Teamwork in The Workplace – The 7 Powerful Fundamentals

Teamwork in the workplace offers so much to businesses, organizations, corporations and yes to individuals too, yet it is the most underrated strategic skill used in today’s business world.
The big question is – why? 

This article will make the case for teamwork in the workplace while combining logic with emotional intelligence (EQ).

How can it be that the most valuable business strategy there is gets ignored by most leaders? It doesn’t make sense, but we live in times where not much makes sense.

A smart leader understands that it’s the “basics” that make sense.

He finds what they are and takes care of the most important business first, and that is to Create A Cohesive Team That Will Be Able To Discover and Maximize Every Opportunity Out There & Carry The Load of Change Together. 

Unfortunately, we live in a world where basic human values are ignored and in fact, are considered to be unimportant.

People often find themselves working in a hostile business environment with minimal levels of compassion, empathy, and care. Teamwork in the workplace cannot truly form, let alone, exist in such an environment.

Uniqueness

The truth is that every human being is extremely valuable, with a unique set of skills that can make a difference with their contribution if they are able to be who they are.

Real teamwork in the workplace and elsewhere is founded on that premise. And…don’t you, who read this article, know that you are unique and if only you were trusted and given the chance to show it…

Teamwork in the workplace is about embracing uniqueness and difference and getting them to work together without conflict. When we accept differences and uniqueness we naturally enter the big picture that tends to minimize problems.

This is the framework from which, we can begin to fathom why teamwork in the workplace is so underrated.

The Absence Of  Team Spirit

Unfortunately, when you look at where the human race is today you mostly see and feel the absence of team spirit within the family structure, schools, government institutions, organizations and companies, and, most importantly, between individuals, wherever they are, who isolate themselves from one another, experiencing the loneliness brought about by suspicion and lack of trust.

The point is, that with the absence of team spirit, the level of human-to-human energy, isolates rather than unites, while most people feel they are on their own needing to fend for themselves

With the so-called, “advance of technology” the business world is short-term biased, racing and focusing on quick profits, often, at the expense of that special team spirit.

The lack of team spirit in the workplace makes people not want to be there and that’s exactly what happens these days with many organizations that have no teamwork in the workplace.

The Presence Of Team Spirit

It’s not easy to explain what team spirit is but it can be easily felt. I’ll try.

It’s a kind of upbeat feeling that makes people smile, not take themselves too seriously, yet be utterly serious and professional about what they do. You can find an environment that is full of teasing and jokes and little personal dramas. It feels like everyone is in charge but without competition.

In such an environment you’ll be hard put to find who the leader is, as they will be happy to be part of the team spirit, which is greater than any leader.

You can’t miss it because you feel accepted and not judged even though you might not be part of that team, because team spirit does not exclude.

Its nature is inclusive and trusting. It is the bi-product of true and lasting teamwork.

Team spirit is easily detectable with children, where you can see them all together totally content to be imbued in what they do, with a sense of quiet satisfaction.

When there’s team spirit at play in the classroom, between teacher and students it’s a pure joy to watch. The level of retention and intelligence of the students grows exponentially and… they enjoy going to school.

I know of such a place in Israel in a place called Ma’ale Tzviya. Children love to go to school because the whole learning is predicated on team spirit. If you ever want to go visit that place reach out to me and I’ll guide you.

Team spirit is not only to do with teamwork in the workplace. It is the same everywhere. It’s evident in some families (unfortunately not too many) when there’s a sense of  “live and let live” at play. it can be seen between individuals who accept each other for who they are.

It can be found in sports teams and at times of crisis.

I remember both examples from my professional playing days in basketball and as a military officer.

I remember when we got it. When we got the point that it’s all about assists, moving the ball to find the open man,  and shouting in defense to help one another. It wasn’t about who scored more. That came naturally and usually had an even distribution.

I remember as a soldier I used to hitchhike which became the easiest thing to do when we were at times of crisis. You barely lifted your hand and a car would stop. Somehow the Big Picture encourages a team spirit

Team spirit is invitational. It makes people want to be there, happy to go to work or to school, and you see it in their eyes.

