What Do You Lose When Teamwork Fails?
In my June post, I talked about how employees are tools for business sustainability. This month I want to emphasize the need for your employees to work as a TEAM for your business sustainability. By the way, the acronym TEAM means Together Everyone Achieves More.
Is teamwork that important, or is it just another buzzword? Well, sometimes, the best way to determine the actual value of something is to recognize what would happen if that value did not exist.
How many of you have experienced a failed team, if not in the workplace, maybe in school, in sports, in a religious circle, or in social circles?
Having a team of employees that work well together toward a common goal is a better option than having a group of employees who are often at odds with each other.
In the workplace, a failed team has the following consequences: forming of factions, battle lines are drawn, communication stops, and suspicion rises. Productivity and efficiency drop off sharply, and collaboration or innovation is next to impossible. The focus changes from work to what each person is up to and what your next move should be. The goal becomes individual survival instead of team success and achievement.
Am I writing the script of what is happening in your organization now or what happened before?
The following (CACTE) are what you lose when your employees fail to work as a team:
Courtesy: When teams fail, and factions rise, civility in the workplace takes a nosedive. Lack of mutual respect and sometimes outright hostility will end any productive communication.
A responsibility that is Shared: Because the team has failed or is failing, people no longer care about the shared responsibilities of the team, and they go into survival mode. Most times, their primary concern is to ensure that their duties are met and not the overall responsibilities of the team. Shared responsibilities are shelved or done begrudgingly and poorly.
Collective Vision: There cannot be a shared vision amongst employees. When the work environment becomes harmful due to either a failed or a failing team, a collective vision is the last thing employees want to consider. The focus herein is on survival and how to defend one's position, not on what the team together creates or can create. Putting together team members' contributions becomes challenging when there is no shared goal. Motivation also tends to drop.
Team Support: There will be no support or encouragement in an atmosphere lacking courtesy and a sense of shared responsibility. When teams face challenges, the team members tend to draw motivation from their teammates' care, support, and encouragement. But alas, when a team fails or is failing, individual members are left to face their challenges on their own and by themselves.
Employee Engagement: All these things are lost when a team fails to have something fundamental in common. They are all necessary for employee engagement. Research has shown that employee engagement impacts efficiency, productivity, and, therefore, the bottom line.
You would then agree that building a team takes time and effort. You do not expect a group of people from different backgrounds and ideologies to start working fluidly with each other, do you? Therefore, there is work for a team to be built.
Are you ready to build a TEAM amongst your employees? If you are, I have a secret sauce to give you today that would guide you in effectively making or working in a team. My secret sauce is called "TEAM SPIRIT."
Until I come your way again, work on the secret sauce I have provided for you.
References:
- Employee doesn’t work well in a team
- 10 Reasons Why Teamwork Fails
- What do you loose when teamwork fails?