Successful teamwork is essential for every company, yet how can it best function? What elements make up an effective team?

When people join together in cooperation, something magical occurs - the total becomes greater than its parts. Achieve this kind of collaboration doesn't happen overnight though - it requires careful planning and skilled leadership.

1. Clarity

Attributing clear expectations is one of the primary components of teamwork in the workplace. Doing so ensures that each member understands their role and its significance within the greater picture, while helping avoid confusion or frustration that could sap employee energy levels.

Clarity begins by carefully curating your team from its inception. By considering each person's individual experiences and skillsets, you can assign roles which fit their identities perfectly, increasing job satisfaction, productivity and engagement in turn.

Role clarity should be established during recruitment, onboarding and throughout the team's lifetime - including revisiting roles during performance reviews or restructuring as necessary. The aim is to build teams where every day's work brings them closer towards meeting the ultimate objective of the project; employees will then feel like their daily efforts matter and can contribute toward reaching that objective with greater effort and drive.

2. Trust

Trust among team members is of utmost importance for a project team or employee department's success, as without it they cannot work cohesively toward reaching success.

Effective teams need clear goals and an understanding of how individual tasks contribute towards those goals, as well as an intimate knowledge of one another's knowledge, skills, abilities, strengths and weaknesses in order to rely on one another when needed. Without such clarity teams may second guess one another and rework projects unnecessarily reducing productivity.

Teams that foster trust feel comfortable offering constructive criticism and taking risks despite making mistakes. When trust increases amongst members, psychological safety and empathy increase as well, making it easier for teammates to share honest dialogue in daily huddles or provide status updates.

3. Accountability

Strong team members hold themselves accountable for fulfilling tasks and understanding what's expected of them, while respecting one another's ideas and opinions without fear of ridicule or embarrassment when making mistakes.

Managers can support accountability by publicizing everyone's roles and periodically revisiting them with each team member. Setting realistic goals that communicated to everyone on the team are also vital; goals that aren't reachable act as an impediment to teamwork by undermining motivation levels.

Team members must communicate honestly and openly amongst themselves. They must share ideas even if they may be controversial and listen carefully when others hold different viewpoints, creating an atmosphere of psychological safety essential for teamwork to flourish. Without such safety, people would tend to avoid challenging each other, hide mistakes instead of working together towards solutions, fail to meet commitments, blame each other instead of working towards solutions, or spend too much time being critical of each other for mistakes that have already been made.

4. Flexibility

Flexibility is the ability to adapt work according to changing conditions. It is an integral characteristic of teams that can respond effectively when unexpected changes or situations arise in the workplace, such as when projects take longer than anticipated or urgent issues arise.

Flexible schedules help employees balance work and personal lives more easily, lowering stress levels. Furthermore, this form of scheduling breaks down gender stereotypes as both men and women can adjust their work schedule to accommodate family responsibilities or childcare duties. In addition, flexibility can promote collaboration among colleagues who work remotely.

Flexibility may increase the odds that leaders exhibit inclusivity and psychological safety; however, it cannot act as a panacea. Prior to offering flexibility to members of a remote team, training opportunities and supporting professional development should be offered; this will give them confidence and skills necessary for effective collaboration when working remotely.

5. Inclusion

Inclusion measures how well people feel integrated into a culture, work environment or other setting. An inclusive team requires members who feel accepted for who they are while their differences are celebrated; once inclusion has been achieved, people can freely voice their opinions at meetings without fear of ridicule or prejudice, creating a collaborative environment and helping solve problems by considering all perspectives.

Start building inclusive teams by cultivating close relationships between employees. Listen when employees speak, ask relevant questions, and show you value their input. Also use inclusive language like referring to everyone as "you", instead of calling specific groups out by name that may offend.

Provide your team with an accessible structure and set attainable goals, prioritizing feedback as part of this plan. Doing so will increase productivity and happiness among your teams by making clear what their roles are in terms of a larger goal for the project as well as giving them all of the support needed to work well together.