Teamwork provides diverse perspectives, innovative ideas and improved efficiency; 3 things that are crucial in collaborative projects.

Regardless of how skilled or talented your team members are individually, the team can’t reach it’s full potential unless team members can collaborate, communicate and work together as one.

Team members are like cogs in a machine – each individual is essential but without each other, they can’t achieve their desired results.

Why do teams struggle to work together?

The greatest teams are made up of a diverse group of people who have different backgrounds and bring unique strengths and skills to the team.

But diversity can make collaboration difficult for multiple reasons:

• Opposing opinions –disagreements within teams are inevitable, potentially causing conflict and tension and completely wiping out motivation.
  
  
• Different perspectives – when people have different ways of doing things, it can cause delays if the team can’t come to a mutual agreement quickly.
  
  
• Unaligned goals – if team members have different goals, they will have different priorities, potentially leaving some crucial tasks undone.

How can teams overcome these challenges?

One word…

…Leadership.

Strong leaders can help diffuse conflict and tension within teams, leading to a more motivated and productive team.

There are many things leaders can do to make teamwork easier, including:

• Not only accepting but embracing collaboration - team members will pick up on these behaviours and begin to mimic them, bringing a sense of unity, inclusivity and motivation to the team.
  
  
• Encourging communication - effective communication is at the heart of every coherent team. Being able to openly discuss issues allows everyone to resolve their differences, agree on a mutual compromise and continue moving forward.

How can you put this in practice?

When you lead your next team project, ask yourself these 3 things:

• Does everyone in my team have the same goals and priorities?
  
  
• Does everyone feel comfortable sharing their opinion and ideas?
  
  
• Am I doing everything I can to lead by example and positively influence my team?

To put this into practice, try setting some time aside today to forward an article like this to your team, speaking to them about the importance of collaboration, and explaining how teamwork really does make the dream work. 

Keep persevering and your teams will soon begin to embrace teamwork and enjoy working with their colleagues.

At the start of every project, remind them that:

They are all individually brilliant but stronger as one. After all, teamwork is what inspires new ideas, sparks motivation and drives success.