Think teamwork *just happens* when you put people into a group? There’s a little more to it than that.
Solid teamwork feels like lightning in a bottle. There are those times when things just click, team members jive, and making progress together feels almost effortless (and even enjoyable).
But predictably and routinely achieving that level of synergy? That’s a little more complicated.
Fortunately, familiarizing yourself with must-have skills and teamwork examples can help you identify the building blocks of effective collaboration and transform that magical teamwork-makes-the-dream-work feeling from elusive to routine.
Teamwork example #1: Team alignment
Research shows that higher levels of organizational alignment lead to better performance and an edge over competitors. But what does alignment actually mean? Every team member must agree on:
- Goals: What objective is the team working toward?
- Roles: Who is responsible for what?
- Success metrics: How will you know when you’ve reached your goal?
- Timeline: What is the deadline for achieving your goal?
NASA’s 1969 moon landing is one of the most notable examples of this teamwork principle in action. More than 400,000 engineers, technicians, and scientists were involved in that successful mission – and they all stayed intensely focused on their shared goal and their contributions.
Put it into practice on your team
- Set specific shared goals for your entire team using a goal-setting framework (more on that in the next section).
- Run the Roles and Responsibilities play to clarify who does what on your team.
- Dedicate a portion of your team meetings to checking in on goal progress, addressing confusion, and removing roadblocks.
Teamwork example #2: Goal-setting
Look back at the 1969 moon landing and you’ll see that it all started when President John F. Kennedy stated an audacious goal: “This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out. Of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”
You might think your team’s objectives are common knowledge, but many employees lack clarity into what their team is working toward and how their contributions support that vision. According to recent Gallup research, only 47% of employees strongly agree they know what is expected of them at work.
Setting specific goals – both at a team and individual level – can help. Research shows that setting clear goals improves team performance and also helps people feel more connected to the organization.
Put it into practice on your team
- Use objectives and key results (OKRs) or the SMART goals framework to set goals that offer clarity rather than confusion.
- Run the Team Goals, Signals, and Measures play to collaboratively define goals and success indicators – research shows involving team members in the goal-setting process increases their investment in achieving them.
- Set regular milestones and check-in points to monitor progress and course correct when necessary.
Teamwork example #3: Communication
Communication skills are as fundamental to effective teamwork as instruments are to a symphony. It’s impossible for team members to work well together if they’re unable to successfully talk to each other.
It seems basic enough. But, unfortunately, so many factors – from biases to different styles – can run your team’s communication off the rails and hinder collaboration.
There’s perhaps no better teamwork example that illustrates the importance of communication than the Mars Climate Orbiter. The spacecraft burned up in Mars’ atmosphere due to a navigation error. The cause of that error? Failure to translate English units to metric. Had team members communicated with each other more effectively, the mission would’ve had an entirely different result.
Put it into practice on your team
- Commit to active listening to ensure complete understanding before replying with your own two cents.
- Invest the time and energy into improving your own communication skills as a leader (30% of employees say they’re frustrated by unclear communication from their bosses).
- Set communication rules and norms to guide employees, such as instructions on when to use specific communication channels.
What is active listening?
Active listening is the most engaged and committed form of listening to another person. It means listening to them with the intent of hearing them, understanding their message, and retaining what they say. This type of listening takes conscious effort (hence the term active) but pays off in the form of increased understanding, more trust, and better relationships.
Teamwork example #4: Emotional intelligence
According to research, to “promote positive, progressive, effective working environments, team members need to have a combination of technical knowledge and well-developed emotional intelligence.”
Emotional intelligence may seem ambiguous, but it can be boiled down to several key attributes:
- Self-awareness: You can pinpoint your moods and how they affect others.
- Self-regulation: You can take a beat and manage your emotions before reacting.
- Motivation: You have a grasp of what drives you in your work (beyond a paycheck).
- Empathy: You can identify and understand the emotions of other people.
- Social skills: You can use that emotional understanding to build stronger relationships.
Simply put, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand the emotional undercurrent of yourself and your team members and employ that understanding during interactions with others. If you pick up on the fact that your colleague is already having a terrible day, it’s probably not the best time to share some hard-to-hear feedback.
Take Captain Chelsey B. Sullenberger III (Captain “Sully”) and his crew on US Airways flight 1549, who safely landed a plane of 155 people on the Hudson River in January 2009, as one strong example. Despite the high-pressure situation, Sully, his co-pilot, the flight attendants, and the air traffic controller maintained their composure to keep passengers calm and, most importantly, safe.
Put it into practice on your team
- Encourage every team member to create their own user manual to share their working style, communication preferences, and other details that help people better understand how to work with them.
- Complete the Johari window exercise as a team to help people better understand themselves and how they’re perceived by other members of the team.
- Solicit 360-degree feedback to develop a deeper and more well-rounded understanding of yourself and your work.
- Do a quick emotion check-in before each team meeting by asking people to describe their day in one word or share a GIF or emoji that describes their mood.
Teamwork example #5: Psychological safety
When a team has a high level of psychological safety, its members feel like they’re able to share out-of-the-box ideas, take risks, and make mistakes without any fear of judgment or reprimand.
This not only builds a more positive and supportive team environment but also enables organizations to innovate quickly and roll with the punches when changes inevitably crop up.
So how do you make people feel comfortable and supported? Google did tons of in-depth research into the characteristics of their best teams. Psychological safety topped the list of the most important ingredients. Specifically, teams who were able to be vulnerable with each other outperformed others.
Now, some Google teams kick off every team meeting by sharing a risk taken during the previous week – whether it was successful or not. It’s an easy-to-implement norm that makes everybody feel safer talking about their wins and their successes.
