The theme of “cooperation” is receiving more and more attention in organizations.
Today issues are more complex, changes are the order of the day and for that you need an abundance of knowledge and skills. Because of the diversity of the team members, teams have much more different information than alone, they can collect much more information and their information processing capacity is better. New knowledge and creativity are created in a good collaboration in which team members who combine diversity of knowledge and skills well. This then leads to new and better solutions.
Interdependence
The concept of “team” can be defined as a group of people working together towards a common goal, where the team members depend on each other to achieve the goal. In other words, a team is only a real team if there is mutual dependence: only together can you achieve the team result. Central to the concept of “team” is mutual dependence or interdependence. This ensures that the team members’ unique input is better used by the team to generate creative output.
Forming a creative team
Interdependence is important for the creativity of a team. Team creativity can be described as the generation of new and useful ideas by a group of people. This requires the following: unique input and integration of that input. For starters, team members need to come up with unique insights, knowledge, and ideas. These ideas must then be forged into a new and usable team product. Interdependence plays a role in the latter. Newcomers to a team can thus be a source of new ideas: a fresh view from the outside. Conflicts can also arise in a team, which is often annoying. However, if this is dealt with constructively, conflict can also have positive consequences. The reason for this is that conflict (provided it does not become emotional) means that there are different points of view and thus team members have a unique perspective which can lead to higher creativity. To build a creative team, it is therefore important that team members have a unique sound.
This can come from newcomers, people with dissenting opinions or people from different backgrounds. It is precisely the differences within a team that can contribute to greater effectiveness within a group with the same goal. In addition, the team members must be dependent on each other when carrying out the assignment.
How can a team work together effectively?
Setting goals is an important part of the optimal functioning of a team. A common goal can contribute to more effective cooperation between team members. As the definition shows, there is a relationship between group members and a degree of dependence on each other (interdependence). In positive interdependence the members depend on each other to achieve a certain goal and there is cooperation with each other. The individual members are aware that success depends on the participation of everyone and that they can only achieve their goals if the other team members also achieve their goals. There are also neutral and negative interdependencies. In the neutral form, the group members are more focused on the individual and not on the team. Negative interdependence involves competition within the team, which does not benefit cooperation.
Types of interdependence
There are several ways to provoke positive interdependence in a group. Some examples of types of positive interdependence that promote cooperation are: placing a group in a completely new environment, having group members fill specific roles, promising a reward and dividing the assignment into linked tasks. In doing so, we fall back on mutual dependence and working towards a common goal.
Effects
The main effects of positive teamwork in a team are based on the pooling of brainpower. Brainstorming about assignments together raises the level of reasoning and critical thinking. In addition, more metacognitive thinking takes place. This can lead to creative solutions.