Introduction

Teamwork in 21st century and in light of COVID-19 are completely different from those teams of
previous decade let a alone earlier centuries. Certainly, the team who built the pyramid had a
compelling different attributes than that who invented ZOOM meeting platform. Although, both
projects have been built by teams in definition , yet in nature they, the later is by far more diverse in
origin, dispersed in terms of geography, and of-course are more digitally enabled. Although teams
of today face several new challenges, yet the core of a team and team work remains the same; their
success is still dependent on a core foundation namely: group collaboration.

A common finding in the research literature that a team consists of two or more people, who
have a predefined definite roles, work interdependently, are flexible, and share a common
objective or goal (Baker, Day, & Salas, 2006). This team could be within a military organization
serving a country’s objective in the battle field, or it could within a health care facility serving
the common wellbeing of patients, in disregard of the served organization, yet the attributes
remains the same. Literature constantly draws that the out most important aspect of a team is its
focus toward a common objective with clear defined roles and responsibility (Baker, Day, &
Salas, 2006; Sanyal1 & Hisam, 2018; Harris & Harris, 1996; Scarnati, 2001). Teamwork as
defined by Scarnati (2001) “as a cooperative process that allows ordinary people to achieve
extraordinary results”. Not only extraordinary results are achieved with team work, but also
fewer mistakes are made within team work as compared to individual work. Harris & Harris
(1996) designate that a team must have a common goal which enables team members to develop
efficient and cooperative relationships to achieve the superior team goals. Successful teamwork
relies upon harmonizing members efforts to create an environment to nurture the willingness to
proactively contribute to deliver successfully the agreed goal. Team members must have the
ability to adopt a cooperative working environments to achieve goals collaboratively and
interdependently (Sanyal1 & Hisam, 2018).
Taskwork vs. Teamwork

Through the literature review it is crucial to distinguish between taskwork and teamwork.
Through the research within military and health care organizations reviews that “Taskwork is the
work that teams must do to complete a mission or assignment; (while a) teamwork, by contrast,
is the interrelated thoughts, feelings and behaviors of team members—comparable to the ABCs
—that enable them to work effectively together” (Weir, 2018). Teamwork is different from
taskwork, yet both are essentials for teams to be effective an efficient in a sturdy and complex
environments such as the emergency room or in a battel field. Having the knowledge of
performing a specific task is not enough to deliver the objective of the team, it is the ability to
speculate/anticipate what other members of the team need and support them in the right time,
adjust and quickly adapt to other team members needs in critical time, while have a shared
understanding of how a specific mission should be executed flawlessly (Baker, Day, & Salas,
2006). It is this 6th sense that gets to be developed within the right team setting and environment
that helps team members to foresee future obstacles or requirements and work on solving them
now.

KSAs and Defined Team Roles

The basic foundation for a team to work effectively together is that team members must possess
certain deliverables within three main categories (Baker, Day, & Salas, 2006) namely:
knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs), “the skill in monitoring each other's performance,
knowledge of their own and teammate's task responsibilities, and a positive disposition toward
working in a team”.

A clearly defined KSAs are must have pre-requisites for the establishment of successful team.
Yet with the development of the team comes the crystal clear, crisp identification of roles and
responsibility as an essentiality for harmonization among team members. The clearly defines
roles and responsibility is a generally agreed on requirement among several literatures for the
team members to effectively work together toward a unified goal ( Baker, Day, & Salas, 2006;
Haas & Mortensen, 2019; Sanyal1 & Hisam, 2018; Harris & Harris, 1996; Scarnati, 2001).
Typically the KSAs differ from one organization to another and from one team to another even
within the same organization. Yet a unified guideline among organizations and teams is the
clearly defined roles and responsibility of team members. Team members should have clarity on
what is their roles, what is expected from them within an expected time frame, how will their
contribution aid in the delivery of the project as whole.

Attributes of Effective Teamwork

This paper identifies a list of attributes that are considered essential for successful teamwork,
which was consolidated through a thorough review of the literature.

