Norms and rules of teamwork. Teamwork

Often among the requirements for the applicant listed by employers in the text of the vacancy, one can find such as “the ability to work in a team.” What is meant by these words? And in general, maybe the creators of the ad “for the sake of solidity and volume” mentioned this requirement? Let's figure it out!

Let's start with the fact that a team is a community of people who trust each other and work to achieve a common goal. It is well known: the productivity of a team, which resembles a well-oiled mechanism, where each employee is in his place and at the same time skillfully interacts with colleagues, is much higher than that of a company where, as Ivan Andreevich Krylov used to say, “there is no agreement among the comrades.”

What does it mean to “be able to work in a team”?

A person who knows how to work in a team

• quickly finds the right tone in communicating with new colleagues (and individual approach to each of them!), becomes his own;
• does not require long build-up and quickly adapts to the working rhythm accepted in the team;
• may admit that he was wrong and approve of his opponent’s idea. If he is firmly convinced that he is right, he has enough persistence, tact and the ability to correctly select arguments to convince his colleagues;
• in the interests of the business, today he can be a project manager, and tomorrow he can join a team working on a new task as an ordinary participant;
• helps colleagues and is not shy about accepting help from them;
• tries to avoid conflicts;
• personal ambitions do not prevent him from looking after the interests of the company.

“So, can you do it or not?”

But here’s the question: how can you convince an employer who is looking for a team player during an interview that you are exactly the one he needs? There won’t be enough stories here about how at your previous job you sat down with your colleagues every lunch break to feast on buns and discuss your favorite TV series.

The fact that you can harmoniously join the team and become part of it should be confirmed not by emotions, but by facts. In addition, when talking about your achievements, do not forget to use, in addition to the pronoun “I”, also “we”, “our” (“we delivered this project on time”, “our department won the competition”), while explaining what contribution did you make to the overall success? In this way, you will inform your interlocutor about your victories and demonstrate to him that you understand the importance of well-coordinated team actions and know how to successfully act together with colleagues.

But, of course, the main thing is to understand for yourself: are you a team player or a solo professional who would rather compete with colleagues (and, by the way, many employers highly value such employees). This will allow you to choose the most comfortable working conditions for yourself and avoid conflict situations: no one will accuse you of “pulling the blanket on yourself” or, on the contrary, of “lack of initiative and not inclined to fight for leadership.”

However, if suddenly your dream job requires you to change your role, it is never too late to make adjustments to your behavior, take advantage of the advice of professionals, and attend trainings and seminars.

And we, for our part, are always happy to offer you!

Happy employment!

At the very start of my business, I once attended an event where a successful entrepreneur spoke. He was asked the standard question: “What is the most important thing in business?” Without hesitation, he answered: “The most important thing in business is to create a Real Team. Cohesive, creative, competent, dynamic, well motivated. Everything else is secondary: ideas, resources, infrastructure, etc. If you have a good team, you can do any business, promote any idea, even an ineffective and banal one - the Team will still “pull” the business. “He’ll bite his teeth into it” and make the project a leader!”

First, let's define what we will call a team in this article. In a broad sense, a team is everyone who works in one company, and it’s good when, no matter the size of the business, everyone feels like one single team (few people succeed in this, good example Virgin or early Google).

At the startup level, the team is all your key employees and specialists.

With the growth of the business and the number of people involved in it, the team is now managers responsible for key areas of the business and key specialists who are directly involved in developing the strategy and tactics of the organization, on whom you can rely and with whom you move together towards the intended global goal . These are no longer employees, these are comrades. This is the team we are talking about in the article.

Is it possible to do without a team completely? Yes, sure. The project has not yet reached a certain scale. I myself have small (but quite successfully earning) Internet projects, where the entire team is myself. But in a serious project designed for large audience, you can’t do it without a team. Here, for sure, one in the field is not a warrior.

Why do you need a team?