Fundamental #1 – Teamwork in the Workplace is a Long- Term Strategy

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There are so many seen and unseen benefits to this special human-togetherness we call teamwork that has now gone missing that it boggles the mind. Here are but a few…

• Teamwork offers an umbrella of protection to operate with safety – The huge positive impact it can have on any organization, in terms of the potency of energy, by giving people a second home and family (and many times first home and family).
• Teamwork offers a motivating environment – The happiness factor that accounts for so much emotional intelligence where empathy allows different people to be on the same path without exclusion, motivate each other and delight in the success of each other.
• Teamwork offers an environment of innovation and creativity – The creative spark that flickers brightly when people feel their back is covered and they can make the mistakes of exploration without impunity.
• Teamwork offers a sense of self-ownership and taking personal responsibility that naturally seems to be there when there’s team spirit at play.
• Teamwork offers the trust that energizes – Trust levels go way up and produce a work atmosphere that is healthy to be in, where the levels of personal excellence rise without limits.
  And, of course,
• Teamwork in the workplace provides productivity and effectiveness, which directly impacts the so-called, bottom line of financial profits.

Yes, teamwork, in the level of business, is the best, long-term business strategy there is, bar none….and for some reason, the vital impact it has is not understood, or avoided, so far.

The reality is that in most cases, HR and Leadership of organizations begrudgingly invest in teamwork in the workplace, more as a kind of reward to their workforce, and mostly never as strategic, critical thinking, long term strategic planning move, which is where team-building training belongs.

Fundamental #2 – Teamwork in The Workplace is Wrongly Underrated

The question that is begging to be asked is why? Why is teamwork in the workplace so underrated?

And the simple answer is, because the ability to build cohesive teams demands a high level of personal development from the leadership, particularly, in soft skills.

And unfortunately, most leaders are afraid to tackle soft skills because they feel they are weak in that department.

Instead, they try to solve the majority of their personnel issues with more technology, more hard skills, when, sometimes, all a leader needs to do is smile, or listen, or encourage.

It seems simple, but this often is eons away from leadership performance consciousness and expression.

So, if the leader has minimal human soft skills and believes mostly in what is called domain, technical, hard skills with a leadership style of command and control, and does not have the human touch or does not believe in the importance of emotional intelligence as a strategy, then team spirit will be suppressed.

If you want to be a successful and productive leader you must like and believe in people, otherwise, teamwork in the workplace will be non-existent and you will never know what you miss. And boy! You are missing a lot.

Touchy Feely

It is much easier to dismiss teamwork by adapting the very wrong perception that it’s a “touchy-feely” thing than actually come to terms with its real meaning, importance, and value.

Teamwork is A Strategy, par excellence, far from being a touchy-feely item to be used as an occasional bonus.

From my vast training experience, I would surmise that for many people in leadership positions the prospect of taking teamwork seriously is often threatening to them.

They would then need to face their weaknesses and don’t usually have the courage to demonstrate their vulnerability.

Being that the first pre-requisite to teamwork is the courage of the leader to demonstrate that they are vulnerable and are only human, and not sitting on the “throne” of ego superiority, you may begin to understand why something that seems so natural to apply is so absent.

Many leaders, often, put it on the backburner with budget excuses or delay tactics under the mantle of  ” I just don’t have time for such touchy-feely things” and with these words, one can hear the sound of many doors of opportunities shutting all over the place.

Fundamental #3 – Teamwork in the Workplace & The Role of Leadership 

It always starts with the leader, who should only ever Lead By Example.

How could there be teamwork in the workplace if the leader doesn’t believe in it, acts it, insists on it & demonstrates it in every opportunity?

A group of people working together is not a Team.

A team is an elevated level of a group of people working in the same place, energized and infused by its leadership with extra energy.

It can be likened to the difference between transmitting 10 watts of electrical power to a thousand watts. The positive difference that the leadership can have on a team is huge and shows in every business parameter.

If the leader likes people (why lead others if you don’t like people), believes in people’s ability to progress, understands the vast power of positive thinking and practices it,  invests in soft skills training for their workforce, well then, teamwork will have a home.

The leader’s job is to help put in the foundations for such a home and facilitate the success of their reports.

This will have a huge positive impact on that organization. It will create many more possibilities rather than just having a group of people working together, in a perfunctory level minus a team spirit.