 All for one: Commitment of member to deliver team success and the outmost delivery of
shared goals. Team members should not only be committed but are also obliged to the
success of the team and the delivery of the team goal as a whole and not individually.
Successful teams are engaged, positive, motivated, and aim to achieve at superior results.
One person's spirit or mood can easily spread within a team, it is contagious. So it is
always best to recruit positive team members vs. pessimistic ones. Pessimistic/negative
spirit team member could spread negative vibes to the whole team. They can negatively
affect the way the whole team view its goals (Weir, 2018). It is best to identify them and
isolate them from the team. While on the other hand, individuals who value team work
tend to be both more positive and supportive in a team setting and as a result help the
team to have higher achievements.
 and one for all: Interdependence – members of the team need to establish a working
environment where it is clear that together they can deliver more than on individual basis.
A positive interdependent relationship between team environment will always bring out
the best of each member, enabling them as a team to achieve their defined goals with
astonishing results (Sanyal1 & Hisam, 2018). Paired with positive attitude and
acknowledgments, member of the team would promote and encourage their fellow
collogues within the team to achieve, learn and develop. The more the team delivers, the
more the team members skills and knowledge sharpens and further contribute better team
results. according to Sanyall & Hisam (2018) “the reason why an individual becomes
 more productive working on teams, is that he/she acquires or enhances the beneficial
occupational skills through unlimited learning, cooperating, and exchanging thoughts and
various experiences”
 Interpersonal and soft skills: transparent communication, to discuss openly with team
members issues and obstacles, to be honest and trustworthy, to be supportive and most
important show respect and commitment to the team and members of the team (Sanyal1
& Hisam, 2018). While those traits seem to be basic, yet in reality many team members
shy out of them in critical situations. Those traits are not only essential for the success of
the team as a whole, but also for the continuous learning process of the team members
and their development. Feedback and discussion are basic need for trouble shoot during
crisis, failing to listen or respecting the feedback process might lead to dissolving team an
might even end businesses. Open channel communication and positive feedback and
listening actively to team members’ concerns and respect their needs and in the same
time value their contribution for a smooth enabling working environment. All Team
members should be able to receive and give an authentic feedback and in the same time
deliver constructive criticism (as opposed to destructive feedback). Positive team spirit is
at highest importance level and should be maintained while giving and receiving
feedback from other team members.
 Enabling conditions: according to Haas & Mortensen (2019), a 4-D team that is “diverse,
dispersed, digital, dynamic” has a better performing results than teams that lacked those 4-
D. with the advancement of technology, internet, and globalization a 4-D is now easier to
build than decades ago. And accordingly teams that possess 4-D characteristic have
delivered superior results as compared to other teams. Appropriate team composition is
essential in the creation of an exceptional team. A team that consisted of a blend of
cosmopolitan and local members, diverse skills, engaging dynamic and digitally enabled
for a more robust results as compared to the traditional team composition (Haas &
Mortensen, 2019)
 Performance Evaluation: A performance appraisal is a systematic and periodic evaluation
process that evaluated team members performance and productivity as compared to
predefined set of criteria and organizational objectives (Sanyal1 & Hisam, 2018). This
technique provide a solid feedback which enables team members and team leaders to take
 corrective actions if needed. Haas & Mortensen (2019) propose to refer to J. Richard
Hackman, who is a pioneer researcher the field of organizational behavior who started
studying teams behavior in the 1970s, to evaluate team effectiveness which is based on 3
criteria namely; on three criteria: “output, collaborative ability, and members’ individual
development” according to Haas & Mortensen (2019) “the ideal approach combines
regular light-touch monitoring for preventive maintenance and less frequent but deeper.
checks when problems arise”. It is found that through the process of comparing
assessments of team members, the insights are generated that can help in closing gaps
(Haas & Mortensen, 2019).
 Reward and Recognition: According Sanyal1 & Hisam, (2018) recognition and rewards
are the primary drivers the team as a whole and the team members. Once team goals are
set and defined, teams work collaboratively to deliver this goal. Recognizing the delivery
of the team and their members improves the performance of the team and the moral of its
members. Reward and recognition can be intrinsic and/or extrinsic.

 Commitment to team processes, leadership & accountability: once a team leader is

identified, roles have been clearly designated, team members would need to be held
accountable for their contribution to the team and the project in a timely manner. They
need to be aware of team processes, best practice and new ideas. The effectiveness of
leadership is essential for team success. There should be no room for tolerate of
ambiguity and lack of structure (Harris & Harris, 1996). Work load needs to be divided
fairly. Leaders can drive enthusiasm within team members by ensuring that the team is
responsible for work from beginning to end and give team members enough space for
ownership (Haas & Mortensen, 2019).
Conclusion

Research and studies on team science revealed that team members that have a more diverse
collaboration “across organizational and geographic boundaries” in fact increases productivity
and have better superior results than a more conventional team structure (Weir, 2018). Yet with
challenges that is faced due to time zone difference, cultural difference, more research is needed
to identify the right parameters boundary-less team structure. Today researchers and scientists
are working to create a more algorithms based team build criteria to create a more effective and
harmonized team to deliver superior results. NASA, for example “are developing algorithms to
identify crew members suited to working together on long-distance space missions” (Weir,
2018). It is expected that such technique can help organizations to create the best team mix for
specific projects to deliver the desired results. “Teamwork has never been easy—but in recent
years it has become much more complex. And the trends that make it more difficult seem likely to
continue, as teams become increasingly global, virtual, and project-driven. Taking a systematic
approach to analyzing how well your team is set up to succeed—and identifying where
improvements are needed—can make all the difference” (Weir, 2018). A high-performing teams
is more than just a mere sum of the delivery of its member, it is the delivery of the whole. There
is a need to keep sharpening the algorithms, science, psychology drivers behind teams to better
make use of resources for a more robust team results. We are in an era that human race is being
attacked by micro-organism, now is the best time for the world to come together and work
collaboratively in a team manner to fight back this virus, and to deliver the superior result of
demolishing COVID-19.
 References

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