Put it into practice on your team
- Host regular retrospectives where team members can look back at their work together and talk about what went well, what didn’t, and what they learned.
- Model vulnerability by openly talking with your team about your successes, failures, challenges, and frustrations.
- Set audacious stretch goals to help your team get more comfortable with taking risks (and failing).
Teamwork example #6: Decision-making
Even when team members work well together, it isn’t always smooth sailing. Unexpected curveballs and last-minute fires challenge the team to stick together and move forward – even when tensions are high.
The 2010 rescue of the 33 Chilean miners who were trapped underground after the mine caved in is a fitting teamwork example here. The Chilean government and rescue teams established a unified command center (which included engineers, geologists, medical personnel, and rescue workers) to assess different rescue methods and make quick decisions. The operation was ultimately successful, with all 33 miners brought safely to surface.
This dramatic situation speaks to the importance of effective problem-solving and decision-making skills. With these critical thinking skills in their back pockets, team members can understand situations, adapt to changing circumstances, and make quick decisions (without endless bickering and in-fighting).
Put it into practice on your team
- Familiarize your team with a reliable decision-making process so you all know what steps to take when faced with a pressing choice.
- When faced with a problem, conduct a 5 whys analysis to go beyond surface-level symptoms and understand the root cause of a problem.
- When you can, give your team adequate time to explore a problem or make a decision – research shows that rushed decisions are often regrettable ones.
Teamwork example #7: Intentional planning
Sure, there are those rare times when you fly by the seat of your pants and everything works out. But most of the time – whether it’s the Chicago Cubs’ 2016 World Series win or Starbucks’ impressive 2009 rebound – you need a thoughtful and thorough plan to guide people from point A to point Z. Intentional planning takes shape on teams in a number of ways, including:
- Creating agendas for every meeting to keep conversations on track
- Completing capacity plans so that everybody understands each other’s bandwidth
- Drafting project plans and timelines so everybody knows the next steps
- Establishing onboarding and training processes for new members
- Identifying and standardizing processes and workflows
All those points require foresight and give team alignment a boost, too. And it’s definitely better than letting everybody wing it while you hope for the best.
Put it into practice on your team
- Schedule a project kickoff meeting ahead of every new project or initiative to sync on project goals, milestones, and roles.
- Create a Project Poster to define a problem and a project’s scope and then keep that information somewhere visible and accessible for everyone.
Teamwork example #8: Healthy conflict
Effective teamwork isn’t all high-fives and happy hours. Teamwork pillars like emotional intelligence and team alignment can help avoid some tension, but that doesn’t mean your team will never butt heads.
Take the United States’ founding fathers as just one of many examples. In 1787, times were tense and the entire system of government was in a steady tailspin. The country’s brightest lawmakers came together to discuss what a new government system might look like. The meeting was reportedly plagued with near-constant debate and bickering, but something important came out of those tough conversations: the U.S. Constitution.
It’s proof that conflict is not inherently a bad thing. Some conflicts – provided they’re handled respectfully – can be constructive.
Disagreements teach team members how to deal with difficult situations, give them an opportunity to listen to each other, and nudge them to consider alternate viewpoints. The result is often increased understanding, higher engagement, greater commitment, and even better team cohesion.
Put it into practice on your team
- Run the Working Agreements play to create a shared list of expectations with your team so that you can steer around potential misunderstandings and save your energy for more meaningful disputes.
- Put a plan in place to help team members escalate problems to the appropriate person when necessary.
Teamwork example #9: Inclusivity
There’s been tons of research about how diverse teams perform better. But if you really want to reap the benefits of diversity, as diversity consultant Vernā Myers puts it, it’s not enough to invite people to the party – you need to ask them to dance.
Inclusivity means everybody on your team feels welcomed, supported, and valued regardless of their background, perspectives, and ideas.
This isn’t something that just happens by putting people on the same team. It requires consistent thought and effort – by you and every single team member – to ensure nobody feels forgotten or frozen out. This sense of belonging pays off in the form of better performance and increased retention.
Put it into practice on your team
- Be mindful of language (such as gendered or ableist language) to foster inclusive communication on your team.
- Run the Inclusive Meetings play to ensure balanced participation in all of your meetings.
- Honor and celebrate a wide range of traditions and holidays together.
Teamwork example #10: Rituals and routines
Team rituals might seem like frivolous indulgences, but they’re surprisingly important – and they’re a long-running part of the human experience, with some dating back tens of thousands of years.
But why are rituals so valuable? The short answer is that they emphasize unity.
“The function of a shared group ritual is to allow an individual to participate fully in the social world by affiliating with fellow group members, reaffirming one’s position in the group, and sharing in important social conventions and cultural knowledge,” research says.
Take the NHL playoff beard as one example. It’s been a tradition since the early 1980s when the New York Islanders won four straight championships without shaving their scruff during the playoff period. Now, every NHL team sets down their razors during the playoff season. Teams keep their beards until they’re eliminated, and the last team standing keeps the facial hair until the official team Stanley Cup photo is taken. After that, it’s a clean slate – and a messy bathroom.
Put it into practice on your team
- Run the Ritual Reset play to understand what rituals and routines are working well for your team and which ones should be amended or removed.
- Institute new rituals on your team – whether it’s taking turns asking icebreaker questions before every team meeting or coming up with a tradition for each team member’s birthday.
Teamwork takes…well, work
There’s nothing quite like the magic of effective teamwork. But while smooth collaboration might seem effortless on the surface, it’s usually anything but. That level of synergy takes conscious effort.
The good news? Effective teamwork is a skill – and that means it’s something you can work to improve both individually and together. Use the above teamwork examples as your starting point and you’re on your way to the type of teamwork that brings you together (rather than drives you apart).