Students in a group project are also a team. In health care for older people, almost all professionals work in teams. As our family members age, they will be increasingly exposed to teams. The restructuring of business and health care from traditional hierarchical to more collaborative, horizontal organizations increases the importance of having teamwork skills in a wide variety of careers and jobs. Teamwork and collaboration across disciplines and professions are especially important when working with older people since many of them have complex, multiple, chronic health and social service problems.
Educators rely more and more on team teaching and the use of team skills in the classroom.
Not only that, researchers who collaborate with colleagues from different disciplines often have the best opportunities for funding. Teams can be distinguished from other aggregates of individuals in that they are characterized by collaboration and interdependence. Members develop a common language, communicate openly with one another, share leadership and responsibility, make decisions by consensus, and rely on one another s differing knowledge bases and skills to accomplish goals and objectives. The team functions as a feedback system. It sets goals, develops and implements a plan, evaluates outcomes, and fine-tunes the plan to improve results.