Teaching Objective

Importance of Teams

Understanding of Teaming

Differences between Team and Teaming

Teaming Culture

Team Climate

Paradox of Teaming

Cultural shift in organizations

Organizational benefits of Team Climate

Organizational benefits of Teaming

Every organization has a team wherein a group of people work together for a common goal, purpose, and vision by fulfilling the obligatory objectives. Those teams are interdependent and they work to achieve a shared outcome. The need is to create an ideal climate to work willingly with commitment and passion. Nevertheless, teaming is to accomplish crucial objectives, without group membership through collaboration and coordination. This kind of teaming can innovate to achieve tremendously. Teaming is apt for these borderless business operations open round the clock, with a lot of challenges and uncertainty in the VUCA world.

Today in the working scenario, contingencies are unavoidable, rather, precedented and with a very few engaged workforce, getting people to work is a humongous task. Needless to say, that is a bigger challenge for leadership. In any given context a leader has to help employees understand the purpose of their job and why it matters. So a team leader’s responsibility is to communicate often about it. There has to be some compelling obvious reason why the employees should be excited about work and its’ larger interest.

Teams or teaming, ought to generate ideas, share them wholeheartedly and put their best efforts to work. What holds back employees to innovate? Open communication, openness for ideas, an experimental climate, and no fear of failure, would enhance talents to speak their mind. This in turn fosters creativity, innovation, and learning. A culture that is fear-based will elude these progressive qualities. Team leads, teaming leads, and leaders should be focusing on themselves as to what they should do to get employees to work smart with commitment and dedication, rather than naming, shaming, and fearful culture of carrot and stick nature. The logical scenario is to make the team members understand the need for their participation, their job input, what is expected of them, and why. This is sometimes possible only by breaking the silence and asking good questions. This is at times the only way to bust the thought bubbles. So this is all about psychological safety, where a mixed bag of extroverts, introverts, and conflicting personalities teaming up.

A few nuggets of information gathering from teams or teaming is to ask open questions so they can probe and bust the thought bubbles. These questions may enable recognition and connection or both.

• What is your job role or what are you trying to do?
• What are your concerns and barriers?
• What are your strengths?
• What is your vulnerability?

An early conversation in teams or teaming about the plans for technological innovations and fear of automation can alleviate many misconceptions. To feel engaged is more qualitative than to go with the motion of work professionally and commitment personally or both. That is an automated human mode that is toxic in the long run. The idea is to put our life, talent, and time to their best use.

Teaming is the business prospect, innovation, and culture in business organizations today. The teaming culture brings with it a mixed bag of projects, collaboration, and shared goodies. The idea is to identify jobs and get talented people on board, speed up jobs, and get targeted results. This teaming is more stable, committed project-oriented, and result-driven than teams. A stark difference is that the core work for teaming is headlong may it be any industry from technology, education, manufacturing, hospitality, health care, aviation, supply chain, logistics, strategy, product development, or service. Teaming is flexible, and the time or gap between teaming and results is reduced to a minimum with good efforts. The only bottleneck is to get teaming on the go. Hence a culture and climate where teaming can be a natural process in organizations is the way ahead. This climate will enhance curiosity, idea generation and effectiveness, and needless to say engagement. Effective collaboration under pressure is a key driver for enhancement and behavior models are to be practiced.

The cultural shift has to be from ‘you’ and ‘me’ to ‘us’ and ‘them’. Curiosity and understanding of processes and results will bring in the desired cultural shift. An infectious passion, unmistakable empathy, and the drive for high-quality work can deepen the understanding of the purpose, and teams and teaming can usher in desired results.

 Dr Sindhu Shantha Nair

Teaming: The new Business Perspective | by Dr Sindhu Shantha Nair | Medium