1293: Whistling Up an Orchestra: The Value of Teamwork in the Workplace by Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily, Episode 1293, Whistling Up an Orchestra, The Value of Teamwork in the

[00:00:06] Workplace by Laura Stack of theProductivityPro.com. And I'm Dan, I am your host of the show and I'm

[00:00:13] with you every single day reading these great posts that we find from some of the best work

[00:00:17] and productivity blogs anywhere. So, without further ado, let's get right into our post

[00:00:23] as we optimize your life. Whistling Up an Orchestra, The Value of Teamwork in the Workplace

[00:00:33] by Laura Stack of theProductivityPro.com. There's no I in team, but there is in win.

[00:00:42] Michael Jordan. Those of us who gravitate toward leadership in business organizations

[00:00:47] or create our own businesses as entrepreneurs tend to be the independent sort. It seems ironic,

[00:00:53] then, that we achieve our highest levels of productivity only when we come together as teams.

[00:00:59] The fact remains that human beings are social creatures. We couldn't have been otherwise

[00:01:03] and risen to become this planet's dominant species. Nearly everything worthwhile we've

[00:01:08] achieved has come about as a result of team effort. Even those we perceive as lone

[00:01:13] wolf geniuses, people like Einstein, Mozart and Da Vinci worked in a collaborative milieu,

[00:01:19] like science or music, or surrounded themselves with talented people they could trust.

[00:01:23] H.E. Lukak may have said it best when he pointed out,

[00:01:27] quote, no one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it,

[00:01:31] end quote. Few people remember Lukak today, but in the mid 20th century,

[00:01:36] he was an influential theologian and a shining light of the Methodist faith. He spent years

[00:01:41] at the Yale School of Divinity as a professor of homo-letics, the art of preaching and writing

[00:01:46] sermons. He also wrote quite a few books about religion, surely one of the grandest team

[00:01:51] adventures in human history. Why We Bother

[00:01:55] By cooperating, teams achieve what individuals cannot. Indeed, this may represent the greatest

[00:02:01] advantage of teamwork. Making our own goals secondary to our group goals may seem difficult,

[00:02:06] but it pays off for everyone in the end. Need other reasons to instill effective teamwork as one

[00:02:12] of your team's core values? I have 10 more good ones.

[00:02:16] Number 1. It's More Efficient

[00:02:19] While individuals can do separate pieces of a project in isolation and then wiggle those

[00:02:24] pieces together at the end, the process can prove to be more efficient and effective

[00:02:28] when the team works together closely throughout the process. Many tasks have no clear cut

[00:02:33] edges, so when people work separately, significant overlap and duplication may occur.

[00:02:39] On a team where the members inform each other of their progress, you can more easily avoid this.

[00:02:44] 2. It Takes Advantage of Multiple Skill Sets

[00:02:48] Even in specialized fields, the constant evolution of knowledge and increase in information

[00:02:53] makes it impossible to know everything about the field. An archaeologist I know specializes

[00:02:58] in the very first Americans, for example. While he knows a little bit about all things

[00:03:03] archaeological, he would fail as an Egyptologist. Even as a first American's researcher,

[00:03:08] he focuses on North America and has little knowledge of very early Central and South American

[00:03:13] cultures. The point is this. It would take a lot longer to complete a project if one person

[00:03:19] was required to know everything necessary to accomplish it. Instead, you put together

[00:03:23] subject matter experts on different aspects of the field and have them tackle the

[00:03:27] project as a group, leading to our next point. 3. It's Faster

[00:03:32] As the old saying goes, many hands make light work. This assumes you as a leader make your desire

[00:03:38] for speed known and divide up the work in a manner appropriate to the team structure.

[00:03:43] If you tried to slog through something yourself, it could take hours over what someone else

[00:03:47] could do in 15 minutes. 4. It Promotes Friendly Pressure to Get Your Peace Done on Time

[00:03:54] Deadlines motivate individual team members to work harder and invest greater amounts of their

[00:03:59] discretionary effort, thus buttressing and accelerating the process. In general,

[00:04:03] people don't want to let others down. 5. Productivity Doesn't Depend Entirely on One Person

[00:04:10] When one team member is sick or on vacation, another cross-trained team member can pick

[00:04:15] up the slack and still get the work done on time. If only one person is working on a

[00:04:20] project and holds the keys to the kingdom, it suffers until they return and may even die in their

[00:04:25] absence. 6. It Let's You Take Advantage of Ongoing Feedback

[00:04:30] Even in projects that one person can handle, team efforts can increase the quality of output

[00:04:36] due to immediate feedback during the planning, design, and implementation stages.

