What Andrew Carnegie Teaches Us About Teamwork

The only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the knowledge and ability of its people. The productivity of that capital depends on how effectively people share their competence with those who can use it.

- Andrew Carnegie

Wow … Carnegie understood the concept of teamwork well, didn’t he? The effectiveness of your employees can be greatly enhanced if everyone is attuned to individual roles, have a trained back-up, and is focused and motivated to share knowledge and operate as a team.

So how do you focus and motivate a group of individuals to share their knowledge and operate as a team?

Consider these suggestions:

Improve the listening skills of employees… to better understand perspectives of all team members

Create trust … your team must have faith in team goals and what you ask them to do. Be honest with each other at all times. Make sure everyone knows holding back information will be detrimental to the team.

Openly share ideas and be able to be influenced by other competing ideas.

Be able to disagree … and then reconcile conflict

Good to know: Teamwork and Collaboration: 14 Tactics to Get You Better Results

Ensure all learn and respond … to important new discoveries

Support risk taking and change … it is ok to fail

Celebrate even the small collaborative wins

Create environment where it is ok … to ask for help

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.