A team is needed, first of all, to develop strong solutions. The collective mind is always stronger and the collective experience is always wider. As a result, the team almost always makes a stronger and more informed decision than one person. Or it strengthens an already thought-up good solution by an order of magnitude. The larger the team, the more knowledge and experience it has, and the stronger the decisions it makes can be. But the larger the team becomes, the more difficult it is to manage.

And of course, the main members of your team will take over and oversee key areas of the business. Everyone will have their own areas of responsibility, but in fact you will become a single integral mechanism.

How to select people for your team?

The stage of selecting people for a team is very important for any manager. But, as you know, “Personnel decides everything.” Therefore, we must try to make as few mistakes as possible. Here I can recommend the following:

1. It is best to invite people to your team with whom you have already had experience working or various kinds cooperation. It’s very good if you have seen this person at work (and on vacation), you know what competencies he has and what feats he is capable of :)

2. You should not start a business with close friends and relatives and, accordingly, take them into the team. There are a lot of negative examples. Close personal relationships will hinder business, and joint business will threaten the relationship itself. Take it better than people, with whom you know, whom you respect and who respect you.

3. On initial stage you probably won't have it big money to hire super-specialists with super-fees. But it is not particularly critical yet. It is important to find good and promising specialists in their fields and give them opportunities to constantly learn and build their competencies. And they will grow with you and with the business. If you still need a super-specialist, you can try to motivate him in another way (more on motivation below).

4. As the business grows, many managers begin to entrust the responsibility for hiring employees to the HR department and deputies, while at best they themselves look at resumes. But a good manager always controls the process and always conducts personal interviews with all key employees and especially with managers. And leaves behind the last word. Twice in my life I have met with such leaders and I think that this is a very correct approach.

What kind of people should a business team consist of?

At first, I was confident that the team should consist of people similar to you (in character, temperament, reaction speed, etc.). Now I have reconsidered my views. This gives only one imaginary advantage - such a team is easier to manage. But a truly strong team must consist of different people, with different views and beliefs, with different positions, with different temperaments, with different life habits and priorities.

Risk must be complemented by caution, optimism by pessimism, creativity by pragmatism, “sloppiness” by administrative abilities. It is in such a seemingly “motley” team that those golden, average, balanced, strong solutions are formed. The main task of the leader here is to act as a moderator and collector of decisions.

But at the same time, team members must respect each other, be “saturated” with the idea and share it, have common values ​​and, finally, be well motivated.

Each team member must be clearly positioned and solve a clearly defined range of tasks, for example finance, sales, technical support, marketing and promotion, etc. But at the same time, all team members should always be in a single information field. The team must have a constant synchronization of understanding of current tasks, meanings and short-term/long-term goals. Everyone should have the same and unambiguous understanding: who we are and where we are going.

How to motivate team members?

Of course, one of the main motivators is worthy wage, i.e. good money, received regularly and with progression in size. At the stage of starting a business, this is not always feasible. Therefore, it is necessary to build expanded motivation. For truly smart, active (in short, people who are most useful to you), in addition to money, there are other significant motivators that can and should be actively used.

1. Interesting thing

If your project is interesting in itself and also includes interesting people is a strong motivator. This is generally very important - that the work is interesting and that you want to go to it.

2. Strong mission

If your project has a strong goal, a mission, this can be motivating in itself. Change the world for the better, solve a difficult problem, correct a significant mistake, etc.

3. Potentially large business scale

If your business can potentially go beyond the boundaries of one district or one city and the project can have a national or even global scale, all this is also a great motivator for work.

4. Increasing personal competencies

If participation in a project involves acquiring new knowledge, competencies, and new opportunities for professional fulfillment, this is a strong motivator. If a project provides a rare opportunity to gain or increase unique competencies, that’s generally good. This is the baggage that a person will need in life in any case, even if the current business does not work out.

5. Ambition and ambition

If a person can realize his ambitions (for example, as a leader), this is a good motivator for many. This also includes the fact that a person must see that his opinion is listened to in the team, his decisions are made by the leader and other participants, that he really influences the business and its development. And you also need to learn to give team members more independence in making decisions, using certain budgets, etc.

