Over the recent years, teamwork has emerged as an integral catalyst to organizations' performance. It is applicable across different industries to foster company culture, employee unity, and overall performance. Companies have become remarkably complex as consumer expectations and lifestyles keep changing under the influence of market dynamism and globalization. Tasks have to be completed not only in time but also satisfactorily. Where quality and time cannot be compromised, teamwork becomes a quintessential ingredient. Apple Inc. focuses on innovation and the creation of new technologies. However, teamwork in the company is an inevitable component in getting work and tasks completed. With customers' nonstop demands, teamwork between employees is imperative as they work out the best way to meet these demands. While teamwork is an essential aspect across industries, Apple Inc. embraces a unique, effective teamwork concept to meet its customers' ever-changing needs.
Effective Teamwork
Effective teamwork is the key ingredient in enhancing the growth and success of the leading companies globally. According to Apple Inc., teamwork is the key recipe that drives its performance. The company is well aware of the imperative nature of effective teamwork. Apple Inc.'s focus is to promote teamwork, a key aspect in fostering collaboration among its employees. The company gives fundamental lessons on its success as defined through effective teamwork.
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Teamwork in Apple Inc. is grounded in the company's five-point mantra call. Skripak et al. (2018) opine that the development of a clear and well-defined teamwork concept is the main driving force in all successful companies. The management of Apple Inc. understands the gist of this statement. Success is a by-product of teamwork; however, such teamwork has to be detailed so that it is not only understandable to the company employees but also replicable across the organization. The five-point mantra call in Apple Inc. defines the company's teamwork concept as a critical driver of innovation, development of new products, and overall productivity and performance.
Teamwork as a Key Company Value
Apple Inc. considers teamwork as one of the critical values in the company. The Apple Inc. co-founder, former chairperson and CEO, Steve Jobs, said that one person could not achieve great things in business, but it takes a team of people to accomplish greatness (Milian, 2011). Steve Jobs was referring to teamwork as the cornerstone of the company's success. His remarks illustrate that innovation and the development of new products in Apple Inc. has been made possible by teamwork among the company employees. No one works alone but in a team to achieve the significant milestones in Apple Inc. (Heracleous & Papachroni, 2016). Highlighting the importance of teamwork is crucial in fostering a culture of collaboration among employees. Company leadership should build distinct company values that emphasize the essence of collaboration. These values are imperative in boosting teamwork for the benefit of the whole organization.
Teamwork Begins at the Top
Apple Inc. upholds that teamwork starts at the top management. The company's top management embraces teamwork as an essential factor in promoting the company's success. The same is filtered down to the other company staff in what is the top-down team spirit paradigm. With the top management collaborating on every key aspect, it has become easier for Apple Inc. to nurture a culture of teamwork in the highly successful firm in the world. Skripak et al. (2018) argue that, in an attempt to nurture teamwork in a company, the management should strive to cultivate collaboration at the top level and inculcate the same to the subordinates. The concept is attributable to Steve Jobs' value for teamwork in Apple Inc. The company is embedded in the belief that every successful company encourages collaboration modeled from the top and filters down through every level of the company leadership structure. Closely related to that, Heracleous and Papachroni (2016) opine that with the top management being less obliged to collaboration, it is highly likely that the lower layers of the organization would be less attracted to collaborative task completion. In a broad sense, the top management plays a huge role in promoting teamwork among other company employees.
Trust as the Building Block for Effective Teamwork
Trust is an essential value in Apple Inc. The company emphasizes that teamwork is dependent on all employees trusting each other (Milian, 2011). As Steve Jobs, the former company CEO noted, people should be able to play their part without being watched all the time. According to O'Neill and Salas (2018), trust builds morale among staff and enhances their willingness and ability to work effectively in a team instead of individual effort. Nurturing a strong sense of confidence in Apple Inc. has been one of its core focal points. Exploring company culture in Apple Inc. builds trust among its employees to eliminate intimidation and fear while at the same time boosting openness and collaboration. It implies that trust in Apple Inc. has a broad definition as far as fostering teamwork is concerned. Trust in Apple Inc. implies that employees rely on each other's integrity to complete tasks with a sense of urgency, reliability, and safety. Every staff plays the role assigned with a view of contributing to the overall team performance. Lack of trust could be detrimental to teamwork. As Skripak et al. (2018) state, the absence of trust in organizations is the recipe for conflict and fragmentation that eventually lead to the disintegration of teamwork. Therefore, as evident at Apple Inc., trust is a crucial building block for the company's teamwork culture.
