Difference between Working Alone and Working with Others

There are statistics that can argue and prove that working alone can be more effective than working with others. However, there are other variables that can effect that outcome. I picked this topic because I currently work part-time and a lot of my tasks relies on teamwork. What I seek to accomplish from this research is show the difference of effective and non-effective teamwork and its correlation to performance. I will be introducing what is the basis of teamwork. Next I will talk about the importance, positive and negatives of teamwork. I will also discuss how the rise of teamwork within organizations is creating a trend for not only large companies but for small companies to follow as well. In conclusion, my argument will talk about how teamwork has changed over time and been adapted differently.

Teamwork can be seen and is used all around us in the world. From my past experiences and jobs, teamwork has been a main key point during the job because the team goal is to always improve the store’s performance while also improving your own performance and skills. Team building can be very effective in organizations but sometimes other variables like selfishness or lack of trust which can affect the process causing non-effective teamwork. I used to work in retail and at the beginning of every shift, the team leader (manager) would go over the team goals for the day. I used to work majority of the week and everyday there was a different team goal. This helped make the task for the day more interesting and the shift not boring. A con due to this were employees forgetting the new team goal every shift which caused a chain reaction of carelessness from employees. Because employees had no interest to ask and be reminded of the team goal, certain tasks were not able to be done and this made the next shift for the next employee to have more work to do. My store manager saw this negative effect and started incorporating reminders throughout the shift. My manager also started to have meetings with each employee to talk about a recap of their tasks and goals. I found these methods to be very effective while I was working and did see an improvement to my performance. However, this also started another negative trend which was laziness.

Teamwork is not essential to all jobs but for organizations that have a chain of command, sometimes teamwork can help prevent a series of mistakes. “Teamwork starts with forming a team and a team is essentially a small number of people with an ability to provide complementary skills, while at the same time committed to a common purpose and goal” (Lerner et al., 2009). Many people and organizations think that the process is done once established a common goal but it is not. “Salas, Sims, and Burke (2005) highlighted the importance of thoughts, actions and feelings of each team member”. Many organizations now realize that emotional intelligence is just as important because if a employee is not mentally stable or comfortable, the work they do will not only be terrible but it also does not give a true representation of the potential that employee may have.

Teamwork is not a skill or something everyone can do effectively. Teamwork requires communication which is not a perfected skill for most people. People with effective communication can still translate the skill to un-effective teamwork when tasking with others. Teamwork like any other skill can be trained and worked on. Organizations have started teamwork interventions which are simulated. “Teamwork interventions were shown to be effective at enhancing both teamwork and team performance across a variety of team contexts, including laboratory settings as well as real-world contexts” (McEwan et al., 2017). In addition to this, their study also examined whether there were different effects on a newly formed team versus a intact team. “It was shown that these interventions were effective for both team types. The effects of teamwork training on teamwork outcomes were significantly larger for new teams (who showed a medium-to-large effect size) compared to existing teams (who had a small-to-medium effect size)” (McEwan et al., 2017).

Team effectiveness has been linked to organizational culture, inter-professional teamwork and job satisfaction. Researchers Mirtz et al. have found that even though there is a relation between these three factors, the factor that does not have a strong relation with one another is job satisfaction (Mirtz et al., 2015). Organizational culture and inter-professional teamwork have a strong correlation because of certain variables that associate with each other. Job satisfaction however, comes down to personal preference and opinion. An employee also can have effective communication and be good with team effectiveness but not be satisfied with their job. Because of this variable, you are not able to fully measure an employee’s full potential of their performance. But if an employee is satisfied with their job and has a good relation between the organization culture they are in and professional team relations, their overall performance does become more effective and efficient.

“Every organization either large or small, struggles to acquire productivity. To achieve success and maintain a valuable image in this present world of organizational competitions, it is the wish of organizations to see the input they use (resources) and the output (goods and services produced) they have at the end” (Agarwal et al., 2016). To ensure this statement goes well, many organizations present rewards for their employees if they perform well. The rewards is used as a variable to recognize the employee’s performance and is used sometimes as motivation. Job satisfaction over time degrades and to ensure the interest of your employee, rewards and compensation must be given as a choice. “This sense of employee empowerment has a significant positive effect on job satisfaction” (Hanaysha and Tahir, 2016).

With all the technological advances that are present today, it is still difficult to build a strong relationship with your team. “The most efficient elements to overcome such difficulties regarding teamwork are positive communication, confidence, and productive leadership. It is nearly impossible to build up an efficient teamwork without these factors” (Sanyal et al., 2018). Other elements that are quite important are “proper performance evaluation of team members, focus on achieving collective goal, learning to commit to decisions and plans, and a well prepared engagement in debates on ideas” (Sanyal et al., 2018).

In conclusion of this argument, effective teamwork in organizations is beginning to not only grow rapidly everyday but new methods of team building are also being discovered. Organizations now unlike the past are changing the work environment to accommodate their employees and their job satisfaction. The power with chain of command of an organization starts at the top but the work of building and sustaining the organization rises from the bottom. Effective teamwork does not only have to be small teams within the organization but could be the whole organization working together and helping one another.

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