3 Keys To Good Teamwork

Teams are how work gets done most of the time. In a knowledge work economy, up to 85% of an average employee’s time is spent in collaboration with other people-on one team or on multiple teams. And that makes effective collaboration and good teamwork a top tier skill. Whether you’re currently a leader or looking to become a leader, focusing on developing your teamwork skills-and the level of teamwork on your team-is one of the highest returns on effort you can experience.

In this article, we’ll outline 3 keys to good teamwork and offer a few practical ways to improve on each one.

Clarity

The first key to good teamwork is clarity. Teammates need a clear set of tasks and objectives, and also to be clear on the tasks others are focused on. They need to be able to depend on the team to deliver on commitments and be clear about how their deliverables fit into the larger whole. In addition, teams need clarity on each others knowledge, skills, abilities, strengths and weaknesses. They need to know who the subject matter expert is for any given task and who is still developing that skill in order to properly assign tasks…and to ask the right person for help from time to time.

There are a number of ways to establish clarity when beginning a project, but teams also need to be deliberate about maintaining clarity as the project…