THE VALUE OF TEAMWORK

By Janice Mayo | November, 2007

“As a team and workplace specialist, I believe teams are at the heart of every successful
organization. If you think about today’s workplace, everyone is working in some form of a team
whether it’s a team of two or twenty. It could be a sales team, global team, admin team,
engineering team, leadership team or project team. The bottom line is that an organization
succeeds when teamwork is at its best.” Says Jessica Gaines, Business Committee for the Arts
Coordinator, Americans for the Arts. She shared a great example of a company who takes
teamwork to a complete other level. ShoreTel, a Sunnyvale, CA-based global telecommunications
vendor, organized and presented a Battle of the Bands for its employees. They put together the
bands that competed, funded music lessons to ensure they were prepared to perform, and even
provided music rooms where employees could rock out at the office. It is unnecessary to say, it
was a great hit, joke intended, and cleverly integrated a form of art into the team-building activity.
That’s thinking way outside the box.

If you don’t want to go that far out of the box, then at the very least, be sure your team has a clear
mission and goals that each team member buys into so that they have more interest in the overall
success of the team. Also, introduce some fun activities along the way to provide opportunities for
team members to build trust and stronger working relationships which makes it easier to solve
future challenges.

Effective teamwork is good for business. Stronger relationships between team members, greater
job satisfaction, energized employees and a more engaged workforce are just a few of the
benefits. The accumulation of good talent is what produces great team results. If team members
meet their goals, everyone will win. I’ve seen this first-hand, if team members are having fun, are
more aware, control their strengths, and are focused on team results; they will ultimately create a
continuous positive impact. This leads to a culture of high performance, greater well-being and
happy customers inside and outside the organization.

Companies who value teamwork understand that their organizational success is related to how
well their team members work collaboratively to achieve the overall goals. Producing excellent
results and delivering value to your customers is what energizes your company culture. So, what
can you do to stimulate your team?