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Learning through teamwork is not your everyday learning activity. It requires lots of resources and time commitment. However, it takes organisational learning to a higher level. For team members, they will have to learn how to work with people from different backgrounds and broaden their perspectives beyond their immediate jobs.
Learning through teamwork requires a real life organisational issue that a team is put together to learn about and solve. This team can be a cross-functional team or a team within a department or function.
Here are the key steps for cooperative learning through teamwork:
- Get a real life problem that impacts the organisation/ department for the team to solve
- Obtain senior management support for team and goals
- Choose team members based on what they can contribute to the team. Team members should have different strengths and temperaments too.
- Give the team a common goal
- Set up team rules at the start of the process to ensure that team members are committed, accountable, are open to new ideas and respect each other
- Facilitate team development and training (e.g. group problem solving, team dynamics)
- Monitor and review team dynamics & output at various milestones
- Capture and transfer team knowledge to the rest of the organisation
- Organisation / management
- Support the teams by ensuring that the project is part of their performance targets
- Show commitment to team output by implementing them
- Workplace ‘trainer’
- Provide real life problems for team to solve
- Select team members that are able to contribute to the team goals
- Constantly monitor team dynamics and step in when required
- Workplace ‘learner’
- Be open to new ideas and diverse viewpoints
- Respect and support group members
- Be committed to team goals