Teamwork Definition and Importance
Teamwork can be defined as a coordinated sand cooperative effort on the part of a group of persons, who work together as a team for achieving a common goal. Effectiveness of teamwork happens, when the individual team members contributes towards harmonizing their works and efforts towards achieving the common goal of their team (Cheruvelil et al. 2014). Effectiveness of team performance is highly dependent on interaction of the team members across the team. Regular team meetings are highly essential for discussing the ongoing activities of their project, which can immediately resolve any issues occurred in the project. Furthermore, ethical and open communication among the team members also enhances their support for each other towards achieving team goals effectively (Hu and Liden 2015). Ethical communication also encourages the team members towards act honestly and fairly within their team for aching common team goal.
This study will review communication and teamwork for achieving overall team effectiveness. Moreover, this study will identify team communication as the best indicator for highly performing team. Moreover, the study will explore the relationship between communication and teamwork through the literature. Apart from that, the study will also demonstrate the linking among teamwork, communication and ethics. Furthermore, the study will explore the importance of ethics and communication on team effectiveness. The study will also demonstrate some evidence based strategies towards enhancing the effectiveness of teamwork. On the other hand, the study will also demonstrate the implication of teamwork for students of universities.
Teamwork is the process of working collaboratively with the group of people for achieving organizational goals. Teamwork is a crucial part for business success, as it often requires the colleagues to work together for getting their best in any circumstances. Teamwork fosters cooperation among the employees in which they also use their individual skills and provide constructive feedback despite of any personal confliction among them. Effectiveness of teamwork drives synergies among the team members, which encourage them towards better performance. However, some people feel quite comfortable to pay teamwork, but some other people often feel uneasy in working with team.
Communication plays an important aspect of teamwork, which enhances the bonding among the team members and drives them towards better team performance. According to Herdman, Yang and Arthur (2017), effective communication among the team members enhances the understanding of the team members for each other. A team member must understand his fellow members for recognizing his strength and weakness. In case of team leaders, they need to communicate the roles and responsibilities among their team members clearly for drive effective team performance. While considering the evidence from Coca Cola Amatil of Australia, it has been found that the leaders maintains transparent communication with the team members for clear communication of organizational goals, roles and responsibilities to the employees (Crawford and Lepine 2013). On the other hand, Fidalgo-Blanco et al. (2015) argued that poor communication leads to anxiety and stress among the team members. Lack of proper communication actually leads to misunderstanding among the team members.
Importance of Communication for Team Performance
Salas et al. (2015) pointed out that effective communication among the team members fosters shared value among them. Moreover, such collaborative team approach assists in bringing innovation through shared ideas of the team members. Furthermore, Drouin and Bourgault (2013) opined that effective communication fosters high level of team cohesion, which establishes the ground rules for the team and builds strong relationship among the team members. In case of team leaders, effective communication assists in identifying the strength and weakness of the team members. Therefore, the team leaders can better provide coaching and counseling session bases on the insights gained from effective communication with the team members. Apart from that, DeOrtentiis et al. (2013) opined that effective communication ensures that the team members are motivated though inputting their ideas. Moreover, effective communication network facilitates the team members towards flexibly sharing their issues with the team leaders. In this way, the issues within the team are resolved immediately through effective communication in the teamwork.
According to Rudawska and Szarek (2014), flexible communication provides enough freedom to the team members towards speaking about their issues and concerns. Such freedom enables the team members to feel worthy at their workplace. It enhances the value of the team members within their team, which in turn enhance the effectiveness of the team. On the other hand, Cha, Park and Lee (2014) opined that effective communication allows the team members towards discussing the things beyond their job areas. In this way, such effective communication builds strong bonding among the team members. Apart from that, strong bonding and communication among the team members increases the support for each other within the team members. While considering the evidence from Woolworths, it can be seen that strong bonding among the team members of the organization has increased their support for each other (Körner et al. 2015). Therefore, such members are highly capable of handling any kind of complex jobs with increased support.
Ethics in small group or team indicates the moral aspects of group interaction. Fay et al. (2015) opined that Ethical communication within team enhances the dignity and human worth of the team members by fostering fairness, truthfulness, personal integrity, responsibility and respect of each other. Ethical communication brings transparency in the interaction among the team member. In case of team leaders, ethical communication leads them towards demonstrating high level of accountability in terms of sharing organizational information. Moreover, Jaca et al. (2013) stated ethical communication encourages the team leaders towards sharing important organizational information among the team members transparently and without any biasness. In this way, the team members can better engage themselves organizational goals and contribute their efforts towards achieving those goals through enhanced team effectiveness. On the other hand, Warrick (2016) argued that lack of ethics in team communication leads to mistrust among the team members and even between the team members and team leaders. Therefore, the team having lack of suffers from confliction in the opinions among the team members, which can even leads to team conflicts.
