Our 7 tips for working as a team (for real) and combining cohesion and efficiency!
Knowing how to work as part of a team is a must in any organisation: it's vital to the success of a project.
The challenges of teamwork are twofold: on the one hand, managing an organisation to ensure team productivity and the achievement of shared objectives; and on the other, ensuring the motivation of each member and cohesion within the team.
How can you work effectively in a team? Managers, this article reminds you of your role in creating a team dynamic, and above all, gives you the keys to building a united and motivated team to carry out your projects in a collaborative spirit.
What is teamwork? Definition
What is teamwork?
Teamwork is a way of working that relies on a group of individuals working together on a common project.
It is also known as collaborative working.
Knowing how to work in a team is an essential skill in today's companies, where project mode and collaboration, both between and within teams, are becoming the new norm.
Why is teamwork important? 5 advantages
- Go beyond the limits of a single person: no matter how qualified you are, you can never have all the knowledge and skills to carry out different tasks.
- Draw on the strengths of each team member: other members of your team can take over to do certain tasks better and faster, while you concentrate on what you do best.
- Take advantage of different personalities, and therefore different affinities: you're not comfortable with one type of task, but your colleague is? Review your task allocation so that everyone gets as much pleasure as possible from their work.
- Take the opportunity to co-create and innovate: are you reworking your communication strategy or looking to improve your product? Collective intelligence can help other team members come up with ideas you wouldn't have thought of! Listen to them.
- Sharing knowledge and skills: the complementary nature of the profiles within the same team helps the whole team, and ultimately the company, to progress. Sharing best practice, know-how or in-house training... the richness of a team's profiles will make your projects richer.
The role of the manager in ensuring team cohesion
Not all organisations are born with the ability to work effectively as part of a team, and the role of the manager or team leader plays a key role in making the team work.
It's up to managers to take on the role of " charismatic leader ", to inspire the team and instil a positive energy that will make employees want to get up every morning. It's also up to them - and this isn't always easy - to bring together profiles that are sometimes at odds with each other to ensure team cohesion.
The result: a close-knit, dynamic team fosters effective teamwork!
What are the qualities of a good manager?
- listening to your team
- trust and inspire confidence,
- knowing how to delegate and organise work in the best possible conditions,
- valuing team members, whether on the basis of their interpersonal skills or on the basis of a specific result,
- (challenge themselves to seek continuous improvement,
- leading by example.
How to work successfully in a team?
Communication and teamwork: the two go hand in hand
There can be no successful teamwork without communication. In fact, you can't have a team without communication! How can you capitalise on the strengths of teamwork if its members don't communicate?
In practical terms, good team communication requires :
- Fluid formal and informal communication: whether in writing, by email or in a collaborative messaging system for example, or orally during a spontaneous discussion, messages must always be conveyed clearly.
- An equal level of information for all stakeholders. As a manager, you are having a discussion with a member of your team about a new idea to be developed: inform your team at the right time, as this could enrich the debate.
- Well-run work meetings, i.e. where :
- team members listen to each other,
- everyone has their place and their voice,
- managers, or anyone else leading the meeting, guide the discussions to keep the focus on the subject while ensuring that the participants are in agreement,
- They know how to make decisions and reach a decision.
- Information retention abolished at all times: any information can be useful for the whole team. It may concern everyone to a different degree at a given moment, but it may be crucial a few months later. Don't leave anything to chance. What's more, your team will appreciate knowing that they are being considered.
Advice for managers:
- Communication should always be a two-way street: you need to pass on information, but also know how to listen and receive information.
- Never leave a question unanswered: a manager cannot be absent. Everyone is busy, but you have to be the pillar your team needs.
Advice for team members:
- Don't isolate yourself: dare to ask questions, even ask for help if necessary.
- You have a strong personality: do you have good ideas? Share them! But leave space for those who don't dare to take it by showing kindness and mutual support.
Opt for a clear team organisation
Who does what, when and for what purpose? The answers to these questions should be obvious to all team members. If any doubts remain, remove them by answering them and clarifying the organisation (organisation chart, process map, workload plan, etc.).
