Teamwork: All Eight Oars In At The Perfect Time

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships,” said Michael Jordan. Those words, spoken by a six time NBA champion and one of the sports world’s top superstars, apply not only to sports teams, but to almost every endeavor in life.

Winning teams may have at least one superstar on its roster, but how many championship teams are composed of nothing but superstars? Not many, if any, at all. What they all do possess is an organization built on talented players, working as a single unit, executing a well designed plan.

A perfect example of this winning combination is found in the 2013 nonfiction book, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Brown tells the story about the University of Washington 8-oared crew that represented the United States in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, which narrowly beat out Italy and Germany to win the Gold Medal. During the 1930s, rowing was a popular sport with millions following the action on the radio. These victorious Olympians became our national heroes.

All 9 members of the Washington team were from lower middle class families and they had to struggle to earn their way through school during the depths of the Depression. Along with the chronicle of their victories and defeats in domestic competition the reader learns the importance of synchronization of the 8 rowers as they respond to the commands of the coxswain and his communications with the stroke, consistent pacing, and sprint to the finish, which left all team members completely exhausted and in pain at the end of a competitive race.

That same formula can be and should be applied to any business that is interested in attaining maximum success. Each element is essential and cannot be excluded or victory will slip away.

Building Teamwork is an Integral Process of Building a Business

Every business, regardless of size, needs a plan of attack to achieve its goals. Creating sound business strategies entails developing goals, objectives, strategies and tactics. Plans can be developed for short term or longer term objectives. Regardless, having a cohesive plan is vital for success.

Determining and setting specific goals, that is, specifying desired end points, gives a business manager the opportunity to create the necessary course of actions that the company takes to achieve these goals. So, for instance, the goal might be to ‘increase market share,’ or to ‘improve customer satisfaction.’

An analysis must be made of strengths and weaknesses, which are internal resources, and of opportunities and threats, which are external, giving managers measurable data to help prioritize what areas to focus upon.

Objectives Make a Plan Accountable

Objectives are the measurable element of a strategy. Objectives indicate, specifically, what outcomes are desired. While goals set a broad direction (i.e. ‘increase market share’), objectives provide the accountability, which ensures that the team knows when it has achieved success. An objective related to ‘increase market share’ might be: grow market share in XYZ city by 25 percent among women age 25-55 by the end of the year. That’s an objective that the entire team can agree upon.

The ‘How’ and ‘What’ of a Plan

Strategies and tactics indicate how and what a company will do to achieve its goals and objectives. Strategies provide general guidance, such as engage in social media activities, while tactics outline specific tasks that will be done, such as set up Facebook business page, set up Twitter account. Ultimately, all of the strategies and tactics work together for planning success.

Businesses needs teamwork to survive. Businesses have found that the key to successfully completing and accomplishing projects is often through the development of teams. Whereas in the past, teamwork was used only for special projects, now it is often the norm. Teamwork has become an essential element for the success and survival of a business.

Reward Collaboration to Build Effective Teams

True collaboration, however, is a problem that plagues companies when trying to develop a teamwork environment. It becomes a problem because individuality is too often rewarded more often than team participation. Managers must be able to develop ways for associates to grow and develop as a team. Team building is not always the easiest task to accomplish, but effective teams can be built.

Think of team building as something you do every single day.

Provide training in systematic methods, so that the team expends its energy on the project, not on figuring out how to work together as a team to approach it.

Hold department meetings to review projects and progress, to obtain broad input, and to coordinate shared work processes. Team members must agree upon how they will deliver a product or a service or the steps required to get something done.

Build fun and shared occasions into the organization’s agenda.

Celebrate team successes publicly. A job well done, the successful achievement of a major goal, the passing a crucial milestone are all reasons to celebrate and to publicly acknowledge each individual who contributed to that success will help enlist these same people for all other goals.

Championships of any sort are hard to win. In business, they are a won by team effort with each employee, from the top executive down to the bottom, doing his share in total concert to achieve a common goal.