6. Flexible work schedule

If you want to increase the productivity of your team, give all its members a free work schedule. This will only make people work harder, more productively and with much greater impact. You just need to set clear tasks and give the person the opportunity to decide for himself when he will be engaged in their implementation.

7. Mobility

Another effective way increasing the team's performance and at the same time motivation - increasing its mobility. At a minimum, as soon as possible, buy good laptops for all team members. Then the work will “move” in space along with the person :). Plus, you will also increase loyalty, as you will show additional care.

8. Workplace

Create normal working conditions for people. A normal office with a place for lunch, for discussions and relaxation, a comfortable work desk, accessories necessary for work, kitchen utensils, etc. All this greatly affects loyalty and motivation.

9. Joint recreation

Have informal evenings together, celebrate birthdays and events, don’t forget about outdoor corporate events and clubs. All this brings people together and creates additional horizontal connections in the team.

10. Collaborative learning and strategy sessions

Periodically organize strategic sessions with your team, joint trips to conferences, and joint training. Firstly, it takes you out of the routine, Secondly expands consciousness and competencies, and thirdly, unites the team.

11. Include stakeholders

A very powerful motivator is the inclusion of key team members as owners. It is clear that this should be done only with the most important and trusted team members. The share may not be large, but after that the person already perceives the business as his own, the mood and degree of responsibility changes. At the initial stage of business development, this is sometimes the only way to attract a super-specialist to the project.

12. Give a percentage of profit

Key team members can also be well motivated by including a real percentage of the company’s profit in the salary and bonus formula, even if it is not at all large. But this is a very good motivator, as it potentially allows a person to receive an irregular and constantly growing salary. And he does everything possible to increase his contribution to the joint business and influence the increase in profits. I wish you good luck in creating strong teams! Any feedback additions and just thoughts on this topic!

© Sergey Borodin 2013

This and other topics are discussed in more detail in my books in the series "The Phoenix Code. Technologies for changing lives."

Working as one team, you can complete those tasks that are too complex or time-consuming for one person. To do this, it is necessary that the efforts of all employees be aimed at achieving common goals, and at the same time, each of the team members must be able to think independently. The whole team is also responsible for all matters, not just one person. However teamwork is not a panacea for all troubles in business: such an organization of work also has its drawbacks. What are the features of such work, and what are its pros and cons?

Teamwork is a type of delegation of authority. It is not at all necessary that the team consist of employees of only one level - the level and positions of its members may be different, but everyone has the same rights and responsibilities during the team’s work. It is important that, despite differences in positions, all team members have equal positions. Such equality in rights and responsibilities is the basic principle of team work, and it allows a more objective assessment of the employees’ abilities for this form of work.

First of all, the following conditions are necessary for success in teamwork:

a) clear setting of goals and objectives;
b) correct selection of team composition;
c) the presence of a well-thought-out work system for team members;
d) the ability of team members to work collectively.

First, let's look at the benefits of working as a team.

1. During teamwork, the company realizes ideas that could not arise during normal work. This is explained by the fact that under normal operating conditions, each individual employee does not have the right to go beyond the scope of his job duties and, accordingly, he cannot have the tools and levers to solve all problems.

2. This point is logically connected with the previous one. Teamwork allows you to solve problems that are beyond the power of one person.

3. When making decisions in a team, the opinions of all team members are taken into account.

4. As a result of the fact that specialists from different departments collaborate in a team, pressure from one of the higher authorities becomes impossible.

5. The fact that the team listens to the opinions of absolutely all of its members guarantees that all the nuances that deserve attention will definitely come into the team’s field of view and will be taken into account. Consequently, the likelihood of making an erroneous decision is minimized.

6. This point follows from the previous one. Working as one team allows you to identify all the shortcomings in the work. The fact is that when one person is constantly responsible for the same area of ​​work, his eyes become blurred, everything is painfully familiar to him, and he may lose sight of something. A fresh look from another person instantly reveals everything.