A few points to bear in mind :
- allocating roles within the team
- setting clear objectives,
- assigning tasks and taking responsibility for them.
💡 You can avoid unnecessary tension or scheduling conflicts by clarifying your organisation beforehand.
Focus on a team's strengths
As we saw above: a team is not made up of clones, but of profiles with different skills, and that is indeed its strength.
Adapt your organisation, and in particular the roles and division of tasks, by building on each person's strengths. This complementarity benefits all the members of the team: everyone learns from each other and gradually improves, which ultimately benefits the achievement of your projects.
Building mutual trust
Trust is the cornerstone of a team that works effectively together:
- mutual trust between the manager and his team,
- but also trust between team members.
How do you build this trust within the team?
- Identify and build on shared values.
- Be transparent and honest.
- Say things to move the team forward, but never be judgmental.
💡 Have you tried empowerment as a management technique, to prove your trust to your staff?
Avoiding conflict to maintain motivation
Conflict means minds polluted by negative ideas, stress, difficulty concentrating on a project... and therefore low motivation to work.
Even better than resolving conflicts, avoid them at the source of the problem by :
- listening,
- dialogue if a problem arises
- taking charge of the problem so as not to let the situation get worse,
- identifying risks and potential sources of conflict upstream.
💡 The manager's role is to offer solutions and help to the people concerned, and then to learn the lessons so that the problem does not recur.
Don't forget the right to make mistakes: a conflict can be caused by a mistake. Before penalising someone, understand the context and shed light on the situation that may have led to the mistake. You work with human resources!
Managers, acknowledge your own mistakes too. This is not a sign of "weakness", but rather of transparency and honesty towards your team, which fosters their trust.
Take employee well-being into account
More than just an HR trend, the well-being of your team is essential if they are to work effectively.
A person who is overworked, or facing personal difficulties, is not only unable to work in good conditions, but also runs the risk of demotivating the other members of the team:
- show indulgence and empathy: once again, open up the dialogue and look for solutions together,
- Apply the right to disconnect,
- seek and encourage a work-life balance.
Make the most of informal time
What better way to get to know each other in a different context than to get your head out of the game? Organise teambuilding activities to :
- reward the team for their hard work with an enjoyable activity,
- exchange ideas outside the workplace,
- generate new ideas in a new setting,
- boost your team's motivation and cohesion.
💡 Celebrate your victories as a team! Signing a major customer, exceeding your objectives for the month, customer satisfaction exceeding your expectations... All victories are good to take to motivate your team: don't take them for granted and give recognition.
How can you work effectively as a team?
So far you've received a plethora of advice on how to work together and stay motivated. Here are 5 solutions to improve working relationships in a team by encouraging communication and information sharing:
- InterStis: this collaborative web and mobile platform offers shared digital spaces to simplify task management and document management with all your collaborators (colleagues, external partners, etc.), with integrated chat, all with no user limits and in a secure manner.
- LastPass: this password manager enables employees to work as a team on different tools in an ultra-secure way. With LastPass, you can generate strong passwords and easily share access details for company software in a digital safe.
- SharePlace: this all-in-one tool based on artificial intelligence centralises document storage and versioning, project management, task planning and communication with instant messaging and videoconferencing.
- Talkspirit: this unified, easy-to-use collaborative space brings your teams together on a single platform, enabling them to converse by videoconference and chat, create, store and co-edit documents/spreadsheets/slides and manage collaborative tasks, while ensuring team cohesion.
- Wimi: this project management and collaborative working specialist simplifies communication and information sharing (documents, tasks, shared calendars, messaging) within your team, but also with external stakeholders thanks to free and unlimited guests on the tool.
💡 With teleworking and remote teams on the increase, equipping yourself with a tool like this seems even more essential if you want to remain competitive.
Working together to go further
"Alone we go faster, together we go further". Your company has everything to gain by encouraging and facilitating teamwork, in particular through the use of effective tools.
Put your trust in your team members, and give them value through empowerment: you'll see unparalleled commitment from your staff, and a quality improvement in the way your projects are carried out!
What techniques do you use to work effectively in a team?
Article translated from French