Summary:
- What is meant by teamwork?
- Importance and benefits of teamwork for students
- How to build the best team working skills?
- What you can do as a team member?
Opening with a quote from Henry Ford, American industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”
True to these lines, it is a known fact that individually you are one drop, but together you are an ocean.
From something as big as running a country to something as small as doing a simple college project, teamwork is the main factor that determines the success of the goal.
Even a Prime Minister requires his council of ministers to deliberate on matters and make decisions. It takes a team to win a cricket match and a team of medical professionals to perform a surgery.
In all these cases, notice how it takes more than one person to achieve a goal. Team work can be defined as a group of people working together, efficiently and effectively to achieve a particular goal. It requires a harmonious partnership between people in order to perform.
Importance of Teamwork
The significance of teamwork can not be undermined. The importance of teamwork for students can be felt in every phase of life, be it school, college or in any organisation, because alone, little can be achieved, together, much can be achieved.
Importance of Teamwork in Schools
1. Converts Introverts Into Extroverts
A school is an educational institution where a multitude of personalities come together to learn. Each student comes from varied backgrounds.
Some may be extroverts while others may be timid and shy. Teamwork is about mixing the different personalities and allowing them to mingle.
Many times, students perform their best when they are surrounded with friends and peers. Students who are slightly weak in a particular subject may be able to get the perfect kind of help from friends in the team. Teamwork can help shy and reserved students to be more open and forthcoming.
2. Listening Skills Improves with Teamwork
In a team, listening to your team members becomes inevitable. Without hearing or listening to others in the team the whole process of partnership or team work breaks down and the team fails.
The idea behind working in a team is to improve communication skills. Listening is a core part of communication.
3. Teamwork Improves Productivity
One of the purpose and objectives of teamwork in schools is to increase productivity. Teamwork is one of the best ways to increase productivity in students.
There are typically three ways through which teamwork improves productivity
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Sharing Workload:
With all team members being a part of the project or assignment, there is no burden on one student.
Each student is given work that contributes to the main assignment thereby increasing productivity of each student.
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Shouldering Support
With all team members working together, students can easily seek help from other friends in the team whenever they have a doubt or problem. This quick access to solutions leads to increased productivity.
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Many Ideas
Another way teamwork increases productivity is thorough brainstorming sessions of the entire team.
When all the members brainstorm and share ideas for the solutions to the problem, it increases the productivity of all members of the team.
4. Conflict Resolution Solutions
Teamwork helps in conflict resolution. When two or more members in a team have a conflict of interest, the other members can play a vital role in arriving at a solution and cooling the heat of the conflict.
5. Teamwork Helps Vulnerable Students
One of the greatest advantages of teamwork for students is that it helps keep the distractions at bay. We all know that the teenage years are the most vulnerable.
With innumerable distractions, students’ attention can easily get diverted. However, with teamwork, students learn to work in groups, with less time to be alone and less time to get distracted.
6. Teamwork Allows You to Show Your Skills
A team is a group of people that come together to achieve a certain goal. In case of a school project, a group of students work together to complete a particular assignment.
Here, students can showcase what they are good at and contribute their talent or skill to the project. When great talents come together, the project is a sure success.
7. Ensures Timely Checks
The importance of teamwork for students lies in the fact that it acts as a check on procrastination. In a team, students have to work at the pace maintained by the entire team.
It gives no room for individual procrastination or laziness. Therefore, team work directly improves time management skills.
8. Teaches Students to Mingle and Socialise
When students work in a team, it is evident that they have to interact with each other in order to ensure the smooth completion of the project.
When students interact with each other it enhances their socialising skills.
Many times students do not interact with the teacher for various reasons like fear of admonition or because of the fear that may arise out of respect for the teacher.
In such cases, teamwork is the best way to help students overcome their fears.
As the team usually comprises friends and classmates, the fear of answering directly to a teacher does not exist. Students become more open to talk to their peers in their team.
9. Confidence Booster
One of the advantages of teamwork for students is that it boosts the self confidence of students. As mentioned above, some students will be able to open up better with team members rather than answer directly to authority.
Therefore, teamwork can be a confidence booster for some students. Teamwork paves the way for building self confidence amongst students.
10. Teamwork Creates Lasting Bonds
One of the greatest purposes and objectives of teamwork in schools is to build lasting bonds of friendship. This is where teamwork plays an important role.
For example, you join your college football team. You meet your team mates very often, for practice sessions and tournament visits.
You spend a lot of time together, off the field and on the field. The time you spend together with your teammates creates close ties and lasting bonds of friendship that can even go beyond the boundaries of the school campus.
11. Creative Minds at Work
Another benefit of teamwork is that it allows many creative minds to come together to churn out some of the most spectacular ideas.
According to Frans Johansson, author of the top business book The Medici Effect, stated that “when you step into an intersection of fields, disciplines, or cultures, you can combine existing concepts into a large number of extraordinary new ideas.
He defines the “intersection” as the point where established concepts meet, connect, clash, and combine, where remarkable innovations are created, and new, groundbreaking ideas emerge.”https://phoscreative.com/articles/the-medici-effect/
12. Problem Solving from Different Perspectives
When a team works together to solve a problem, you get different ideas from all the team members. Each member of the team may look at the problem from different angles and put forth their suggestions. This gives the team a wider perspective when it comes to problem solving.
13. Future Ready
Encouraging teamwork at the school level, prepares students for the future. We know, great things in business are never done by one person.They are done by a team of people.
Every organisation, company or industry runs because of the effort and collaboration of different departments in the organisation.
More so, every department within the company runs on the efforts of the entire team together. Therefore, learning how to work in a team at a school level, prepares students for the future.
How to Develop Teamwork Skills
Team Working skills is the ability to direct individual accomplishments towards organisational objectives. It is one of the most important skills because without the ability to work in a team, success is far away.
1. Commitment to A Group Effort Is What Makes a Team Work
Vallam Kali or the traditional boat race of kerala is one of the best examples of how teamwork helps to achieve success. The boat race involves different teams that compete with each other to win the race.
Here, synchronisation and coordination of all the oarsmen are put to test. The strength of the team is each individual member and the strength of each member is the team.
At the end, the team that shows the best harmony, synchrony and coordination will be declared the winner.
The best way of how to develop teamwork skills in students is to assign group projects, debates, role plays and discussions.
2. Sports
Apart from classroom activities, sports is another method of how to build teamwork skills in schools. Many sports events like football, cricket, basketball are all team based sporting activities.
3. Team Building Activity
Team building activities is another way of how to develop teamwork skills in students. Team building activities can take the form of games, ice breaking sessions and other similar activities.
What You Can Do as a Team Player
1. Understand Responsibilities
While in a team, it is best to set out the roles of each member. This way there will be no clash of interests. It is important that within a team, everyone understands their responsibilities. A team should never be a place where some students hide behind the work of other students.
2. Share Information
As a team, remember, the success of your project depends on the success of every member of your team. If you have any information that could benefit the work of another team member, you must share the information with your fellow team mates
3. Timely Submissions
As a team, you must remember that every member’s contribution is important. Keeping the time in mind, make your contributions worth while.
4. Be a Part of The Team
When you are part of the team, show that you are interested to be part of the team. Take active part in team activities. Show your enthusiasm to be part of the team.
5. Accept Credit as A Team and Not Individually
If credit has been given to the team for the goal achieved, be sure to accept the credit as a member of the team and not individually.
When the Indian cricket team wins a match, the captain accepts the trophy on behalf of the entire team because each member of the team has contributed to the achievement.
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” Micheal Jordan
Conclusion
“None of us are smarter than all of us.”