3.5 Teamwork: Opportunities to Succeed
Working in teams to achieve a common objective presents unique opportunities and challenges. We first list ways we can succeed in teams and then provide challenges.
The following characteristics are seen in effective teams (Whetton & Cameron, 2007):
- Members depend on each other. When team members rely on each other to get the job done, team productivity and efficiency are high.
- Members trust one another. Teamwork is more effective when members trust each other.
- Members work better together than individually. When team members perform better as a group than alone, collective performance exceeds individual performance.
- Members become boosters. When each member is encouraged by other team members to do his or her best, collective results improve.
- Team members enjoy being on the team. The more that team members derive satisfaction from being on the team, the more committed they become.
- Leadership rotates. Teams function effectively when leadership responsibility is shared over time (p. 497).
This section is adapted from “Why Teamwork Works” in Professional and Technical Writing by Suzy Baker (2025, June 01), licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International.