[00:04:41] You might let one person manage the lion's share of the administration,

[00:04:44] but the result is more robust with multiple perspectives.

[00:04:48] 7. It Increases Learning Opportunities

[00:04:52] When you find yourself in regular contact with those who have different skill sets,

[00:04:56] you can't help but learn from them occasionally. Back when desktop computers were still fairly new,

[00:05:01] the ancient days of the early 1990s, a colleague of mine learned from a co-worker how to create

[00:05:06] a small program that automatically backed up his important files to a separate server every

[00:05:10] morning. It came in handy more than once. Have you accidentally picked up beneficial

[00:05:15] tips and tricks from your colleagues occasionally? If not, you're not listening.

[00:05:20] 8. It Can Solidify Accountability Being part of a team encourages a sense of belonging,

[00:05:26] which often translates to greater sense of ownership and accountability for the work,

[00:05:31] especially when team members respect each other and don't want to let the team down.

[00:05:35] Even if you disagree with a decision, you are part of the decision-making process,

[00:05:39] and you leave the room as a united front. 9. It Provides Companions To Share The Lows And Highs

[00:05:47] Misery might love company, but so does jubilation. When you share experiences,

[00:05:52] you strengthen that sense of belonging and shared accountability that pushes you to excel.

[00:05:57] It may be fun to celebrate alone, but it's always better when someone else celebrates

[00:06:01] with you, someone who knows where you're coming from. And suffering alone is just

[00:06:05] demoralizing and depressing. A teammate can alleviate those lows. Sometimes it's nice to

[00:06:11] commiserate with someone who understands you. 10. It Promotes Synergy

[00:06:17] Teams may prove greater than the sum of their parts, in such a way that the results can be

[00:06:22] out of proportion to the number of people involved. Consider Gilbert and Sullivan,

[00:06:26] Jobs and Wozniak, and Bryn and Paige. And the beat goes on.

[00:06:31] When most people think of teamwork, they think of sports first. But close collaboration is vital to

[00:06:37] human achievement at all levels, including business teams and society as a whole. In fact,

[00:06:42] teamwork stands as one of the chief hallmarks of human accomplishment, and may represent a

[00:06:47] prerequisite for civilization and human-level intelligence in the first place. Think about

[00:06:52] it, the highest civilizations have always been those that encouraged or coerced a greater

[00:06:57] level of cooperation from their citizens. And the smartest animals we know, great apes,

[00:07:02] elephants, wolves, dolphins and crows, tend to live together in cooperative groups.

[00:07:08] So encourage and take advantage of our tendency to work together for the good of all.

[00:07:12] Even if you'd prefer your solitude, thank you very much. It's basic human nature

[00:07:17] and may be much easier to strengthen than you think.

[00:07:19] 10. You Just Listen to the Post

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[00:09:45] you're going to love Gusto. Get started today. And a huge thank you again to Laura for sharing

[00:09:51] her work today. She is an award-winning keynote speaker and best-selling author of eight books.

[00:09:57] Her engaging personality combined with over 25 years of experience helping organizations

[00:10:01] achieve results have made her one of the most sought after experts and keynote speakers in

[00:10:06] her field. Laura has been featured in publications like The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall

[00:10:11] Street Journal and Forbes Magazine, and has been a spokesperson for Microsoft, Danon, 3M,

[00:10:16] Office Depot, Xerox and more. And if that wasn't enough, her client list includes top Fortune 500

[00:10:23] companies including Starbucks, Walmart, Bank of America, GM, Wells Fargo and Time Warner,

[00:10:29] plus government agencies including the US Air Force Academy, the Census Bureau, the IRS,

[00:10:34] and the US Senate. So there's a lot to learn from her. Just come by the productivitypro.com for

[00:10:40] much more. She's got her videos, books, store, newsletter and blog all there at the same site.

[00:10:45] Again that's the productivitypro.com. And that does it for today. I thank you so much for

[00:10:50] being a subscriber or follower and being here with me each and every day. We really appreciate

[00:10:55] it. And I will see you once again tomorrow. That is where your optimal life awaits.