It is the job of the leader to decide once and for all not to fall to the temptation of the old, obsolete style of leadership of Command and Control and thinking they are better than others.

Basically, if leaders want to build a cohesive team around them they will need to let go of fear tactics of all kinds.

very importantly, they need to have the humbleness to ask for help which, happens to be a substantial obstacle for many leaders who are afraid to ask, in case they are perceived to be incompetent.

The help I am referring to is the kind of leadership training that will show them what it really means “to lead by example”.

Lead By Example

Be an example of strong leadership that is not afraid to show vulnerability, sensitivity, and empathy, which are key parameters of EQ. (Yes, this is a strength, not a weakness)

Become an example of communicating, encouraging, thinking positively, thinking strategically, building trust, appreciating and valuing people and their unique input without feeling threatened by their success.

I have always maintained that if a leader acquires the skills that it takes to build a cohesive team than they will have all the skills they need to succeed as a leader, especially in these tough times.

Fundamental #4 – Teamwork & Creativity – Business Evolution Depends on Teamwork

Looking at how and what teamwork in the workplace offers, it is inescapable to not see how teamwork provides an opportunity for creativity.

When there’s healthy cohesive teamwork in an organization, creativity and opportunities abound, which are the spice of evolution and advancement.

The reason is obvious. When people operate within a space that they feel at home and can trust, they will be more creative.

They often reciprocate with extra of their own, which turns up as being creative, finding new ways to do things better, making the extra effort, which is exactly what taking ownership is all about.

This will open the door to many hidden opportunities that suddenly appear like wildflowers on a spring day. It’s the kind of thing that you suddenly see and you wonder why you didn’t see it before.

I am often asked to help organizations become more creative and for their workforce to take more ownership. The first place I look at is their attitude about mistakes.

Well, here is your answer.

Teamwork in the workplace enables creativity:

A teamwork environment must have room for mistakes, as mistakes need to be thought of as a tool for discovery, innovation, creativity and new learning.

Not as a tool of punishment…and that is because we are not perfect, and we need the freedom to experiment with things. (Remember Edison’s light bulb invention?)

The prerequisite to creativity is an emotionally intelligent business environment that provides space for mistakes with trust, tolerance, and encouragement. There is no doubt that teamwork in the workplace offers and brings the genius out of people.

Teamwork in the workplace harnesses the collective intelligence of the team members, out of which, appears a new crop of ideas and many new opportunities.

It is staggering to note that 90% of all business opportunities never see the light of day because they are hidden in the darkness of fear.

Here is a major truth: No one knows what they miss until they put in the effort and get it. Haven’t you had occasions when you got a huge result of doing something you could have easily missed out on?

On an organizational level, the proposition of teambuilding is one of those things that when they are taken up as a long-term strategy, you literally hear the sighs of relief that come out of the leadership strata when they realize what could have been missed had they not done it.

Point to Remember: Opportunities often hide in the open seen by the light of the freedom to think and be.

Fundamental $5 – The Evidence Of Nature

Believe it or not, teamwork is not a human invention, and is not solely reserved for the workplace!

Just look around you. If you look at nature with creative eyes, with teamwork in mind, you can see it everywhere. there are millions of example, here are but a few:

You have seen ants at work, haven’t you? You probably have wondered where do they get the intensity and intelligence to be all so purpose-focused and work together as if guided by some unseen intelligence.

And what about the witness we bear to birds migration where they somehow know to fly in a V formation?When you observe you will see that there seems to be an unseen order of who will lead the formation to break the wind. You must have seen how the leading bird often changes ranks and wondered how do they know?

Another example…the great teamwork in a beehive, how they all team up together in a seemingly pre-agreed-to order to pollinate flowers and make honey. You can see where the order of who-does-what is amazingly exact!…and they never went to Bee University.

Still deeper, the great cooperation between the Sun, Earth, and Water working together in harmony to allow us humans, to eat and have the conditions to survive here. That’s teamwork on another level.

Teamwork is in our DNA. It can be seen in children, who are much closer to being natural than adults.

Have you watched how when children play it all flows until some psychology of gain and loss and competition that was introduced by adults interferes and causes a conflict?

