This is How You Encourage Teamwork in Your Organisation

You may have noticed that today's workplaces have become very intense. In fact, many businesses have co-opted a military acronym to describe it: VUCA, which stands for

• Volatility,
• Uncertainty,
• Complexity and
• Ambiguity.

Basically, it means that the working environment has become so problematic that people are struggling to find their place in it. With automation on the rise, people are fearing they will lose their job, now more than ever. These issues are injecting a lot of chaos into the workplace.

As a leader, you need to exercise more emotional intelligence and empathy as well as learning how to foster teamwork. The best teamwork happens when leaders fuse complementary skill sets in an environment of trust and respect.

Team-building: You're doing it wrong!

Team building is one of the most important (yet underrated) uses of emotional intelligence in the workplace. Business is a social act. To innovate and think creatively, people need access to collective energy and ideas.

Employees who feel disconnected and alone can't function at high capacity as their ability to think outside the box is impaired. But when they're a part of a healthy group, the work life is eased and empowered.

Though there are many employers that understand the importance of team-building, most prefer to take a temporary and unscientific approach that will only increase friction and division. The best collaboration often happens between people with vastly different perspectives who would rarely socialise outside of work.

The problem is, leaders always overvalue skills and undervalue motivations. They pair best employees with the lowest performers, thinking the top employees will lead and motivate low performers. The reality is top performers will end up demotivating the top employees. 

Truly great teamwork happens when motivations such as problem-solving, curiosity and empathy play off each other in a complementary way.

How to encourage smart team-building

1. Create a culture of trust

The problem with teamwork is that it always has this atmosphere of fear instead of trust, since employees are too afraid to share ideas thinking they'll be misunderstood or criticised.

Leaders should promote trust and encourage team members to openly share ideas and perspectives. One way to do this is by opening your workplace up to feedback. Create a system of structured feedback by asking your team to share something. 

Appreciate and listen to the feedback, be it positive or negative. This will encourage trustworthiness throughout the team.

2. Generate opportunities for team building

Don't make your employees work on ideas in isolation, plan collaboration sessions into their work schedules instead.

For every problem, think about how you could solve it through teamwork.

• Could you host a weekly brainstorm with different members of the team coming together to throw out ideas?

• Could you make the process social by alternating quiet work time with open Q&A time?

The best problem solvers solve problems by asking questions in a group setting. Create an atmosphere where this can happen.

3. Prioritise diversity

Leaders often group employees who seem to have something in common, be it background, skill level, or personality. 

Assembling more diverse, counterintuitive groups could actually lead to more productive collaboration. Diverse teams motivate each other to think independently and dive deeper into issues.

In today's uncertain environment, employees need all the help they can get from their leaders. Teams that let the chaos overcome their working relationships will suffer, but teams that stick together and learn how to collaborate will win. Their collective intelligence will boost performance and allow the individuals within the team to soar.

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