Success Of Teamwork

Success of Teamwork

When people think about their lives and what they have accomplished to become powerful, wealthy, and happy, they tend to weigh the success that they have had to get them to where they are in life. Many people base their success on what they have done or accomplished either in work, school, or family life. What is success, according to Webster’s New World Dictionary the definition is, “1. a favorable result 2. the gaining of wealth, fame, etc. 3. a successful person a thing” (Neufeldt & Sparks, 1995, p.589). Based on the number-two definition, people are successful when they have wealth, fame, and other physical things to show their accomplishments. People obtain success either alone or with help of other people in both a business environment and educational environment. In both cases, success must be accomplished alone for many things, but in other important tasks, working in a team is best. Being able to be successful on a team, either in work or school, will help a person create skills that he or she did not have and work on skills that he or she already had.

Team Effectiveness in Business

In today’s society, being able to work well with others is becoming an important ability in being effective in work or school. Many large and small companies are using teams of employees to get certain tasks and jobs accomplished more effectively. This has become a trend in many companies in the United States and even throughout the world. The use of teamwork in the work environment is very useful; it has allowed companies to boost productivity and provide development of friendships between coworkers. For example, Chen and Barshes (2000) stated:

US companies at home and elsewhere practice teamwork widely, especially in the form of self-directed teams, in which employees themselves are responsible for managing their groups and their work, and for making production-related decisions. By the mid-1990s, around 70 percent of Fortune 1,000 companies were relying on teams and planning to expand such usage, according to a study by the American Productivity and Quality Center in Houston, Texas. Companies organized around work teams have reported a number of benefits, including better productivity, higher-quality output, less absenteeism, less employee turnover, leaner plant structures, and substantial improvements in production-cycle time. (p. 30)

Working in a team also builds camaraderie between other employees.