You can also see it at times of crisis. I remember once when visiting London and a homeless man fell and cracked his head on the sidewalk. Within a moment 12 people, who never met before, formed a team, myself included, all operating effectively and in harmony to save that stranger. It’s there…

As was mentioned before, In my own life experience as a military officer, teamwork was at the very core of every operation without which, safety would have been greatly compromised.

It wasn’t a matter of If or But…you live and die by it!

Fundamental #6 –  The Psychology That Takes Away From Teamwork

A more in-depth “dig” into what teamwork in the workplace offers must be explored if we are to truly understand its importance.

We are born into a world that seems intent to improve upon the workings of God by putting pressure on everything natural in the name of “so-called” progression, mass production, and success.

That is one hell of a costly success that may achieve financial gains but leaves many people mentally, emotionally and physically depleted and stressed.

Ant that is because it drives people away from being themselves and interferes with them with outside influences which, shapes their psychology to a point where they have no idea who they are anymore.

For example, if a child has been dominated by his parent’s psychology to think they are not good enough they will spend a huge amount of energy FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIFE to either prove they are good enough or deal with believing they are not good enough.

Either way, the genius of that life has been covered by a mountain of psychology, irrelevant, time-wasting, life wasting, vital energy consuming, displaced from who they really are.

Now, multiply this case by billions of people and realize that most people live inside a harsh reality of their own, inside a cocoon, isolated and blinded from their true worth and the true worth of people around them.

Teamwork, you say? (or I say) How do you do that when you consider the above?

Well, amazingly, it can be done…

There is a way…

And that way is: By allowing the team spirit to permeate everything in the workplace. To consciously build an environment that says NO to backbiting, suspicion, and distrust.

The main, most important aspect is to use every opportunity to build trust because trust is where it all begins.

Help

You need help, otherwise, you would have done it by now…

You need help from someone who is an experienced professional in building teams and showing others what they need to do to make it stick.

Someone who built teams, who understands people and their difficulties, who has dealt with all of the above within their own life, and came out ahead.

Someone who knows what it means to truly build cohesive teams in a way that can withstand the challenges of separation and isolation and the constant pressure, threat and competition which are the very agents that separate and isolate people.

Someone who, when they speak to people, the words they speak carry the energy that can help people make the changes that eventually open them up to the true meaning of a team.

Someone who has taken their life experience and translated it to a common-sense strategy of teamwork in the workplace that can be put to practice step by step.

Knowing to ask for help is the Key!

Fundamental #7 – The Magnet Principle

Here is a simple lesson in physics to convey an empowering life lesson of what teamwork in the workplace can offer.

A magnet is, in a way, a powerful metal that can attract weaker metals.

How is a powerful metal created?

By running through it a strong current of electricity which affects its molecules and aligns them “in order” to point in the same direction.

When the molecules are pointing in the same direction, which is “unity in molecules” the metal is empowered and can attract weaker metals that have their molecules in disarray. the order is the power.

What does that have to do with teamwork?

Well, if humans are molecules within a group of people and you put an order in that arrangement they become united and thus empowered. (they become “magnetized” to a purpose).

What’s that order for humans?

Well, a situation that has a purpose greater than all of them, that they can all agree with and can rally around, and therefore be unified, pointing in the same direction, rather than pulling to all directions and weakening each other. With it comes a step by step strategy that they can always attend to.

So when people have a purpose that they agreed to, that they can rally around, trust, commit, become accountable for and weigh in…well then, you have a united team which is magnetized to a purpose.

Does it take work? Sure…winning trust, after it has been broken so many times, takes some doing and it ain’t easy…but, it is doable and so well worth it.

Sure, your organization will make more money as a result of having successful teamwork in the workplace, but that shouldn’t be your only motivation.

More importantly, what you will have created with the presence of teamwork in the workplace is a business that will last and grow and meet the pressures of these changing times head-on.

In a nutshell, what teamwork in the workplace offers is to provide you the ability to create a happy working place and it is amazing what happy people can do and accomplish when “magnetized”!

Finally

There’s no FINALLY, just Do It and yours shall be the rewards.

I am here for you if your intention is true!

Eli Harari

The Life Coach for Professionals™