Impact of Effective Communication on Team Cohesion
According to Körner et al. (2015), ethical communication endorses freedom of expression for the team members. Moreover, ethical communication provides enough freedom to the team members, which encourage them towards sharing their concerns and issues openly. In this way, the team members can get immediate resolution and value for their issues and concerns. Thus, ethical communication enhances the effectiveness of teamwork. Furthermore, Salas et al. (2015) opined that ethical communication promotes diversity in the team having diverse team members. In this extent, open and ethical communication among the team members assists them towards understanding diverse perspective of each other. Therefore, such ethical and open communication enhances the collaboration of diverse team members, which ultimately enhances the effectiveness of team. On the other hand, Chin (2015) opined that condemn communication degrades the humanity of individuals through intolerance, distortion, hatred, intimidation, coercion and violence. While considering the evidence from Wesfarmers, it can be found that the team leaders of the organization have promoted ethical communication among the team members across the global boundaries (Herdman, Yang and Arthur 2017). In this way, the team leaders of Wesfarmers have maintain effectiveness in the teamwork even across their global boundaries.
Rudawska and Szarek (2014) pointed out that ethical communication encourage the team members towards maintaining their authenticity with their job roles. Moreover, open and ethical communication enhance the trust level of the team members for which they are always encouraged towards supporting and helping each others for achieving the overall organizational goals effectiveness. Therefore, such ethical communication enhances the effectiveness of the teamwork. On the other hand, Warrick (2016) opined that unethical communication threatens the quality of communication among the team members, which consequently hamper their wellbeing.
Conclusion
While concluding the study, it can be said that teamwork can foster collaboration among the team members. Teamwork is highly important for also for the university students. Teamwork in the university classroom teaches the students to work collaboratively for achieving common goals. Moreover, teamwork can introduce variety of skills, which can be valuable for the university students later in their workplace. It can teach them the effective ways of communication, collective effort and compromise for achieving the overall organizational goals. Teamwork will also help the university students towards understanding the strength and weakness of each other, which can facilitate them in accomplishing any particular assigned task. It can also teach them the effective ways of resource allocation, communication skills and tie management. Apart from that, teamwork also teaches the university students to be honest and transparent in their communication with others in their team. In this way, the students learn to eliminate the conflicting interest among each other. It will make the student capable of working effectively in their future workplace. Furthermore, ethical communication in the teamwork teaches the university students to communicate with other openly. Therefore, they will be highly capable of building trusted team in their future workplace for achieving overall organizational goals.
Ethics in Team Communication
Teamwork can teach the university appreciation of diversity of ideas and evaluation of ideas based on merits. Moreover, the diversity of ideas will also enhance the effectiveness of their education. It will also encourage the students towards accepting diversity in the future workplace. Furthermore, teamwork also fosters cooperative learning among the university students. It can also help in higher academic achievements through deeper understanding of learned materials. The students can also learn about fulfillment of individual responsibilities within a group. Moreover, they learn to contribute in the group effectively, which enhances the group productivity of teamwork. The university students can also learn about making better decision through teamwork than the individual decision. They can learn to make decisions through enhanced critical analysis from different perspectives. Therefore, they often become successful in solving complex educational problems being within team.
Teamwork teaches the university students regarding the ways of working with outside people beyond the circle of their friends. They can learn to work with people from different backgrounds and experience. Therefore, I will always communicate with my team members in university openly. It will enhance my interaction with my teammates, which will enhance deeper understanding of my course materials and help me I achieving better grades. Apart from that, ethical communication among the team members also enhances the diverse educational knowledge of the university students. In this way, they will also gain practical knowledge, which will help in working at their workplace effectively in near future. Furthermore, open and cooperative learning also help the university students towards reducing huge educational burden through group learning. The trusted team members in student group can be support for each other towards helping each other in completing the educational task. In this way, Teamwork will help the university students towards getting success in their educational life as well as professional life in future.
References
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Cheruvelil, K.S., Soranno, P.A., Weathers, K.C., Hanson, P.C., Goring, S.J., Filstrup, C.T. and Read, E.K., 2014. Creating and maintaining high?performing collaborative research teams: the importance of diversity and interpersonal skills. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 12(1), pp.31-38.
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Crawford, E.R. and Lepine, J.A., 2013. A configural theory of team processes: Accounting for the structure of taskwork and teamwork. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), pp.32-48.
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