3 Fundamental Pillars of Successful Teamwork

This blog post will be somewhat different from the content I’ve been writing here.

However, at the beginning of my journey, I would first like to express gratitude to the people who’ve helped me the most to make this website possible.

But before I do that, I would like to share some of my career learnings and personal views.

By now, you are probably already familiar with my personal and work experiences. But, the most important thing I’ve learned during various projects is the role of successful teamwork. I see the final result of any project as a consequence of team leadership, individual competencies, and team dynamics.

These 3 fundamental pillars of successful teamwork combine the final outcome of every project, product, or service. Let me briefly explain each of them.

1. Team Leadership

Every team needs a leader. The leader is someone with a clear vision for the final destination who gives guidance, and brings common purpose and motivation to the table. He also needs to possess various competencies, skills, and levels of experience.

Furthermore, I see leaders as extremely good communicators, problem-solvers, and the rare ones who are capable of reading into different situations in order to adapt and work around them. To say it in another way—simply put, I believe leaders are people with considerably high emotional intelligence.

If a team lacks somebody with these characteristics, I feel that this team has not achieved its full potential yet.

2. Individual Competences

There is no doubt that individual skills play an important role in the performance of a person. We know poor and good programmers, as well as bad versus outstanding designers. If a team is put together from average players, their performance is predetermined to be limited.

Of course, the other two pillars can improve the overall performance by 20 or even 30% but the potential of a team or company can only go as far as what their employees are capable off.

Just look at Google. They strive to attract the most talented engineers from all over the world. That’s why their likelihood to be among the best companies in the world is far greater than the rest.

3. Team Dynamics

Individual competencies and team leadership are not enough. If people are not on the same level emotionally, or if there is not a common bond among them, the team dynamics are seriously endangered.

I strongly believe that a team needs to be put together based on a company’s cultural predisposition. A company needs to recruit not only smart and intelligent people, but also ones who will work well together as a team.

You can have superstar players but if they don’t get along well together, there is little chance you will be able to achieve something extraordinary.

An Extra Tip: Team Communication as Glue …

At the end, I also want to emphasize the importance of team communication, which I see as an important element of each of the 3 fundamental pillars of successful teamwork.

Effective team communication works like glue, combining together all 3 pillars and enabling efficient work from all team members. It gives people room for a common understanding and coordinates the work that needs to be done by all parties.

For instance, poor communication in a cockpit has resulted in a bulk of accidents and incidents within the aviation industry—all caused by the human error factor. It’s probably the single most important issue addressed by airline companies all over the world.

Just imagine. If poor team communication affects airplane crew in such a disastrous way, it will definitely have a huge role in the outcome of your project as well.

So, the next time you expect to be working on a project, take these 3 fundamental pillars of successful teamwork into account. If you put your attention on each of them, there shouldn’t be any doubt about the final outcome.

This straight-forward framework helped me a lot in my career and I believe it’ll do the same for you.

What I want to actually say here is that while I have been the main person behind this project, I could never have pulled this off without the help of my fellow colleagues and my team. Of course, I’ll play the most important role behind my brand, but you have to understand that everything you’ll see here is the work of an entire team, which helps me to execute my vision.

Expressing Gratitude

So at this stage, I would like to express big thanks to all the people who’ve played a huge role in this project and name them one by one.

Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart… and let’s keep pushing the envelope!

Let’s start with Klemen Selakovic. Klemen is the most talented UX/UI designer I have ever worked with. He is the one behind the front page design and the one who helped me with tips & tricks for my webpage. We’ve also worked together on several occasions for various big brands and he always proved himself with the great projects he delivered. He is my go-to guy for all advanced web design projects. You can read more about him on his personal website – www.klemenselakovic.com.

You have already heard about Zoran Bosancic, my long-time friend and a co-founder at POINT OUT. He is an outstanding guy when it comes to online marketing and building online businesses. During our discussions, he always advises me about new inbound marketing and social media marketing practices. You can also read more about him on his personal website - www.zoranbosancic.com.

The third person behind this website, and the one who put the most effort into it, is the programmer Matic Pogladic. He basically brought this website to life. He is an amazing programmer with a touch for front-ended development and is the one who I can always count on. You can read more about him on his personal website – www.maticpogladic.com.

Photographer Klemen Jeke is my long-time friend and a business partner behind Slovene based project of the First Impression [Prvi Vtis]. When you see a photo of me, there is a 99% chance that the photo is a part of his portfolio. He just has this special touch for portrait photography.

Here comes the first female part of my team. :) Mija Zorec is a designer who put together the e-book “9.5 Steps Toward Your Personal Brand”. We first met when she was a part of a college class, where I was speaking and re-connected a few years later. She is an extremely hard working person and, as you’ve probably noticed, a great designer.

Julian Kelly is an experienced writer & powerful copy-editor from the U.S. She is the one who proofread and edited the content you’ll find on my website. I’m really happy I found her among the Upwork community and that we were able to set up a fruitful collaboration. She just makes my content readable and far better. You can check her Upwork profile here.

This is it for today. Would you like to add something else to the 3 fundamental pillars of successful teamwork I’ve described above? Please share your thoughts and recommendations in the comment section below.

Also, it would mean the world to me if you could share this article with at least one person whom you think could benefit from these tips.