Did you know that a lack of teamwork not only impacts relationships, but has a huge negative
impact on how you can do your work, particularly when you need other people to help you?
In this video, I'm going to share with you my tried and true tips on how to ensure effective
teamwork in the workplace.
And if you stay tuned to the end of this video, I have something really special to share with
you which is going to help you be an amazing team player on all those activities that you
work together with your team.
Hi.
If you're new here, welcome.
My name is Adrian Girdler.
In this channel you're going to get the best career and project management advice coming
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Now, if you're excited to learn more about teamwork, let's get to it.
Share the spotlight and celebrate.
Yes.
This is really important for effective teams.
You want people to get the recognition they deserve for the great work that they're doing.
It really is demotivating when you're putting a lot of hard work and energy and no one recognizes
it.
So ensuring that you do that, particularly when you're leading a team, but even better
yet, even if you're someone who is on a team and is a team member, do it for each other.
It doesn't always have to come from the leader.
And ensure as well that you celebrate those milestones, have those celebrations in place.
It could be as simple as sending out a congratulatory email like hey guys, we made it to the next
stage.
Woohoo.
It could be bringing in pizza for lunch or sending people gift cards in regards to having
like a voucher for lunch.
If your company allows that, because I know every company has different policies.
So just ensure that the recognition and celebration is there because people really do want to
know they're doing a good job.
And it's important that you recognize it as a leader as well as as a team member.
Use project management tools.
What?
A trainer, you're talking about effective teams and you're talking about project management
now?
Yeah.
Guess what?
Projects are all about your team and how they perform.
And if you want an effective team, then definitely start adopting project management techniques
and tools to help you.
You don't necessarily have to be in a project in order to use project management tools.
You can just have a departmental team and you guys are executing some stuff, absolutely.
Start using some of those tools and to technique.
So I have a few for you to think about.
One tool particularly is a scope template.
Now a scope template defines exactly what it is that you're doing.
Now for a non-project, if you have an initiative, what exactly are you doing?
What's in and what's out?
What's the background justification?
That information alone given to your team members so that they can do their own thing
is going to be huge because it helps them be effective.
They're not guessing at what has to be delivered or worse yet, assuming what has to be delivered.
That's always a bad thing, is assumptions.
Now another project management tool is a WBS and that's a work breakdown structure.
I actually use mine and translate it into an action plan.
So you could totally use, let's say for your department or even if you're just a manager
and you have a team with you and you have tasks that everybody is doing.
They're not projects, they're individual ones, but you can in your WBS, your action plan,
everyone have their own tab or their own section where they're monitoring what's going on.
And the fact that everyone can see what everybody else is doing and you can use that tool in
meetings to get status updates is huge and another way to really remain effective because
now people know what they need to do.
They're not going to ask you.
They just have to go to their action list.
Really helpful.
And another thing you want to consider from a project management tool perspective that
I use all the time is a SharePoint site.
You want a central location for all your critical information.
So that really promotes effectiveness.
I do communication in there, I have all key related documents, anything that they need
to know.
It is your one stop shop for everything.
And that is a great way to ensure effective teams.
Again, these tips are amazing and they're all being pulled from project related tools
and ways of working.
So why not look at a framework of project management, which is an amazing discipline
and take the best of that world and bring it into your world?
Before we jump on the next tip, I want to remind you stay to the end, because I'm going
to share with you how to get your hands on that amazing tool that's just going to make
your teams really effective, even more effective than the area.
Communication is key.
If you're going to have effective team and have effective teamwork, your team needs to
know how to communicate.
And you really have to think about this.
Never assume that people will communicate.
Why?
We get really busy in our worlds and now that we have hybrid ways of working, where we have
people working virtually, people working in the office, we're a little more silo than
if we were all working together in an office where we can bump into each other in hallways
and meetings and stuff of that nature.
So communication becomes key.
Ensure that you have a place to put announcements so that people can go to it, know what's happening.
If you're a manager or a leader of a team, ensure that you are sharing with everyone
what the latest news is that's going to impact them.
If you're a team member and you have something that's going to impact your teammates, ensure
that at the appropriate time, you can share that information.
That's going to help immensely.
If you don't have a communication policy already or kind of like a ways of working that you
want to integrate into your own teams, I highly recommend you consider that.
Remember my other SharePoint...
My project tools, SharePoint recommendation in my previous tip, that is an excellent tool
to use to help with communication, particularly from an announcement perspective.
Now, if you're looking for teamwork and building and communication, definitely go to search
bar, YouTube, Adriana Girdler team building and I have some other ideas there when it
comes to communication as well.
Don't procrastinate.
Adriana, why do you keep on bringing stuff that has nothing to do with teamwork?
I'm like no, no, no.
It actually has lots to do with teamwork.
People don't realize particularly when you're doing team activities.
A lot of our individual activities dependencies, whether we're dependent on someone or someone's
dependent upon us.
So when we procrastinate, because there's days it happens, we need to really be aware
that if we're going to have effective teams and be effective with our teamwork, that we
really have to be respectful of deadlines and really be cognizant.
Is what I'm doing impacting anybody else?
Do they have to wait for me to be completed with my task?
So really keep that in your mind.
And when you're making those decisions as to when you're going to get things done, because
we don't live in our own little world siloed when we're in teams, we're usually supporting
each other and we're building off of each other's work.
So it's really important that you do not procrastinate and really respect those deadlines so other
people can get their work too.
That just makes an effective team.
Honesty is the best policy.
If you want an effective team and you want to have effective teamwork, it is so important
that people feel safe.
Because if I always have to look over my shoulder and wondering if that I'm going to get stabbed
in the back because we don't have trust in our team, it really makes moving things forward
very difficult in a team.
And I've been on many projects where we are developing teams and we've gone through the
forming stage where everyone is really polite and then get into our storming stage, which
is the next stage of team development, and guess what?
We don't have trust.
We're not open and honest.
Some of people have hidden agendas.
So you really have to take a look at what are you bringing into this particular team?
How are you behaving?
Honesty, you also open yourself up to vulnerability.
So it's important that the lead of your team, whether it's a manager, a project manager,
a team lead really understands this and sets the tone and really promotes this honesty.
But it has to be done across the board always.
You can't be selective with it because then people will know that there's not trust.
So just be honest, really come forward.
You can do things in a professional way.
You don't have to make yourself vulnerable all the time in the sense of you have to tell
every little thing, your darkest secrets, things of that nature.
I'm not talking about that type of honesty, but if things aren't going well, share with
your team.
Guys, I really need help or I'm not understanding this or we have this deadline and everyone
says they can get it done, but I don't think I can get it done because that honesty is
just going to ensure that oh, you can't get it done?
Well, let's postpone it.
You wouldn't have known if you didn't ask.
Versus keeping it to yourself and then derailing things because you procrastinated.
So just understand that that really helps with effective teamwork.
Now that you have some tips on effective teamwork, I would like for you to go here, grab this
in the link below under this YouTube video.
Remember you have projects, you have ways of working, you have initiatives.
There's top 10 reasons why projects fail or activities or initiatives.
They're all applicable.
It doesn't really matter.
And project business, I really recommend you get it.
And by the way for you, it's free.
So why not?
It doesn't hurt you to go and at least learn this.
I promise you it's going to help.
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If you have any other topic ideas, please put them in the comments below.
Until the next video, see you later.