How valuable is a human life? Calculable or priceless? Using the example of hospitals and their employees, international studies have shown that “team-trained” teams can save up to 20 more lives per year compared to untrained teams. Communication culture, motivation, satisfaction and performance stimulate each other and improve (almost exclusively) together.
How are these factors in your company, optimally adjusted or “room for improvement”, as it is so nicely described? Motivation, loyalty to each other and to the company, satisfaction and performance awareness, cooperation instead of distance and avoidance – all factors that have a direct influence on success. Factors that can be adjusted very positively for the company through leadership, training and development.
Team or group – take the self-test
Many people in the company talk about teams and teamwork. But is teamwork really practiced? Are the employees who work together really a team? Most people talk about “team”, but “group” is practiced. What is the difference? Take the self-test and answer the following questions with “yes” or “no” in relation to your team:
- Do you have a jointly communicated goal?
- Are your roles and tasks clearly assigned and known to everyone?
- Is there a commitment to meetings and work processes?
- Does everyone actively contribute to solving the problem?
- Is there joint external responsibility for the result?
- Do you regularly give each other open and constructive feedback?
- Are you free from internal competition?
Every question that you have answered with “Yes” confirms you as a team. As soon as you have answered “no” to questions, your team’s valuable potential is lying idle. You are wasting resources here.
The following principles of successful teamwork are described in the book “Winner-Teams” by Bauer, Mikuta and Fiebinger. However, it is not only there, but in almost every other work on teamwork, that one repeatedly encounters these principles of successful teamwork, even if they are sometimes modified.
With these 10 tips, you can immediately optimize the success of your teamwork:
1. start accepting differences instead of demanding behavioral change.
We are reluctant to bend ourselves for others. And in fact, we can use the energy we would have to spend on this more sensibly. If I appreciate my counterpart, it is easier for me to accept them with their “quirks”. Let’s simply see differences as a quality rather than a problem. The advantage: everyone can be themselves. This relieves pressure and prevents conflicts. Mutual acceptance defines the winning team.
2. mutual acceptance arises from self-acceptance.
To be able to accept the other person for who they are, the first step is to be at peace with yourself. My tip: get to know your own strengths and weaknesses and accept them.
3. if you want to take on external responsibility, learn to take on personal responsibility.
Self-responsibility means being aware of your own thoughts and actions and taking full responsibility for them. We often take responsibility for others, make decisions and think we know what is good for others. But many people forget to take responsibility for themselves.
4. give recognition instead of criticism.
Begin to separate a person’s behavior from the person themselves. Evaluate the behavior and not the person themselves. Establish a culture that recognizes success and responds appropriately. Constructive criticism and highlighting positive things is more effective than neither criticism nor praise. Winning teams not only accept each other, but also give each other recognition.
5. trust instead of controlling.
Control is an immense time factor. When control is exchanged for trust, the following happens: The manager and the individual team member have more time to devote to their actual work in the company. As a rule, trust provides security in one’s own person, which in turn increases personal responsibility and thus also motivation.
6. do not avoid arguments but learn to conduct them constructively.
Development is part of every relationship and this is precisely what often makes relationships so challenging. Where development takes place, conflicts can also occur and arguments can arise. Reproaches, accusations and relationship breakdowns are possible consequences. To prevent this from happening in the first place, it is important to actively address disruptions so that the team can continue to work together constructively.
7. train your emotional intelligence.
Suppressed emotions can escalate to extremes and cause constant disruption. Effective work is hardly possible, unresolved conflicts and feelings get in the way of work. One solution is to find a way to deal with your own emotions. Emotional intelligence means recognizing your emotions, expressing them and regulating them with reason in order to be able to articulate them in a “reasonable” way.
8. misunderstandings as a cause of conflict.
Something has caused you to feel angry, for example. You have not expressed this anger, but have accumulated it internally. Perhaps you are offended, short tempered… a conflict has arisen. Anyone familiar with the sender-receiver model knows that the sender encodes their message through their own tonality, body language etc. and the receiver’s task is to decode the perceived information from the sender. Depending on how successfully the receiver solves this task, it can lead to a correct or incorrect result. It is not the sender but the receiver who determines what is received. If self-reflection becomes a habit, misunderstandings are almost impossible.
9. build up an emotional bond.
In an insecure team, decisions are often discussed, questioned and declared null and void shortly after they have been made. This costs time, energy and money. However, once the team has grown together through joint action and constant reflection, there is a climate of acceptance and open exchange. Concerns can be expressed freely and the fear of conflict is reduced. Team members question and openly discuss opinions and ideas. Decisions made are only really made in this way and every member of the team can stand behind them.
10. replace pressure with curiosity.
Learning and developing should be fun. Learning is fun when it comes from within ourselves. Pressure makes us learn half-heartedly, distracts us and prevents us from losing sight of the personal benefit behind learning. When developing a team, it is therefore important to always encourage the curiosity and thirst for discovery of each individual. This can be controlled by the type of team development measure, for example by using outdoor elements.
Breaking new ground
Teamwork is relationship work. Social skills are more important than ever when it comes to building relationships, as soft skills are one of the key elements on the path to successful teamwork, especially when working with other people. In addition to traditional team development, outdoor training with professional reflection and skillful transfer is the method of choice for training teamwork.
by Marco Plass, trainer at Lorenz-Seminare