Don't define team work the way we do!
CONNECT2Win is the Blog about team effectiveness. It's for everyone who works with anyone. We define team work in the broadest strokes, focusing on helping team leaders and team members alike. That's not what your team should do!
To be effective, you'll want to define team work in a way that is narrow and more relevant to the work your team does. While universal best practices can guide you, they will fall flat it they are clinically applied.
Your team members and your team are unique. The way you define team work should be unique, too.
For some teams, "team work" means that everyone spends a lot of time together and interacts frequently. For other teams, "team work" means little interaction but a high degree of trust and clarity when it comes to hand offs. There is no one absolute "right" way to work together as a team.
That's why we wanted to provide a variety of examples from successful teams around the world. We collected stories and tips from people who have been a part of a strong team, people on all sorts of teams from all around the world. Within their stories, you'll find much more than the textbook ways to define team work.
Their stories come from Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, New Zealand, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Nepal, Nigeria, the U.K. and the U.S. They describe teams of young people and teams in retirement homes... teams in battle zones, teams on deadline, teams playing for high stakes, and teams working in to make the day-to-day grind easier for everyone.
While their locations and team compositions and fields of expertise are varied, their stories consistently demonstrate that success starts with the way you define team work.
Once you've found the right definition for your team, continued success comes from communicating and committing to your teams' shared definition. Clarity of objectives and focus on a common vision will get you through the rough spots and enable team members to support each other.
