Week 1

Section: First Year A and B

Time: 3 hours
Day: Saturday

What is teamwork?

Teamwork is not just a group of people doing something. It’s the ability to work with others
and to help others attain their full potential and achieve the shared goals. As well, teamwork
is one of the most desirable skills an employer can seek in its employees. The main reason
why teamwork is so important in the workplace is that it builds trust among co-workers. This
is true for a variety of reasons. Good teamwork increases productivity and makes your
employees happier. It helps foster a sense of community within the workplace and it creates
more opportunities for training and advancement.

Why is teamwork important in the workplace?

 Working together can improve efficiency and productivity

-If you split difficult tasks and share responsibilities, teams can do more in less time
and make fewer mistakes. It's hard to find one employee who is a jack of all trades,
but when a team works together, they can benefit from each other’s skills.

 Teamwork leads to better outcomes and effectiveness

- Multiple minds working on difficult tasks or projects will achieve better results and
offer different solutions than individuals working alone. Team members are also able
to avoid future errors and gain insight from differing perspectives.

 Teamwork enhances personal growth and job satisfaction

- Working in a team can bring about new skill sets, reduce stress, lead to happier
employees, and create a supportive work environment. Which in turn can reduce
employee turnover.

 Teamwork in the workplace fosters creativity

- Collaboration fuels creativity by combining differing perspectives and experiences to

generate innovative solutions.

 Teams innovate faster

- When tackling a task or problem, a team approach can lead to faster and deeper
reactive innovation due to the benefit of multiple perspectives, skill sets, and
experiences.

 Teamwork creates innovative ideas

 - Teamwork among a diverse group of employees will almost always reveal new ideas.
The differing ages, backgrounds, skills, and experience levels of a team means that
there's always a unique perspective just waiting to be heard.

 Teamwork can create healthy competition

- Healthy competition between team members inspires your employees to work their
best. Provided the right rewards are in place to promote competition, team
performance can keep improving.

Teamwork promotes strong working relationships

- When employees work together and succeed as a team, they form bonds that turn into
trust and friendship. It's human nature. And it's great for your business since
employees who like and trust each other are more likely to communicate well with
each other.

Teamwork promotes workplace synergy

- Synergy occurs when multiple groups work towards a common goal. It's crucial for
business growth and directly reflects the cooperation between workers. Building a
strong team that communicates clearly, innovates, and perseveres fosters high-quality
workplace synergy.

Teams self- monitor

- Performing tasks alone may give one control, but it could also lead to overlooking
inefficiencies. Being part of a team allows for shared responsibility, observation of
each other's work, and the ability to aid in improving performance when needed. A
team that works efficiently can self-monitor without the need for management
intervention.

The importance of teamwork cannot be stressed enough. In today's world, most jobs involve
interacting with other employees, so, being able to perform well with all employees is key to
attaining growth and success.

Group vs. team: What’s the difference?

What is a group?

A group is a number of people who work together. They have individual goals that they work
toward collectively. While groups work toward separate goals, they have a related interest or
identity that brings them together.

There are two types of groups: informal groups and formal groups.
Informal groups are formed naturally around common interests, identities, or social goals.

Formal groups are created by company leaders to perform a specific task for an
organization.

Here are some advantages of groups:

Groups build temporary relationships: Since groups focus on individual members working
in parallel to one another, they build temporary working relationships such as short-term
external projects or temporary internal consulting.

Groups are great for efficiency: While teams work to create efficiency for the greater good,
groups focus on individual efficiency. This can improve effectiveness when looking at
individual work and larger group objectives.

Groups focus on individual growth: Since groups support individual work, they also focus
on individual growth. This can be seen in the form of individual experts rather than a team of
experts.

While working in a group environment has its advantages, it also has some disadvantages,
too. Let’s look at some reasons why working in a group might not be right for you.

Group drawbacks

While groups support individual work and career growth, they don’t share all of the
advantages of working in a team setting. These disadvantages include not connecting work to
goals and the lack of team bonding.

Here are some disadvantages of working in a group:

Groups can alienate individuals: Since groups work individually, there isn’t as much time
spent on team building. This lack of teamwork can alienate individuals and cause
communication issues.

Groups don’t support organizational goals: Likewise, this lack of teamwork can cause a
gap in organizational clarity. This makes it difficult to connect work to organizational goals
and objectives.

These disadvantages are why some organizations prefer working in teams. That’s why it’s
important to also understand the advantages and disadvantages of teams.

Week 2

Section: First Year A and B

Time: 3 hours
Day: Saturday

What is a team?

A team is a number of people who work together to accomplish a shared purpose or goal.
Each team is the sum of its parts, which means members of the team rely on one another to
accomplish the outcome.

Teams work together to solve problems, create new products, and other functions such as
aligning passions and purpose. There are a few different types of teams, including cross-
departmental teams, process teams, and self- managed teams. Each of these differs slightly
but shares similar advantages and disadvantages.

Team advantages

Working in a team environment has many advantages that all come back to working toward
the same goals and supporting members in a shared experience. Many organizations work in
a team setting vs. a group setting as they prefer the advantages of collaboration. These
include improved productivity and quicker problem solving.
Here are some advantages of working in a team:

Teams build on collaboration and synergy: Teamwork can increase collaboration and
synergy. These help support the overall goal and can aid in communication and
organizational transparency.

Teams encourage group productivity: While groups aid in efficiency, teams have the
advantage when it comes to productivity. This is because team members support each other’s
work and help solve the overall problem, making the actual work more productive.
Teams are better for problem solving: It’s true that the more people brainstorm together, the
better. This is why teamwork can help solve problems quicker and more effectively the first
time around.

The advantages of working in teams can help organizations thrive thanks to teamwork and
communication. That said, there are some disadvantages you should consider as well.

Team drawbacks

While teams have a variety of advantages, they also have some disadvantages. These
disadvantages include struggling to support individual growth and efficiency issues.

Here are some disadvantages of working in a team:

Teams don’t always focus on individual growth: While not always the case, some teams
struggle with fostering individual growth. This is because results are most commonly focused
on the greater good than what’s best for each person.

Teams may struggle with efficiency: Teams have the advantage of productivity, though
they can struggle with efficiency if the right organizational processes are not put into place.
This can cause work to take longer than expected and deadlines to be missed.

While teams might struggle with these disadvantages, there are ways to minimize the effects
with the right processes and leadership. The key is to facilitate organizational clarity that
supports both teams and individuals.

Stages of Team Development

Forming:
This is where team members first meet. It’s important for team leaders to facilitate the
introductions and highlight each person’s skills and background. Team members are also
given project details and the opportunity to organize their responsibilities.

Storming:
At this stage, team members openly share ideas and use this as an opportunity to stand out
and be accepted by their peers. Team leaders help teams in this stage by having a plan in
place to manage competition among team members, make communication easier, and make
sure projects stay on track.

Norming:
By now, teams have figured out how to work together. There’s no more internal competition,
and responsibilities and goals are clear. Each person works more efficiently because he or she
has learned how to share their ideas and listen to feedback while working toward a common
goal.

Performing:
There’s a high level of cohesion and trust between team members. Teams are functioning at
peak efficiency with less oversight from team leaders. Issues still come up, but at this point,
teams have strategies for resolving problems without compromising timelines and progress.

Adjourning:
Teams complete their project and debrief on what went well and what could be improved for
future projects. Afterwards, team members move on to new projects. Now let’s look at how
to use this model to amplify the strengths within your remote marketing team so that projects
are successful and completed on time.