Teamwork: The Importance Of Team Work

Introduction

Teams don’t function without teamwork. The popular French expression ESPRIT DE CORPS AS define teamwork as defined by the Merriam Webster:” the common spirit existing in the members of a group and inspiring enthusiasm, devotion, and strong regard for the honor of the group. Team work involves collaboration, sharing a common goal and support. A team is comprised of diverse members who contribute different ideas and skills to the project making each of the member valuable to the team which in turn makes the project to be successful. This report will discuss and look into the importance of team development, effective training principles, stages in team development, communication in teams and lastly team learning.

Importance of Team

Teams have to go through several stages of development therefore it is necessary they realize their level of development as a team (Stein,n.d.).“The most commonly used framework for a team 's stages of development was developed in the mid-1960s by Bruce W. Tuckman, now a psychology professor at Ohio State University. Although many authors have written variations and enhancements to Tuckman 's work, his descriptions of Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing provide a useful framework for looking at your own team”. Talking about my personal experience last semester I had a PE group project regarding stress and anxiety, we started off introducing ourselves in group and planning our project how it will be and how will we work on it .However after a couple of meetings when we had known each other and started working conflict arose between 2 members of the group, each of them couldn’t understand each others point of view they wanted their idea to be used and were not ready to compensate therefore me and my other member had to step in and make them understand how each of them should listen to each other and we ended up with a solution that satisfied both. After the conflict ended things worked smoothly each of us understood each other well, worked hard and helped each other in order to make the project successful. Finally the time came when we presented our project, everything went quite well and we all did a splendid job and ended

Effective and clear communication in teams helps the members understand each other, their roles and what exactly needs to be done. Moreover effective communication is done through regular meetings and emails. Terry, 2013 claims that a team is the most effective when they are communicating. An effective communication helps quickens the task which aids in goal achievements. Effective Communicating in a team involves members listening and talking to each other and having deep discussions. Teams that lacks communication tends to have less trust and cooperation between each other which leads to conflicts (Levi,2001). Miscommunications do occur and sometimes they might lead to disasters as for example a member of the group not stating a very important key point of the project for the other individual hence in the end this causes might cause a loss to the company. Communication is a hard process and in some situations it might cause damages when not clearly done however it is not impossible. Communication is a key factor for the team’s and organizations success, an increased communication within a team brings overall success to the group.