All for one, one for all: 11 factors of successful teamwork

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Regardless of the industry and department: no company can do without teamwork. But what makes a good team? We have discovered the secret of successful teams for you.

In its list of the characteristics of effective teams, Stanford University calls an “informal, pleasant, relaxed” working atmosphere. Now it’s not about putting your feet up or sailing at half power. But: too much pressure and competition can damage teamwork. Every team member should feel that they are in good hands and involved, they should be able to express their ideas, worries and needs freely and also be open to the input of the other team members.

Mutual respect also includes basics such as punctuality, preparing for meetings or keeping deadlines. Even die-hard individualists have to accept these principles of successful teamwork so that they do not ultimately torpedo the work of the group.

2. Organization in a team – where do we want to go?

A successful team does not just run blindly. It should be clear to every team member what goal they are working towards – and where work begins. Which approach is followed to achieve the common goal, which methods and measures are used? The goal should be formulated “SMART”, ie specific, measurable, actively influenceable, realistic and timed.

The work organization itself is then expressed in clear project planning with milestones that provide orientation when working towards the big goal. This means that you can see at any time which progress you have already made and which section of the path the team is on. Sub-goals can help the team to focus in everyday life.

“I have nothing to do with that, that is not my area of ​​responsibility.” You won’t hear this sentence in really good teams. At least not if it was up to Keith Goudy, a graduate psychologist and business angel, who was his Shared observations from excellent teams with Fast Company. This is about the work ethic in the team: Does each individual member feel responsible for the overall success of the team? Or is it “colleague XY’s project”?

In a meeting, do people turn to their computers and smartphones while someone else is talking? Do more and more cameras stay switched off in virtual meetings? Then it is probably not that far away with the common commitment. In good teams, work sessions should be more like a common pot of money standing in the middle of the table. In such an atmosphere, says Goudy, the boundaries between individuals fall and loyalty to the team increases.

In an excellent team, the individual gears in the transmission mesh perfectly. Each team member takes on the assigned tasks for himself and tries to at least meet the expectations of the others – or even to exceed them.

Corporate coach Glenn Llopis emphasizes in his Articles for Forbes, that this may only be the case if individual employees do not even work in exactly the role that is assigned to them according to the job profile. Employees who remain technically pale may develop their full strengths in an interface position in the area of ​​communication and organization – as oil in the gears, so to speak. By paying attention to and responding to their individual skills, they too make the team as a whole more efficient.

Most teams are organized hierarchically in some form. That’s okay too, after all, someone has to be responsible for overarching organizational and control issues. But hierarchies have side effects: They direct the team members’ attention to questions of control and responsibility – the team members become individualists again, the common goal may take a back seat.

Stanford University recommends, for example, rotating the “team lead”: This makes it easier to keep the question “How do we get the work done?” In focus.

“The goals are considered meaningful and important by every member of the team.” This phrase is at the top of the characteristics of effective teams that Stanford University has created for its students.

Only when everyone works towards the same goal, with which they can identify, a feeling of togetherness and camaraderie arises. An enormously important factor in establishing a high work ethic in the team.

In successful teams there is no place for loneliness. As a rule, decisions are made together. If this is not useful or even possible, the team members will at least be informed about it in good time. The reason for this: The solo efforts of a colleague – and also a supervisor – can be perceived by team members as ignorant or patronizing if they are denied access to the basis of the decision-making process. In the worst case, the motivation of the individual and the productivity of the team suffer.

Psychologist Keith Goudy recommends that teams ask themselves the following questions: Do we communicate a lot – or once a quarter? Do we know how we can help each other? Does everyone have access to the information they need to do their job as effectively as possible? Are we communicating in such a way that the team as a whole can better achieve its goals?

Teams that work in a distributed manner should have a look at our articles on the most widely used tools for team communication and social enterprise solutions.

One does not always agree. However, simply ignoring upset or inconveniences or quickly overriding the “troublemaker” is not a goal-oriented approach. Because perhaps the contrary opinion is justified or directs attention to problems that need to be resolved. Teams in which discrepancies can be discussed discover and resolve problems more quickly that might otherwise only come to light much later. At the same time, they minimize the risk that individual team members “get out” because they no longer identify with the general direction of the group.

Very important: Conflicts should not only be talked about, they should be resolved in the best sense of the team. Should there actually be conflicts that cannot be resolved, the group has to come up with a modus operandi in which the discrepancies do not slow down the work in the team.

Like Lisa Mooney in her article about successful teamwork writes, diversity makes a work group stronger – if only because more suggestions and ideas are put on the table. Different perspectives cause disruption – and that in turn is a prerequisite for innovation.

The team members should not be afraid of questioning established structures and working procedures and of breaking new ground to encourage creativity. Because anyone who breaks out of the routine comes up with completely new ideas.

In order to develop further, you need feedback – a good feedback culture is therefore one of the factors of successful teamwork. Frequent and proactive feedback from the team leader not only helps to keep the team on the right course and avoid problems, but also helps every team member to continuously improve. The feedback doesn’t always have to be positive, but always constructive. In our article “The fine art of feedback: This is how you give your colleagues better feedback”, we examined how to give really helpful feedback.

Celebrating successes is also a type of feedback, but at the level of the entire team: Celebrating milestones or special achievements is a good team building measure. It promotes the personal bond between the team members, welds them together and once again swears by the common vision. As a result, the team is usually more motivated and is more likely to survive the next dry spell along the way. So: pop the corks more often!

What experiences have you done? What is particularly important for successful teamwork?

Last update of the article: August 27, 2021.

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