7. Teamwork enhances the willingness and ability of management at all levels to collaborate.

8. An employee who has worked in a team becomes more loyal to colleagues, and in the future it is easier for him to interact with colleagues, as well as with other departments of the company.

9. Working in a team cultivates tolerance in its members, teaches them to have order, teaches them to respect other people’s opinions and behave correctly during a discussion, to overcome selfishness. These factors affect the overall success of the company.

11. Each team member, as well as the team as a whole, can maximize creativity and realize their potential in practice.

12. For large firms, the team allows them to more rationally use the capabilities of their specialists who work on solving problems that go beyond the scope of their job responsibilities.

13. For medium and small companies, teamwork allows full use of the abilities, knowledge and skills of employees. The team can replace the work of specialists whom the company cannot invite to work for financial reasons.

Now about the disadvantages of working in a team.

1. Additional time is required. The period of “grinding in” between team members can be quite long. It also takes some time to find an appropriate form of collaboration.

2. Team work is often slow. This is especially noticeable when large numbers teams and when working part-time in a team. Difficulties encountered in assembling team members at the appointed time have a negative impact on the progress of work.

3. Discussions that arise when working as part of a team take a lot of time, especially if individual employees do not know how to conduct them. Serious disagreements are possible.

4. Working as a team can lead to delay in decision making, since the different views of the participants are summarized only after lengthy discussions.

5. The anonymity of the work results of individual team members can negatively affect the desire to work. Any team member who has shown insufficient performance can “hide” behind an active participant in teamwork. When working as a team, there is no incentive for a sense of ambition, since the individual worker does not receive personal rewards for results.

6. If an employee performs work as part of a team as an addition to his main activity, then it may be too much of a burden for him. Therefore, it is necessary in each specific case to consider whether this load is feasible and what tasks should be abandoned while working in a team.

Scientists, sociologists and psychologists have long established that man is a collective and social being. If a person cannot communicate and get along with other people, it means only one thing - either he is a genius and does not need the presence of strangers, or he is simply a hopeless and unhappy person. Therefore, the ability to communicate and the ability to work in a team is even a mandatory item in the application form when applying for a job. It is this quality that determines the ability to work in a team and act together. In this article we will look at what your company will gain if its team works together as a team.

What is a team?

If people work and are not united by common goals, tasks, if they do not solve problems together, if they do not connect emotionally to the work, then it’s just working group of people. But if you conduct brainstorming sessions, group consultations, if you captivate people with a common idea to achieve material goals or unite them with common spiritual values, then people turn into a team.

If you have the concept " corporate culture“, then this is not enough to form a team, to turn your team into a team. And if you have worked together to develop these cultural rules, if the team understands the need to introduce such rules, if the rules imply obtaining a certain result, then they can unite the group members into a real team.

Remember the parable of the twigs and the broom? That's how it is in a team. If employees simply carry out their duties without understanding the overall process, then the company is much weaker, more susceptible to negative influences external environment. And if the company collectively defends its interests, employees participate in the work of the entire company, and are not limited to their own job responsibilities, if your soul is rooting for the general, and not the individual, result, then it is very difficult to negatively influence the company. The team has a huge number of advantages; it makes the company practically unsinkable. Therefore, forming a team of employees is one of the most important tasks and problems for every entrepreneur.

People's efforts are multiplying

When working in a team, a synergy effect occurs. Let's explain what this is with an example. What is two plus two? Of course, four. And with synergy, two plus two equals five.

If two employees draw a plan for a wooden house, and the other two will sell it, and they are not connected in any way with each other, then the result is the sale of one standard house. And if all four of them come up with a project together, then the situation changes radically. Sellers know what the buyer wants, they make their proposals to the planners, tell them how to more fully and accurately satisfy all the client’s desires, then the house turns out to be much more attractive to buyers. As a result, sellers are selling not just one, but many homes. So it turns out that through the efforts of the same four people you can achieve high sales.

