Teamwork: A dying skill

Work Place Training Center

Teamwork: A dying skill in today's business environment

Teamwork is important. And in a cutthroat business world, where so many people are out for No. 1, solid teamwork skills are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Just look at the forces drastically affecting how we work:

• Over the last several years, layoffs have been rampant. Even once well-oiled, high-performance teams have lost their luster as they’ve been cut in half or forced to function on limited resources.
• People are scared. A recession will do that. Layoff fears or fears of being replaced by a younger, cheaper worker cause people to fly under the radar and stick to themselves. Some don’t want to risk a teammate making them look bad, so they choose to work alone. Others don’t want to share credit for their ideas or steer the spotlight away from themselves, so they don’t collaborate.
• As hiring picks up in most organizations, new employees are entering workplaces where the “me” in team reigns supreme. There is no teamwork culture in which to orient those new hires, and so the principle slips further away.
• Businesses are going virtual, with more and more organizations allowing—no, encouraging—employees to work from home. Those virtual employees lose the important face-to-face interaction needed to connect with their on-site co-workers.
• Companies big and small are opting to work with freelancers or contract workers or to outsource functions. And those workers tend not to become invested in the organization’s vision or committed to its employees.

So how do you overcome those obstacles and foster a culture where employees understand the concept of teamwork—both within departments and across departments—and commit to it? By making it a priority. An expectation. A part of employee training.

In the brand-new training kit from Briefings Media Group, Essentials of Effective Teamwork, you are provided with everything you need to train employees to be effective team players.

Here are just seven of the 16 Rules of Effective Teamwork presented in the training tool:

1. Take on tasks appropriate to your strengths.
3. Volunteer for projects to lend a hand and learn new skills.
5. Offer to help teammates.
7. Make every effort to meet commitments, even if that means asking for help.
9. Follow up with teammates by returning calls and emails.
11. Share information to prevent mistakes and confusion.
13. Support team members by offering feedback and suggestions and by building on ideas and efforts.

Essentials of Effective Teamwork is a comprehensive multimedia product that teaches team leaders how to lay a foundation of effective teamwork, covering basic principles and strategies for leading high-performance and successful teams. In addition, Section 3 provides team leaders with 12 Core Values of Teamwork Lessons they’ll use to diagnose the weaknesses on their teams, correct problem areas and reinforce powerful teamwork messages with their own staffs.

The Essentials of Effective Teamwork training kit is a vital resource for getting back to the basics of solid, effective teamwork. Team leaders will discover how to:

• Show employees respect and gain their respect.
• Build cooperation and collaboration.
• Foster trust.
• Communicate more effectively.
• Spur creativity.
• Increase professionalism and workplace etiquette.
• And so, so much more!

This multimedia resource includes:

• A 22-minute video, Teambuilding Techniques That Work, with a Trainer’s Guide and a Viewer’s Guide.
• A 60-minute audio conference presentation, Creating High-Performance Teams, with a companion PowerPoint presentation.
• A 64-page workbook stuffed full of best practices, guides, tips, quizzes and more.
• Dozens of print-ready and customizable forms that team leaders and their employees can reference again and again.