When a group of people, who know each other and are typically aligned by organization, (e.g., family, non profit, corporate, government, sports, etc.) combine their efforts to a common action, teamwork can occur, but it might not.
It is both logical and expected that the resulting effort from teamwork will be more effective and efficient. That is the outcomes are easier to attain and higher quality, particularly when gauged against individual effort.
It is important to note superior outcomes are not always the case when groups work together and can easily produce lesser results. The term teamwork implies joint efforts are coordinated and collaborative.
The most important aspect of teamwork is to clearly understand being on a team and working together is not by default teamwork. Without a high degree of coordination and collaboration (i.e., intuitive agreement) teamwork does not occur.
High Performing Teams
A high performing team is a group of people who share common goals, but most importantly are able to collaborate, challenge and hold each other accountable to achieve outstanding results.
Individual needs are not relevant, the group members share a clear shared vision of where they are headed and what they want to accomplish, as a group.
Building the Team
Starting with basic teamwork and then building to high performance is the best approach. It will not happen magically and the leader will need to plan and facilitate the development of the needed collaborative attributes.
While this is not an easy task, requiring extensive planning and execution effort, the rewards are well worth it. It is critical to recognize the need to engineer teamwork rather than magically expecting it to appear.
