1.  What Is the Definition of Teamwork

2.  The Teamwork’s Advantage and Disadvantage

3.  Four Stages Helping New Teams Perform Effectively and Quickly

1.What Is the Definition of Teamwork

Teamwork is the definition of cooperative members of a same group working together to obtain the same goal.

When people listen carefully to each other, when they seek and take seriously each other's opinions, when they make use of each other’s competencies and expertise, they are involved in teamwork.

A situation like, a football team, a marriage, a project at work, or a math team, may come and go. It requires no special structure, only an opportunity for two or more people to engage collaboratively and cooperatively in undertaking some task.

Teamwork exits outside the boundaries of formally constituted groups or teams. It can exist within groups for a time and then disappear.

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. Teamwork is the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. The fuel allows common people to attain uncommon results.

Teamwork is all about reaching the same goal, not worrying about the single glory as a person, but the revolution as a group. Therefore, when you are thinking as a team, you are thinking as one.

In order to create the best type of teamwork, trust, reliability, honor, respect and proper expectations are necessary. Whether you are leading a team or are the wheel of the team it is pertinent that each person in the team feels worth, importance and is needed.

2.The Teamwork’s Advantage and Disadvantage

Nowadays, almost everyone has taken into the teamwork and teamwork is more and more important than before. Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of the teamwork could help people work more harmoniously with their teamers.

The advantages are many. Teamwork can gather more useful information; Teamwork makes people put things into their right perspective; Teamwork makes people take things into consideration comprehensively; Different people play the different roles; Teamwork could strong the responsibility of the teamer. These are all the advantages.

Different cultures may make teamwork bad; Different individuality may make teamwork bad; Teamwork may increase people’s inertia; One person who has no responsibility could destroy the teamwork; Not share the information liberally to the teamers will affect the quality of the teamwork. These are disadvantages.

Teamwork is more and more important in the world and then the advantages and disadvantages will be more patency. If you pay attention to your behavior, you can find the advantages work well; the disadvantages would also be overcome. Then you can work with your teamers more harmoniously, the environment will be better, and the teamwork will also be better and better.

3.Four Stages Helping New Teams Perform Effectively and Quickly

Effective teamwork is essential in today’s world, but as you’ll know from the teams you have led or belonged to, you can’t expect a new team to perform exceptionally from the very outset. Team formation takes time, and usually follows some easily recognizable stages, as the team journeys from being a group of strangers to becoming united team with a common goal.

Whether your team is a temporary working group or a newly-formed, permanent team, by understanding these stages you will be able to help the team quickly become productive.

Understanding the Theory

Psychologist Bruce Tuckman first came up with the memorable words “forming, storming, norming and performing” back in 1965 to describe the path to high-performance that most teams follow. Later, he added a fifth stage that he called “adjourning” (and others often call “mourning” – it rhymes better!)

Teams initially go through a "Forming" stage in which members are positive and polite. Some members are anxious, as they haven’t yet worked out exactly what work the team will involve. Others are simply excited about the task ahead. As leader, you play a dominant role at this stage: other members’ roles and responsibilities are less clear.

This stage is usually fairly short, and may only last for a single meeting at which people are introduced to one-another. At this stage there may be discussions about how the team will work, which can be frustrating for some members who simply want to get on with the team task.

Soon, reality sets in and your team moves into a "Storming" phase. Your authority may be challenged as others jockey for position as their roles are clarified. The ways of working start to be defined, and as leader you must be aware that some members may feel overwhelmed by how much there is to do, or uncomfortable with the approach being used. Some react by questioning how worthwhile the goal of the team is and resist taking on tasks. This is the stage when many teams fail, and even those who stick with it feel that they are on an emotional roller coaster as they try to focus on the job in hand without the support of established processes or relationships with their colleagues.

Gradually, the team moves into a "Norming" stage, as a hierarchy is established. Team members come to respect your authority as leader, and others show leadership in specific areas.

Now the team members know each other better, they may be socializing together, and they are able to ask each other for help and provide constructive criticism. The team is developing a strong commitment to the team goal, and you start to see good progress towards it.

There is often a prolonged overlap between storming and norming behavior: As new tasks come up, the team may lapse back into typical storming stage behavior, but this eventually dies out.

When the team reaches the "Performing" stage, hard work leads directly to progress towards the shared vision of their goal, supported by the structures and processes which have been set up. Individual team members may join or leave the team without affecting the performing culture.

As leader, you are able to delegate much of the work and can concentrate on developing team members. Being part of the team at this stage feels “easy” compared with earlier on.

Project teams exist only for a fixed period, and even permanent teams may be disbanded through organizational restructuring. As team leader, your concern is both for the team’s goal and the team members. Breaking up a team can be stressful for all concerned and the "Adjourning" or "Mourning" stage is important in reaching both team goal and personal conclusions.

The break up of the team can be particularly hard for members who like routine or have developed close working relationships with other team members, particularly if their future roles or even jobs look uncertain.

Using the Tool

As a team leader, your aim is to help your team reach and sustain high performance as soon as possible. To do this, you will need to change your approach at each stage. The steps below will help ensure you are doing the right thing at the right time.

1. Identify which stage of the team development your team is at from the descriptions above.
2. Now consider what needs to be done to move towards the Performing stage, and what you can do to help the team do that effectively. The table below (Figure 1) helps you understand your role at each stage and how to move the team forward.

Figure 1: Leadership Activities at Different Group Formation Stages

3. Schedule regular reviews of where your teams are, and adjust your behavior and leadership approach to suit the stage your team has reached.

Another useful model of team formation is Cog's Ladder. The phases of each model largely correspond with each other, although Cog's Ladder includes an additional "Why are we here?" phase which falls across Tuckman's Forming and Storming phases.

Key points

Teams are formed because they can achieve far more than their individual members can on their own, and while being part of a high-performing team can be fun, it can take patience and professionalism to get to that stage.

Effective team leaders can accelerate that process and reduce the difficulties that team members experience by understanding what they need to do as their team moves through the stages from forming to storming, norming and, finally, performing.