Such synergy can be obtained from any process. The main thing is to set the right goal in the team, which will be understandable and interesting to all team members. Consequently, joining forces does not imply a quantitative increase in the company's staff, but ensures an increase in the quality of work parameters. Isn't this interesting for any leader?

The next advantage of working in a team is the creation of collective responsibility for what is happening in the team and work. If everyone came up with a model of a house together, then everyone will be interested in learning about its sales, right? This means that everyone wants more of them to be sold in order to receive, first of all, their moral dividends, and as a result, an increase in wages.

Moreover, when a person is very passionate about the general idea, he thinks little about future profits. And if the overall success is also supported by the payment of a bonus, then the collective spirit will be stronger, and the desire to participate in the work of the entire company will come more than once. But what if success doesn't come? In this case, the team’s actions will intensify and will again be aimed at achieving a positive result. This is where collective responsibility is expressed. A common failure - everyone needs to fix it.

This strategy allows the manager only to control the process and direct it to the right direction. The most labor-intensive part – incentives – is eliminated production processes, designation of additional load, discipline control.

How is work divided in a team?

One of the hallmarks of a team is the equal and reasonable distribution of work.

Let's take the same example with houses. If the model of the house was discussed and born in a brainstorming session, that is, the whole team came up with an image of the house, then in the process talents may be discovered that are not used in the employee’s main job. For example, a marketer can beautifully draw appearance at home in Photoshop, an accountant can suggest supplier companies that have the necessary components for new elements of the house, etc. Employees take on this work themselves.

It turns out that a redistribution of responsibilities and additional workload occurs spontaneously. I know of companies where such talents began to earn even more than at their main place of work. Over time, you can even transfer the employee to a new place of work. And it will be perfect correct solution yours as a leader.

Efficiency of single workers

A few more words about efficiency. Now let's look at it from the point of view of highly specialized employees. They, as practice shows, do not really like to think and create in big company. How to infect them with team spirit? You'll have to work hard here.

The first thing that will need to be done is to create a mini-working group that will develop a strategy in this narrow area. During general brainstorming sessions, you can ask a specialist to attend and advise if it comes to working in his field. You will see that your “star” will join the general conversation much earlier, and will participate, if not actively, then from an observational position will return the general idea to the right direction. This will improve overall work efficiency.

Personal interests and company interests

The next advantage of the team is the dissolution of personal interests in the interests of the company. Remember how your employees run home at 18:00 and abandon unfinished work? How do they leave for lunch when they are overwhelmed with work, and come back from lunch 15 minutes late, saying that the buses to the store are bad?

So, the team doesn’t go home without finishing the work, and if such a situation arises, then in the future they help each other get all the work done before 18:00. The team makes every effort to achieve goals, and all personal goals are integrated into the overall goal of the company. If a person likes to go to the pool, then he gradually gets all his colleagues interested in this activity. Others then change their interests, or they are also “introduced” into the team.

How do you subordinate your interests to a common production goal? This obviously may not even appear, but the brain is a working organ that does not turn off even when a person is not at work. As a result, a brilliant idea can come to an employee’s mind even while he is steaming in his favorite bathhouse. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct planning meetings based on the results of individual thought processes even after the weekend, moreover, always after the weekend.

Reducing risks in business

Teamwork significantly reduces all the risks associated with commercial entrepreneurial activity. Firstly, teamwork is completed on time. If someone wants to delay work, he understands that his lateness will undermine the work of the entire team and a chain reaction will occur. And the quality of the result will be reduced. Therefore, as a rule, all deadlines for completing work in a team are observed very strictly.

In addition, work efficiency is maximized because many ideas are always accumulated in the main idea. Practice shows that the leading idea when working in a team can change. AND new idea It is expressed, as a rule, in the form of nonsense, but with collective refinement and imagination, when adapting it to local realities, it turns into truly brilliant.

Team benefits that will be reflected in the external environment

Now let’s list the advantages of your company compared to competitors if you have a team formed and operating.

