Teamwork Strategies: What Makes A Successful Team?

From school, to work, to family life, most people collaborate with others on a regular basis. Learning what makes a successful team, (and how to avoid common teamwork missteps), may improve your productivity, creativity, and mental health. 

What is teamwork? 

Teamwork is a process in which a group of people collaborate to reach a common goal. Great teams value the diverse perspectives of each member, which can help them solve problems efficiently and effectively. Oftentimes, teams can accomplish much more than each member could achieve on their own, hence the phrase, “teamwork makes the dream work.”

Common barriers to effective teamwork 

Although collaboration can be highly successful, there are some common barriers that can interfere with the effectiveness of teamwork. These include: 

• Lack of leadership: Without effective team leaders to provide guidelines and encourage collaboration, teams often find themselves experiencing a lack of motivation, purpose, or connection with their teammates.
• Mismatched personalities: When employers assign people to teams, they often focus solely on each member’s skills and background. However, teamwork researcher, Jeff LePine, Ph.D., suggests that employers should evaluate personalities, too. For example, a team may experience “equity issues” if the team leader is highly conscientious while one team member scores low in conscientiousness. 
• Not being nice: Surveys have found that the group’s average emotional intelligence is predictive of its effectiveness. Without mutual respect, harmful behaviors, such as name-calling or bullying, may develop. These behaviors can lead to toxic team dynamics, and lead to worker dissatisfaction, heightened stress, or resignation.
• Poor communication: A lack of clear communication is one of the most common problems that arise in team settings. Oftentimes, it leads to confusion, frustration, misunderstanding, resentment, or passive aggression.
• Lack of trust: Without some degree of mutual respect and camaraderie, group members may not reach their full creative potential. 
• Teams are too large: Smaller groups tend to collaborate better than larger groups. A small group allows more opportunities for trust building, and many people find that responsibilities are shared more equitably in small groups. Additionally, large groups can lead to a phenomenon called “groupthink,” which can lead to conflict avoidance and norm-oriented decision making. 
• Different goals: Shared goals are at the heart of teamwork. Without shared objectives, the team may experience confusion and frustration, or group members may feel pulled in different directions. 
• Roles, expectations, and accountability weren’t established: Without assigning roles, deadlines, and expectations, groups may experience equity issues, where some people do not contribute to the work and others do too much work. This may lead to things like resentment, resignation, or passive aggression. 

The barriers listed above commonly lead to feelings like resignation, avoidance, stress, and impatience. When people do not trust or feel comfortable within their team, it can lead to low productivity and a lack of creativity, making individual work seem like a more appealing alternative. 

Building a more effective team

With careful planning and communication, many teams can avoid the common collaboration challenges and reach their goals. The following strategies can help ensure your team’s success: 

• Games

Team building activities may seem silly to some, but they can help team members build trust and camaraderie. Consider starting an office book club, asking ice-breaker questions, or establishing a fantasy football league for the whole team. These team building exercises are sometimes reserved for in-person groups, but they are often valuable for virtual teams, too. 

• Assign roles and responsibilities

These roles may include things like team leader, editor, minute-keeper, organizer, or facilitator. Ideally, these roles should be established early in the collaborative process.  

• Establish communication guidelines

For serious discussions, teams may want to opt for in-person meetings, video calls, or phone calls to avoid potential miscommunication. For less important matters, team members may opt for emails or a messaging app. However your team meets to discuss tasks and objectives, be sure to set some rules and guidelines to ensure communication is effective and productive. 

• Set boundaries

Effective teams often establish guidelines for what days of the week and times they are available for non-urgent communication. Other boundaries might include how coworkers interact, a separation of personal and professional life, and what kinds of tasks may be assigned to each person. 

• Encourage sharing

Many successful teams allow each member to speak without interruption or immediate judgment. Team members may choose to use sticky notes, white boards, or other temporary mediums to encourage informal brainstorming. Or they may use a “talking stick” or similar objects to give each teammate time to talk without interruption. 

• Discuss goals

Sometimes, teams overlook the value of setting clear goals. However, setting goals together can limit the degree of competing interests that team members experience. 

• Understand each other

Team members may benefit from identifying and sharing their hard and soft skills. By learning more about each other’s strengths and weaknesses, responsibilities can be assigned more effectively. Teams may choose to use a simple template to define their strengths at the beginning of a meeting, such as this one from Harvard Business Review:

• I am at my best when ___.
• I am at my worst when ___. 
• You can count on me to ___.
• What I need from you is ___. 

After sharing, people should be given time to ask further questions or have a more in-depth conversation. 

• Ask for clarification

Different cultural, religious, experiences, and language backgrounds can sometimes lead to different interpretations. It’s often a good idea for team members to ask for clarification or try summarizing what each team member says to ensure statements are not misinterpreted. 

• Training

Most people aren’t taught communication and collaboration skills in school. By holding training events, companies can help their employees’ become experts in creating successful team environments. 

• Employer training

By supporting each employee, employers can positively affect whole teams, as happier employees often feel more supported, connected to their colleagues, and satisfied with their work environment.

Could therapy help?

People experiencing periods of low mental health, or mental disorders like depression, often experience symptoms such as avoidance, irritability, mood swings, lack of motivation, poor sleep quality, and low self-esteem. Some studies even show that having poor communication skills can harm mental health and the ability to collaborate with team members, leading many people to call for workplace communications training. Improving one person's mental health can cause a ripple effect that benefits the entire team. 

The benefits of online therapy for mental health support

Certain types of therapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), can help people learn healthy communication and coping skills, which can improve mental health and the ability to collaborate. However, many people do not have health insurance or cannot pay out-of-pocket costs for therapy. Online CBT can be a more accessible option, and a review of 373 peer-reviewed articles found that online CBT is often effective for mental disorders such as depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. 

Online platforms, like BetterHelp, offer online therapy from licensed therapists, many of whom specialize in addressing work-related conflict and communication challenges. People who are working full-time jobs, or who otherwise don’t have the time or energy to commute to therapy sessions, may find that online therapy is a better option.  

The benefits of a good team

Other benefits of teamwork include: 

• Heightened creativity: Team members who encourage each other can create an environment where everyone is willing to share ideas without the fear of failure. High performing businesses that value innovation often work to create an environment where failure is encouraged. According to Forbes contributor, Jacob Morgan, “failure is the best competitive advantage.”
• Opportunities for learning: When working as a group, teammates can learn new skills from each other. This may improve self-confidence, engagement, and workplace satisfaction. 
• Better mental health outcomes: Positive team experiences often lead to reduced stress and increased job satisfaction, compared with individuals who have negative experiences with their teammates.  
• Reduced risk of burnout: With individual work, each assignment and deadline depends on a single person, but teamwork enables greater flexibility. For example, if a member of the group is experiencing a stressful event in their personal life, other members of the group can provide emotional support or temporarily help with some of their workload. 

Though it can be difficult to build a strong team, the effort is often worth it.