What is the key to teamwork?

Trust

Trust!

Culture

All of the above but also "listening" -
- Listen to understand the desired goal
- Be willing to listen to all views and ideas from every member of the team.
- Be willing to "let go" of the idea or process that you thought was so great if someone else's idea or process is better or more efficient.

Mutual respect and trust will help a team reach their desired goal.

Humor is always a key ingredient. :)

Commitment and trust

I think there are a couple of really important elements to successful teams:

1) Ability to compromise. People really need to keep their ego's in check.

2) Strong but *not* overbearing leadership.

3) Chemistry. People who genuinely like each other will work together better than a similar team with neutral relationships.

I also find that teams with clear goals will organize themselves around deliverables and work hard to achieve them.

When I read that back to myself, it feels like a bunch of platitudes, but they do reflect my experience.

I see trust a lot. But before trust can be established, parties need to become familiar with each other and to become familiar they needs to be able communicate openly and honestly. The more parties interaction, the more familiar they will become with each other actions and reactions. The more parties interact and produce value, the more likely the parties will build trust. So the key to teamwork is open and honest communication.

"Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success. "

~ Henry Ford

Steve Olson

Understanding the needs of the team members and the goals they are expected to reach.

I've found it helpful for people to learn how to communicate well, empathize with others and problem-solve collaboratively.

All evaluations and assessments must be of the team as a whole; never as individuals.

Trust, respect, and faith in the worthiness of accomplishing the team's mission.

It helps if people are in the right roles to meet the mission of the team, are all coherent, and they have teaming characteristics that aren't a clash with the organizational culture.

Janice, there isn't one answer, that's just not possible when dealing with the dynamics of human beings, we would be over simplifying life and fooling ourselves, but that's just my opinion.

Team work requires many different dynamics and has multiple drivers.

Purpose
Strength Balanced- team members with different talents
Alignment
Trust
and the list goes on and on.

Trust, ability and STRONG COMMUNICATION.

I work with distributed teams around the world - we never physically meet but we work on large complex problems together very well. The key to this success is trusting that they will do the work they say they will (it is all too easy for anyone in this situation to think that because no-one is physically near anyone else that they don't actually have to work).

The second someone has a problem, it is important they communicate this to other team members, in order to help fix the issue, or find a workaround (NOT a cheap hack).

Ensure that everyone is clear on what is expected of them, and to stick to it; not encroach on someone's area of work because it is more interesting.

Demonstrate progress at regular intervals (e.g. weekly). This keeps everyone focused, and ensures the project moves along.

Divide tasks into small chunks. This keeps it interesting and helps to monitor progress.

There is more, but these are the main points. Communication is the key point.

Recognizing that everyone brings sense of value and contributes incredibly to the entire process.

Common interests! If most or all member of the team have similar objectives, they will work well together.

In my upcoming book, Collaboration Roadmap, I talk about it this way (from the Appendix):

Essential practices of collaboration are:

- Promoting interdependence as the way of working together.
- Respecting the individual and their point of view.
- Allowing productive friction and disagreements to push the team to explore new boundaries of possibilities.
- Committing to working difficult issues through to completion.
- Trusting that each person is working towards the best outcome for the group.
- Informing team members about your current status and roadblocks.
- Communicating to draw other people out, rather than shutting them down, especially during major disagreements.
- Evidencing openness to the ideas of other people.