Teamwork is the effective and efficient combined action of a group, with each person contributing toward the success of the whole.
Doing separate jobs is not always teamwork
Working independently on tasks that happen to connect is not necessarily the same as people coordinating around a shared objective. Teamwork depends on the group agreeing on the work, communicating, adapting, and using combined effort intelligently.
Consider ten people and ten boulders
Consider a simple analogy: imagine ten people tasked with moving ten large boulders. If each person struggles separately with a boulder, progress may be slow or nonexistent. If the ten people work together on one boulder at a time, the team may gain a series of successful completions.
Those completions create forward momentum and motivation. Communication can improve because everyone sees the same objective and shares in its completion.
Focus + Teamwork + Motivation = Velocity
Cross-functionality and shared understanding
Effective collaboration creates opportunities for cross-training and cross-functional learning. As team members understand each other’s work, the group can become more flexible and capable of solving problems.
Good communication, shared priorities, and collective accountability help improve efficiency, effectiveness, and the experience of working together.
How the program practices teamwork
Phazeline gives participants repeated opportunities to organize tasks together, pair up, work toward a common deliverable, present progress to a stakeholder, and carry out a retrospective. New apprentices join existing teams through pairing; Associates learn how to mentor and help teams work independently.
Core principle
The whole team’s result matters more than any one participant’s prominence. A good team helps its members succeed together.