Teamwork Toolkit

Definition

Teamwork skills include the mix of interactive, interpersonal, problem solving and communication skills needed by a group of people working on a common task, in complementary roles, towards a common goal whose outcomes are greater than those possible by any one person working independently.

Why are teamwork skills important?

Essential elements of teamwork identified by employers:

"Virtually all employers say that the demand for 'solo' employees is negligible and that there was an expectation that employees work in a range of team environments both formal and informal over time.

The elements of teamwork identified by the small, medium and large enterprises are:

• working with people of different ages, gender, race, religion or political persuasion;
• working as an individual and as a member of a team;
• knowing how to define a role as part of a team;
• applying teamwork to a range of situations - e.g., futures planning, crisis problem solving;
• identifying the strengths of team members; and
• coaching, mentoring and giving feedback.

Academic excellence

“...training which relies solely upon the evolution of team skills within experiential learning is inefficient and unlikely to lead to an understanding of the underlying principles. This is because without previous instruction in team skills, students are faced with a chicken-and-egg problem in that the skills they need to do teamwork are the skills which teamwork engenders. Instead, students should be given instruction in the basic approaches and techniques - then the experiential learning becomes a positive experience in which they practise and build upon an existing foundation, rather than the dramatic and off-putting experience of sink-or-swim.”

Gerard M.Blair:  Laying the Foundations for Effective Teamwork.Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 23 October, 2006.
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Teaching/art0.html?http://oldeee.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Teaching/art0.html

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Professional competence

"The ability to work in a cross-disciplinary team is the most prized workplace attribute according to a study of new graduates already in the workplace."

UTS Survey reported in The Australian , 24 April, 2002.

"All the research evidence and findings based on experience in large, medium and small enterprises, suggest that teamwork is one of the most important attributes that a new graduate employee needs in order to advance his or her career. For example, a number of reports commissioned by government and stakeholder groups rank teamwork very high on their lists of desirable graduate attributes."

Harvey, L., Moon, S., & Geall, V. (1997). Graduates' Work: Organisational Change and Students' Attributes. Centre for Research into Quality. University of Central England in Birmingham. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 23 October, 2006.
http://www.uce.ac.uk/crq/publications/gw/index.htm

These days, most employers value teamwork skills in their new graduate employees as highly, if not more highly than their ability to work independently. In the workplace, staff are often allocated to project teams over whose membership or task focus they have no control. They need to be adaptable, flexible, able to 'get on' with people and to put the aims of the team first.

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