We live in a time when teamwork skills are getting more and more necessary, and yet we are if anything getting worse at it. (I am not going to waste time explaining why I think this is true – I will expand on that in due course but do feel free to contact me if you want to know the answer)

“Being a competent team player may very well be one of the most important qualities you can have. As we live in a social world, and value relationships with others, these can be most fulfilling when we do our part to make those relationships work”.

Susan Krauss Whitbourne PhD

So here’s my top seven reasons why I believe it’s the most fundamental skill, and one that you should make an effort to get better at.

1. Teamwork is Present in All Walks of Life

Don’t think teamwork is the preserve of soldiers, athletes and business people. A team is a husband and wife. Children on a school project. A government. Friends going on holiday. Your ability to achieve success and happiness in all these teams is affected by how good your teamwork skills are.

2. We are More Connected Now than Ever Before

The Internet itself and the knock on technologies that it has spawned mean that we are more connected to other human beings that ever before. 40% of the world’s population now have an Internet connection (compared with 1% in 1995). Teamwork is about how you collaborate with other people, and the Internet has revolutionized our ability to do so. It pervades all walks of life. This greater connectedness means that having the ability to work in teams is even more important now if you want to survive and thrive in the modern world.

3. The World is Getting More Competitive

More people. More information. Big Data. Faster, more disruptive Innovation. Social media. Need I go on? It’s obvious: The world is getting a more and more competitive and working well in teams can help you stay at the front of the race, and not just in the workplace.

4. We Need to Tackle the BIG Challenges Facing the Human Race

Climate change. Fossil Fuel depletion. Superbugs. The population explosion. Competition for food and water. There’s potentially a perfect storm brewing that will threaten the very fabric of our existence. OK that may sound a bit melodramatic, but these are very real problems. We owe it to our children’s children to work together to fix them so they don’t inherit our mess. Good teamwork is going to be one of the key building blocks to solving these issues.

5. Teamwork is essential to Innovation

Innovation is fast becoming THE buzz word of the 21^st Century. It is everywhere, in the design of things we use, the processes we apply at work and at home, in medical science… everywhere. Who hasn’t heard of Uber and Airbnb, and the term ‘disruptive innovation’? Great innovation comes from great teamwork. Check out this this Forbes.com article on why teamwork is key to innovation.

6. People With Good Team Skills Are More Successful Than those Without Them

Professor Sandy Pentland and his team at MIT have used technology and big data to identify what are the best team skills or styles that individuals can have in order to be successful in a team environment. This article from The American Scientist goes into it in great detail, but the key fact is:

‘The most successful style is what we call the “charismatic connector.” These people circulated in the crowd, practiced intense listening, had fluid speaking styles and tended to drive conversations with questions’.

Other people have claimed, as in this article  that ‘85% of your financial success is due to skills in human engineering, your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate and lead’ – all key aspects of teamwork – and your technical knowledge may contribute only 15% to your success.

7. Good Teamwork Affects Our Happiness

Humans are social animals. Isolating us is damaging to the point of being fatal. We thrive on social contact with other people.  It’s pretty obvious that happiness is good for us, and is perhaps becoming more elusive in today’s fast paced and fractured world. Getting teamwork right and avoiding the toxic results of bad teamwork will contribute greatly to your happiness and that of the people around you.  And who doesn’t want to be happy, right? This article  written by Tom Marsden, CEO of People Analytics company Saberr, discusses this in more detail if you are interested in the link between good teamwork and happiness.