10 Essential Team-Building Skills

Master these teamwork skills to empower teams and improve your career prospects

Image: https://unsplash.com/photos/person-in-red-sweater-holding-babys-hand-Zyx1bK9mqmA

Effective teamwork is a key to success in any workplace. Whether you work in a physical office or remotely, working with others team members and fostering synergy is essential to meet organizational goals. Such skills as communication, active listening skills, problem-solving, and organizational skills help you interact with other positively and create a positive team dynamic.

Topics	Details
1. Communication skills	details...
2. Goal setting	details...
3. Critical thinking skills	details...
4. Giving and receiving feedback	details...
5. Problem solving skills	details...
6. Delegation skills	details...
7. Emotional intelligence	details...
8. Active listening skills	details...
9. Conflict resolution skills	details...
10. Time management	details...

But what exact skills should you develop to become a valuable team member in your dream company? Worry no more - we have you covered. In this article, you will find a list of all-important team building skills that will give you a competitive edge over other job-seekers.

Not sure what team building skills to add to your resume? Let our experts figure it out for you. At ResumePerk, you can hire a human resume writer who will improve your old resume according to recent trends and ATS requirements. Plus, we will adjust it to your target job openings to help you maximize interviews. Don't postpone, chat with us now!

Why are team-building skills so important?

Effective team building helps you foster a positive, productive team environment where everyone contributes to a shared goal. The process of developing teams can't be completed overnight and it requires focused effort.

Here is why it is essential to organize and set up the effective work of your team:

• Employees who are open to working collaboratively are more engaged and deliver better outcomes than those working on their own. The so-called synergy effect helps team function more effectively than each individual team member.
• Teams make better decisions 87% of the time compared to individual workers. Teamwork shows better results when it comes to collaboration, innovation, and problem-solving.
• Companies that foster teamwork have a 50% lower turnover rate. Moreover, there is a survey showing that teamwork between departments also contributes to overall well-being and job satisfaction.

Successful team building contributes to a lot of organizational outcomes, so let's consider specific skills you will need to help your team thrive.

Top 10 Team-Building Skills You Need

Here are some basic skills you need to create a positive work environment:

1. Communication skills

The success of any team starts with effective communication. You can hardly build a high-performing team if instructions are often misunderstood, one team member doesn't know what the other works on, and ideas are never discussed.

So, how do you use this essential team building skill in practice? Encourage everyone on your team to give frequent updates, exchange information, share and discuss ideas, and inform proactively if something goes wrong. Say, if Jane messed up the negotiation with an important client, she should be comfortable sharing it with the team so that everyone could think of the solution and save the day.

2. Goal setting

Before you encourage team members to work on a shared goal, everyone should understand what is this major goal and what is their role in it. A good team leader should walk everyone through the process of goal attainment, show the milestones, and correct the course of action on the go.

Plus, this crucial team building skill includes discussing goals with each individual employee, and aligning them with their personal development plans. Set deadlines and measurable goals, track progress, and help fix it if something goes not as planned. You will also need strong communication skills to discuss goals positively and stay flexible.

3. Critical thinking skills

Critical thinking is a key team building skill that helps analyze information and evaluate the situation comprehensively. It is essential to proactively identify and solve problems, and it is best to discuss them collaboratively, considering the input of all team members.

When it comes to team building, you should be able to evaluate the performance of your team with your eyes wide open, and correct the course of action if something goes wrong. For example, you can re-assign subordinates to help them focus on tasks they are better at, or identify where your team members underperform and organize relevant training.

4. Giving and receiving feedback

This list of team building skills includes feedback for a reason. Everyone needs quality feedback to learn from their mistakes and perform better in the future. While negative feedback is not a pleasant experience, it is essential to help your team members grow.

It is important to give feedback correction to foster understanding. When giving feedback, focus on the specific areas of performance and don't just say "Good job". Mention the specific qualities that you value in the employee. When you have to give negative feedback, keep the tone positive and uplifting and specify what exactly the person should work on.

5. Problem solving skills

One of the key things team do better is solving problems together. People with varying life experiences contribute different perspectives and can come up with an unorthodox, truly creative solution. For example, if, despite investing a significant budget in digital marketing and ads sales keep declining, delegate this task to team members and ask them to brainstorm and discuss it.

Effective problem-solving is tied to critical thinking, creative thinking skills, and effective communication. By fostering these abilities in your team, you will not also get a better solution that if you delegated the task to one person, but will also strengthen team bonds.

6. Delegation skills

Effective management is a synonym to smart delegation. Quite often, the issues with team dynamics are caused by poor delegation. For example, some of your subordinates might be overwhelmed with tasks while others get distracted to check out new short videos all the time. Or, a more complex scenario - team members are assigned tasks they aren't good at without prior instruction or training.

To improve the bottom line, you need to delegate tasks and communicate effectively what you expect. Make sure that team members understand that the outcomes are the result of everyone's individual effort. People with strong leadership skills go even further and build teams that self-delegate and work collaboratively on new tasks.

7. Emotional intelligence

To help bonding of team members, you also need emotional intelligence. This team building skill refers to ability to understand and manage your emotions and the emotions of your coworkers. Emotional intelligence requires self-awareness, empathy, and good communication skills with other team members.

Strong emotional intelligence will help everyone on the team build positive relations, quickly resolve conflicts, and increase job satisfaction. For example, as a manager, you can offer the employee that goes through a difficult family situation to work flexible hours, and this will increase their loyalty to the company.

When writing a resume, be sure to add your achievements along with skills. Here are the top achievements to mention on a resume.

8. Active listening skills

Effective communication and listening are the team building skills that go hand in hand. Poor listening skills lead to breaches in communication, lower engagement of your team, plus you can overlook potential problems.

