Teamwork or Results? What Is More Important for a Working Team

Today’s leadership climate is very different from how things were years ago. One of the major changes that seems to be taking place is a shift from focusing only on the numbers to focusing on teams and working together. What’s behind this, and is there an unintended consequence of worse results than before?

The Recent Focus on Teamwork

It’s been shown in a plethora of studies that teamwork is very helpful to business. Some might even say that working teams are an integral part of every organisation. And, they would be right! Except, this focus on creating teams does not always lead to the right ends for different projects.

If an organisation is focused on making sure working teams are healthy, that can lead to great results. However, it’s valuable to note that just because employees are part of a team does not mean they will automatically produce better results.

Which Makes a Bigger Organisational Difference: Teamwork or Results?

This is kind of a trick question, because both teamwork and results can be found together and are not mutually exclusive. However, is it better to focus only on the results that an organisation produces or is it better to focus on teambuilding and creating effective working teams?

The benefit of focusing on working teams is that in the long-term, an effective team will produce consistently better results than many individuals would over the same time period. This means that teams should be well thought-out, planned, and properly maintained to keep a healthy teamwork environment and produce greatness. If the team isn’t well maintained and balanced, great results shouldn’t be expected from it.

In the end, a working team is only as good as its results. If you’re experimenting with teams in your organisation, you have to be willing to pull the plug on some teams that just aren’t hitting the mark consistently. Want great results from a team? Put in the work to make it the best team possible. But whatever you do, don’t forget that they still have a job to do, and if they don’t get it done satisfactorily then something needs to be done to fix that problem!

Conclusion

Teamwork is an important aspect of business, but it’s not the final purpose of most organisations. Unless you run a teamwork consultancy office for professional working teams, you should not allow a focus on team building to take away from the results of the job that you are doing. Yes, effective teams can produce fantastic results. However, ineffective teams may be worse for your company than people working individually.

Want to put in the work to make a great team? Expect great things from it! Don’t want to put in the work for a good team? Don’t’ expect great things from this.