How to Achieve Effective Teamwork: Key Elements and Tactics

In today’s corporate life reality, teamwork is one of the most important driving factors of a company's continuous development. Businesses that pay more attention to team building innovate faster, find better solutions to most problems, and attain higher productivity.

However, achieving effective teamwork is not as easy as it may seem. Any company includes people with different backgrounds, personality traits, and working styles, who sometimes may find it difficult to cooperate. So how do you create a positive in-house atmosphere and remarkable team spirit?

Read on to find out the key elements of good teamwork and a few actionable tactics that will help you build strong teams.

Key Elements of Effective Teamwork

Some may think key elements of effective teamwork consist merely of professional skills. In reality, psychological factors play no less of an important role than professional ones. The perfect combination of these two aspects will help you build a strong and goal-oriented team. 

Let’s dive deeper to define some essential features that form productive teamwork:

Competent leadership

High-performing teams take time to develop. They require cultivation from a team leader who sets the team values, goals, and code of ethics. Without competent leadership, employees remain coworkers and are less likely to achieve prominent goals. 

Respect of individuality

Respecting each other is the foundation of any successful team. In fact, this psychological factor helps to build a robust and healthy working environment, which in turn boosts overall productivity. 

Always remember that your employees are unique individuals, not robots who automatically perform tasks. Without psychological support and a personalized approach, sooner or later team members become demotivated, which significantly affects their achievements. 

Communication

Unclear objectives are the reason for project failure in 37% of cases. Setting clear, common goals and achieving them smoothly is only possible through effective lines of communication. Well-established means of group communication also develops the sense of belonging and unity which is fundamental for building a friendly and responsive team.

Ground rules for the team

As a team consists of people with different backgrounds, there are some ground rules that should be followed and respected. These rules may include simple directives like being punctual, meeting deadlines, or double-checking work before submitting it. It’s important to make sure the team commits to these ground rules both as a group and as individuals.  

Tactics for Improving Teamwork

Now that it’s clear what components strong teams consist of, let’s discuss some practical ways of improving team cooperation and results.

Perform team building activities on a regular basis

As a funny saying suggests, team building is a lot like dating: it can either be forced and awkward or natural and fun. Because no one wants to be forced to do anything, managers should create pleasant opportunities for team members to collaborate as often as possible. Team building activities can be organized both in and out of office spaces. 

For example, you can organize a corporate picnic with an entertainment show and/or conduct regular brainstorming sessions.

 
Boost productivity with smart time management

Difficulty with meeting deadlines is among the most common problems of teamwork and why projects fail. So what can be done to eliminate bottlenecks that prevent teams from delivering on time? 

One of the most effective tactics for improving time management is project progress tracking. This approach allows team leaders to check the status of tasks performed by team members and monitor their overall performance. 

Project progress tracking provides various benefits, including smart planning, improved collaborative work, in-depth project overview, and many more. The great news is you don’t have to track work time and manage tasks manually. With the use of specialized project progress tracking software offering features like task management reports, Gantt charts, and task lists, the process can be completely automated. 

Thus, progress tracking is one of the integral parts of a successful and effective workflow. Keeping an eye on tasks and timelines, you can see which parts of work need special attention or different time allocation. 

Motivate employees with a beneficial reward system

It’s not surprising that lack of motivation can negatively affect the work performance of employees. That is why managers should be on the lookout for those who go above and beyond their expectations to show dedication and love towards what they are doing. 

A study revealed that 70% of employees feel more motivated and better about themselves if their superiors are more grateful. Thus, great teamwork and prominent achievements should be recognized and formally rewarded. 

Note that the reward shouldn’t necessarily be monetary. A sincere thank you note or writing about an employee's achievements in the corporate news section will certainly raise their motivation and appreciation towards the company.

Summing Up

Strong and highly performing teams are the core driving force of any organization's success. But, the path to forming a vibrant team requires thorough and consistent work. Hopefully, this article provided you with some insightful tactics you can start applying today to make your teams more productive and improve their overall organizational efficiency.