I don’t know if you’ve been following the current ‘Apprentice’ series, but it’s getting to the stage where, to quote one jaded competitor, “It’s dog eat dog”.
The whole premise of the show is that Lord Sugar identifies the best business partner to mentor and fund. The way the best candidate emerges, though, is through teamwork. What a dilemma – you need to be a team player to be noticed, yet how will you be noticed if you don’t stay one step ahead of the rest of the team?
Of course, The Apprentice is TV show and hopefully unlike the reality in most workplaces, yet helping your team work together well should be high on the list of management tasks.
Since Elton Mayo discovered that people work better, faster and more efficiently when they feel part of a group – because they have some input and involvement and are listened to by management – almost every organisation in the world has embraced teamwork.
That’s because it works. Several heads really are better than one and no one person can have all the answers. There’s a buzz that comes from knowing that what we do interacts with what others are doing to produce a great outcome.
Managers can play a huge role in encouraging and developing teamwork by celebrating team successes, consulting with the team to solve problems, allowing each team member to work to their strengths and keep on learning and a teambuilding day every now and again doesn’t hurt either.
There’s no ‘I’ in team