1. Any work that is handed over to clients or partners is always done on time. Violations occur only due to external reasons, and even then they are corrected in the shortest possible time. This will make you stand out in the market among similar companies. Moreover, all risks will be overcome completely unnoticed by the general climate of the company, without rush jobs, in working mode. This is what will make your clients your regular customers.

2. The quality of products or services provided will increase. This stops the receipt of complaints from clients and stabilizes the moral situation in the team. In addition, word of mouth will recommend your company on the market for goods and services, so that clients will come to you based on recommendations from friends. You can significantly reduce advertising costs.

3. We have already indirectly found out this advantage, but it should be repeated that uniting all team members into a team will increase the overall reputation of the company in your locality and beyond. Your reputation determines whether your clients need to contact you. All shopping advice starts this way: ask those who have already contacted this company. If when purchasing small goods this does not play out as big role, but if we're talking about about something large (cars, houses, tourist trips, etc.), then the recommendations and reputation of the company in the market are very important.

4. The team never reveals its shortcomings to clients. Remember what they say about “dirty laundry”? Here this law works automatically. None of the team members divulge the “military secrets of the company.” And not at all because their mouth is taped, and the manager constantly demands compliance with this rule. It’s just that everyone understands the danger of publicizing shortcomings; the motivation for being on a team is the most clearly working - not to harm the whole business, not to harm the team.

E. Shchugoreva

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Few people understand how to work in a team, although he regularly notes this quality in his resume. First, you need to decide how you are more accustomed to working, in a team or alone. And only after that look suitable job.

What is teamwork

The principles of teamwork are as follows:

Abstract from personal preferences, be able to manage your emotions;
to help others, not to be led by personal emotions;
act in accordance with the assigned tasks;
find convincing arguments for your point of view;
observe the general rhythm of work and quickly adapt to it;
be able to establish a dialogue with each member of the team;
be able to accept someone else’s point of view and admit your mistakes.

The ability to work in a team is extremely important for managers and executives, who must not only manage the team, but also know to whom and to what extent to delegate certain responsibilities. To do this, you need to be able to communicate with subordinates and other managers, be ready to extend a helping hand to them and accept it from them.

Skill to work in team involves the ability to avoid and prevent conflict situations. This is most relevant for large-scale tasks and short-term projects. But in some cases, the spirit of competition also produces considerable results. When a company has chosen an aggressive method of doing business, it is more important for it to have a person in a leadership position who not only knows how to work correctly in a team, but how to competently conflict in order to achieve the goals set by the company.

How to write a resume

We must understand that teamwork skills- these are not qualities that need to be discussed directly. They should flow logically from your achievements and indirectly remind you of yourself in your resume. To do this, it is enough to mention that your department was a leader in the company in implementing the assigned tasks.

How is teamwork defined?

You can evaluate how a person can work in a team through special situational tests. group games, when a business situation is modeled and the team is asked to solve it through joint efforts. During the game, each participant is observed, determining how he behaves in a work environment and how he knows how to interact with strangers.

It should be noted that teamwork in Western and Russian companies has its differences. In the former, more attention is paid to team building, and in the latter, you have to work in conditions of competition and intrigue. The candidate is usually warned about these nuances at the interview stage, and then they carefully monitor how he manages to work in a team at the interview stage. probationary period.

Likewise, the candidate must constantly ask questions that concern him about the job at all stages of the interview and probationary period, because he is not able to foresee all the nuances.

What are the teams?

To work effectively in a team, each leader selects a team to suit his needs, because often the previous team is aggressive against the new leader. Especially if someone from the previous team applied for this position. In this case, to learn to work in a team, the leader must not make hasty decisions and gain authority.

Who are you?

When effective teamwork is needed

However, even in such a situation, the employee must have at least a minimal understanding of how to work in a team. After all, he does not work in isolation, and he will have to, at a minimum, communicate with the accounting department, managers, and lawyers of the company. And with what big amount The number of people an employee will have to deal with, the more knowledge he will need to know how to work in a team.