Active listening involves focusing on what the other person is saying without interrupting them, repeating and paraphrasing, and asking for questions/clarification if needed. It helps you encourage diverse opinions and points of view, find solutions to problems, and ensure that everyone feels valued and respected.

9. Conflict resolution skills

Conflicts occur in any workplace, and if not resolved, can lead to lower productivity, poor engagement, and high turnover. To prevent conflicts from jeopardizing success of your cohesive team, master conflict resolution skills. They include listening to both parties of the conflict, mediating the dispute, and finding a win-win solution.

For example, Jessie and Claire from marketing are having a heated discussion about the digital promotion campaign for a new service. As a leader, you will want to ask everyone to step back and calm down, and then have one-on-one meetings to understand the perspectives of both of them to resolve a dispute effectively.

10. Time management

Time management requires strong organizational skills, the ability to delegate, and allocate resources. Your ability to prioritize and set deadlines affects the entire team, and having this skills helps you build a better performing team.

Time management skills mean that you can manage your time and time of others, create project schedules and roadmaps, and make corrections if something changes. This important teamwork skill allows you not to micromanage and only set tasks and directions for your team.

Developing these skills will help you enhance communication and teamwork, prevent conflicts, and achieve better productivity. Now, let's look at specific ways to build them.

How to develop your team-building skills?

Working on your team-building skills is no different from building any other soft skills. Everything starts with self-reflection and understanding of what areas you need to work and what results you'd like to achieve. Here are some strategies to get you started.

1. Take the time to identify your areas for growth. To understand what teamwork skills to develop, understand the current state of things. Think about in what areas you lack knowledge or expertise at, and work on them in the first place. Say, you might be a new leader who finds it challenging to delegate and not to micro-manage. Or, you can be a strong manager who rarely gives positive feedback and is not always willing to communicate openly. Based on these findings, you'll understand what to work on.
2. Seek external opinion. Ask for feedback about your performance when it comes to team building and leadership specifically. You might talk to your boss or reach out to the HR department for employee surveys to understand what others think about you.
3. Sign up for workshop or coaching programs. If you have issues with delegating and managing schedules for yourself and the team, you might want to take relevant training or work with a coach to develop the necessary abilities. By acquiring new strategies of workplace behavior, you'll eventually improve the team bottom line.
4. Start with communication. The majority of workplace issues can be boiled down to poor communication. Not giving updates frequently, failing to understand the perspective of a coworker or a client, and not being attentive to emotions of others are just some of the examples. Foster the culture of open, positive communication in the team to prevent bigger problems in the future.

Top 12 effective team-building activities

If you are looking for easy ways to improve team dynamics and collaboration, consider these team-building games and activities. They can help bring the employees together, help them understand each other better, and foster positive relationships.

Indoor team-building activities

1. Office trivia.Create a trivia game that contains questions about team members, the company, and the industry. Make teams and run a competition, offering a small award to the team that gives more correct answers. This game stimulates collective brainstorming and communication.
2. Human knot. The team-building classics, human knot is a physical activity that you can do in the office. All team members stand in a circle and reach hands across the center of the circle to each other. Then, they try to untangle while not releasing their hands. This exercise is great for collaboration and communication, as people are actively listening to each other and building the strategy to untangle.
3. Board game tournament.If people in your team are board game fans, this activity can bring everyone together. Run a series of board games of their preference and determine a winner. Playing board games develops a sense of unity and togetherness, helping participants communicate better on real tasks.
4. Don't smile. It is a quick stress relief game for new employees. All team members sit in a circle and look at each other as long as possible, trying not to smile. The one who can keep the indifferent face the longest wins.

Outdoor team-building exercises

1. Scavenger hunt.A widely popular group activity, scavenger hunt helps boost communication and teamwork as team members have to solve puzzles proactively and use creative approach. You can organize a scavenger hunt in your area or the nearby park or another public place.
2. Animal therapy. This teamwork activity is better suited for small groups. Team members can go to the park to observe and interact with animals, or head to a local shelter to socialize with pets (which also lets them do something for charity). Animals put everyone in a good mood, and your employees will bond faster.
3. Minefield.This team cohesion exercise can be done in large groups and is low-budget. The team is divided into groups and each group blindfolds one member. The team then guides this person through a minefield, helping them avoid traps. This game fosters team spirit and effective communication.
4. Beach day. Have a time off together at the beach! Arrange for snacks, drinks, and fun activities, and encourage team members to communicate in a relaxed environment. Sometimes all it takes to bond is quality time off.

Virtual activities

1. Team building bingo. A quick and easy game you can do during conference calls. Send a bingo card to each member and have them finish a bingo card about their coworker. Offer small prizes for completing a row or the whole card.
2. Tiny campfire.This popular team-building activity helps you recreate the campfire experience for coworkers who live in different cities. It includes a video conference with activities and even s’mores kit delivered to participants. Your team members can spend time together and bond when it's not possible to meet in person.
3. Channel for posting pets.Not actually a game, but rather an ongoing activity. Create a work chat where everyone can share the pictures of their pets, funny videos, and more. Thus, you will foster casual communication and bonding.
4. Virtual pub. Create a fun equivalent of going to a pub with coworkers. Organize a virtual meeting where each team member will go to an interesting website and share their impression over a drink.

These team-building activities will foster the bonding, effective communication, and leadership abilities in team members. By encouraging teamwork and helping employees develop supportive relationships, you will reach positive performance and improve their well-being.

Need help highlighting your skills on a resume?

At ResumePerk, we write resumes closely tailored to your professional goals. We will emphasize your team-building and effective communication skills and add keywords to ease your way through ATS software. Chat with us to claim your personalized discount.