why this happens.
10 Advantages of Teamwork
Henry Ford had once encapsulated the benefits of teamwork into a single sentence when he’d said, “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress and working together is success.” He emphasized the importance of teamwork in an organization in no uncertain terms. Indeed, there’s no denying that the success of an organization relies heavily on the value of teamwork. Let’s examine each advantage of teamwork closely.
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Efficiency
This is considered a key advantage of teamwork. When a team works in tandem like a well-oiled machine, it enables an efficient division of the work, resulting in speedier completion of the task. It also helps team members discover what each of them is good at so that the best person for each job is assigned correctly. The benefits of teamworking are higher productivity and profitability and well as lower cost.
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Accountability
As teams work toward a common goal, one of the benefits of teamwork is that co-workers remain accountable to one another. With the final outcome being dependent on everyone delivering their best work, group members get to hold one another to a high standard. If someone’s struggling, their teammates can help them get back on track.
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Brainstorming For Ideas
Another of the big benefits of teamworking is that it leads to a multitude of ideas. Having diverse perspectives presented during ideating and problem-solving processes results in faster innovation.
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Learning From Teammates
The importance of working in a group is most easily understood when one considers how much team members can learn from one another. Those who work together get to observe one another, learn new skills from the group and help smooth over any errors. The team’s overall performance is enhanced by the value of teamwork.
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Robust Relationships
Some of the most lasting friendships or professional relationships tend to be among people who’ve worked closely together. Collaboration is a major advantage of teamwork; it paves the way for forging robust relationships where everyone communicates openly. Team members can motivate and encourage one another to grow and do better while also being supportive if someone has a bad day at work.
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Inspiration For Growth
Having co-workers one can admire and look up to can inspire motivated employees to better themselves every step of the way. A company that recognizes these benefits of teamworking will encourage this zeal for excellence by offering the right avenues for growth within the organization.
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Happiness
It’s no secret that happy employees contribute greatly to the success of an organization; and a lot of this happiness stems from working in a supportive, collaborative and respectful environment. Surveys across industries have further proved the importance of working in a group if the dynamics of the group are healthy. A team of happy coworkers upholds the importance of teamwork.
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Sharing Workloads
An equitable sharing of responsibilities within a team is one of the biggest benefits of teamwork. Your teammates understand the challenges of the job as you’re all working together. The fair division of labor not only prevents burnout but also helps team members feel like they can manage their workloads. (https://flixtor2.to/)
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Creativity
Working together allows people to bounce ideas off each other and get feedback on which ideas would work for the organization. It’s one of the key benefits of teamwork. More importantly, it helps employees gain confidence in their own ideas. They can then speak up, as they’ve discussed the ideas with their team members already.
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Productivity And Recognition
The importance of teamwork is most evident when a team is productive. And while it feels great to get the boss’s appreciation for a job well done, there’s a special joy in garnering the respect of fellow team members. That’s one of the most underrated benefits of teamwork.
But with so many benefits of teamworking, is it possible for teamwork to have its disadvantages? Let’s find out.
Disadvantages Of Teamwork
Working in a team can apparently have its drawbacks as well, all of which could undermine the importance of teamwork. Let’s take a look at a few disadvantages of teamwork.
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Skewed Power Dynamics
Teams will always be made up of different types of people, some of whom might be more dominant and assertive than others. Such team members tend to take over group discussions. If this happens, others on the team might feel unheard or assume that their opinions and feedback are not valued. This situation might hinder camaraderie and cooperation, leading to decreased productivity and team morale.
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Unhealthy Competition
While teamwork should foster healthy competition, in several situations team members might feel the need to outdo one another, especially if growth opportunities within the organization are limited. To understand the anatomy of teams, business owners should find ways to provide adequate avenues for growth for their employees.
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Clashing Personalities
Unhealthy competition can often lead to personality clashes among team members. On paper, a team might comprise the right mix of people with their individual skill sets, but that doesn’t account for the possibility of opposing personality types. An inability to communicate properly or widely-differing work methods can cause team members to clash and view one another as competition, thereby puncturing team morale, damaging efficiency and hindering conflict resolution attempts.
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Delayed Project Timelines
Unless a team works efficiently, meeting project deadlines might become tough as teamwork involves a lot of coordination and organization. This can prove to be one of the biggest disadvantages of teamwork. Varying opinions within a team are important, but can sometimes make it harder to reach decisions on time. When project timelines get delayed in this manner, it results in extra costs and wasted company resources. The importance of teamwork is undeniable, but inaction while working on a deadline must be avoided.
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Laziness
The point of teamwork is an equitable share of the workload, but often there are people within a team who shirk responsibility and let their teammates do a bulk of the work. This breeds inefficiency and also leads to resentment among coworkers.
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Scheduling Challenges
Coordination within a team can become difficult, especially when it necessitates several meetings. Working with a team without having regular meetings is tough, but scheduling meetings while keeping everyone’s time constraints and needs in mind can pose an organizational challenge.
When all’s said and done, the importance of teamwork remains undeniable, and the key to making a team perform successfully lies in harnessing its advantages. Harappa’s Skillful Teamwork pathway is designed to help ambitious professionals become the best team players. With Thrive Skills such as Navigating Conflict, Being Empathetic and Growing Others, learners will gain the skills required to identify tense situations, resolve conflict and collaborate better. Under the guidance of a stellar faculty and with the help of frameworks like Conflict Resolution and The Two Lenses Of Trust, you’ll become instrumental in contributing to the success of a team regardless of roles and responsibilities. Sign up for the Skillful Teamwork pathway right away and become the team player who achieves excellence with their team members!