Helen Keller said that alone we can do so little and together we can do so much. Individual commitment to a group effort is essential, but managing individual personalities can be a real challenge. Today we’re looking at the jigsaw puzzle that is teamwork to figure out how individual pieces can come together to make a beautiful picture. For while we are all different, as a team we fit together.

Let’s get puzzling!

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The first step to great teamwork is having a great team leader. Take it from FDR, who said I’m not the smartest fellow in the world but I sure can pick smart colleagues. His VP Truman served two terms as president.

If you’re serious about finding a great team leader and not just gunning for the person with the most technical experience, you’ll see that there are shared traits among managers that you can screen during your hiring process. The ability to coach a team and work with their strengths and weaknesses should be a top priority for any people-leader, as should having excellent communication skills. A good manager needs to know how to both empower others and how to arbitrate workplace conflict. When the manager takes a step back from the team, they need to see the organization’s vision and fill in the gaps to its realization with skills from their team members.

For practical interviewing advice and questions to use while screening for important leadership qualities, read this.

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Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life. We are not going to disagree with Amy Poehler on this, the work you do with your team really has the possibility to change your life. If you are the manager of a team, it is your obligation to build a positive team culture (and that doesn’t mean that everything is always happy and perfect).

Learning how to harbor healthy disagreement will help your team achieve consistently excellent results, but you need to do a lot of legwork to create the right environment first. Mutual trust and respect will help you get there.

For five excellent tips to create the ideal team environment, watch this.

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Keeping track of the many to-dos to create the best team ever can get chaotic—it’s a demanding job! But if managers around the world Divide the task and multiply the success, we just might be able to do it. And luckily for us, Dave Kline has a bullet pointed thread covering what managers should do to maximize their team’s impact.

For a quick list of things you can start doing now to make a happier, healthier, and more productive team, check this out.

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If you need a break from the warm fuzzy rationalizations for teamwork, just remember that teamwork means never having to take all of the blame.

But truthfully, employee engagement efforts generally center around activities that appeal to the already happily engaged lot. Try to get the cynics involved by stirring the competitive pot with a demotivational poster caption contest. Just use a generator to upload a picture and ask for the best demotivational caption.

Get the creative juices flowing on your team by trying this.

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It’s good to have a manager acknowledge your contributions to a team, but when peers recognize each other, the praise hits a little harder. Success is best when it’s shared, so try the matter app if you’re trying to cultivate a culture of recognition. It can be added to Slack and Teams for free and allows teams to celebrate kudos, give feedback, and claim rewards.

Get this and watch your team appreciate the heck out of each other.

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Oh, and don’t forget this.

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See you 'round the 🔥 ,

Campfire

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*Campfire is not affiliated with any of the people, products, or services listed in this article unless explicitly stated.

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