Teamwork Breed Innovation
Innovation is highly dependent on the ability of great minds to share ideas and improve them. Apple Inc. is deeply focused on promoting innovation and the development of new products. The company understands the key to meeting the ever-changing customer demands is innovation. However, core to Apple's innovation is teamwork. Apple Inc. innovation is driven by teamwork as one of its influential ingredients. O'Neill and Salas (2018) explain that employees need to collaborate to innovate without which obsolete ideas become the norm in an organization. Through teamwork, Apple Inc. has been able to come up with great new ideas that have kept the company on the top of the most innovative firms globally (Heracleous, & Papachroni, 2016). Collaboration among the staff has been integral in creating innovative solutions. Arguably, employee diversity is a significant characteristic of Apple Inc. O'Neill and Salas (2018) submit that companies focus on developing creative solutions to consumer needs and bringing different people together; teamwork is the clay that holds the people together. The management of Apple Inc. emphasizes that it is impossible to realize innovation without teamwork.
Teamwork is a Process
At Apple Inc., teamwork is not an event but a process. As a process, cooperation continues to evolve, perhaps to incorporate emerging challenges and potential solutions to issues that could hamper its effectiveness. Apple Inc.'s recognition of teamwork as a process is vital to the company's performance. It promotes the team's workflow, communication, and communication. Skripak et al. (2018) say that organizations that uphold teamwork as a process succeeds in their respective industries because, as a process, teamwork nurtures a robust collaborative environment. Essentially, learning becomes an integral component of an organization. Challenges are met with new and creative solutions as employees and teams collaborate in every stage of their tasks. Coming together as a team in Apple Inc. is recognized as the beginning. Every employee in a team contributes an active role to keep together for the success of the tasks allocated to a particular team. Remarkably, teamwork as a continuous process demands that all team members respect each other, learn how to communicate successfully, and strive to work together (O'Neill & Salas, 2018). In light of this note, teamwork promotes employees' efforts not as individuals but as part of an incredible team.
Collaboration in Apple Inc.
The culture of teamwork in Apple Inc. has been an epitome of collaboration among the company employees. While different departments could be varying roles, collaborating makes their work easier. Apple Inc. has built a collaborative environment in which individual departments work together to facilitate timely, quality, and effective solutions to the demands of the company customers. Collaboration is the fabric that holds Apple Inc. together. In an elated interview on CNN, Steve Jobs noted, "Apple is an incredibly collaborative company" (Milian, 2011). As Milian (2011) further quotes, Apple Inc. operates with committees at its corporate structure ostensibly to promote teamwork among its staff. Individuals take responsibilities and perform as expected with a view of contributing to the success of the company. The company operations are not defined by stringent supervision but the willingness of all company employees to play a role by collaborating with others in different tasks.
Apple Inc. fosters teamwork to ensure employees collaborate in brainstorming and identifying the best ideas. Hierarchy is not a factor in Apple Inc. as all staff work collaboratively. Teams and departments work together with every team member of staff accorded equal opportunity to contribute new ideas (Milian, 2011). The collaboration concept forms Apple's teamwork message in which each employee is understood to be capable of contributing to the company's performance. Notably, the top management sets the pace for collaboration in Apple Inc. In an interview after his resignation as the company CEO, Steve Jobs said, "We all meet for three hours once a week and we talk about everything we're doing. And there's tremendous teamwork at the top of the company, which transcends to tremendous teamwork through the company" (Milian, 2011). Meetings in the company are crucial as they allow the company staff to engage openly. Skripak et al. (2018) observe that openness is a critical component in facilitating teamwork. While the top management meets weekly, other staffs are allowed to meet frequently to share the company vision and raise new ideas.
Launching and spearheading a successful company is tough. Apple Inc. is an iconic global firm whose success must be anchored in exceptionalism. Siang (2017) reports that while people might be looking for something so unique to define Apple Inc., the company's success is driven by teamwork. Siang further underscores that both the company leadership and other employees believe in working with others to refine ideas. In a similar observation, O'Neill and Salas (2018) state that great ideas do not occur in a silo; however, irrespective of how the staff is capable or talented, each employee needs the others to examine and refine ideas. Staff at Apple Inc. engages collaboratively on what the company customers want and how its products could support their expectations (Siang, 2017). In other words, teamwork in Apple Inc. determines its ability to meet and satisfy its customer demands.
Collaboration in Apple Inc. allows employees to build on a new idea. According to Siang (2017), no great ideas grow in a vacuum. Likewise, O'Neill and Salas (2018) opine that if any idea is to become better, it is vital that people invite others to build on it. Apple Inc. understands the notion of allowing employees to contribute to the refining of a new idea. The company staff collaborates in co-creating creative ideas rather than allows just a single individual to take credit for the conception of a great idea. Through collaboration, the employees cannot only refine ideas but enhance their learning experience. Similar to learning, teamwork is a process; employees that collaborate learn continuously, making them aware of the changing consumer market and better ways of idea generation and solution development. Collaboration nurtures curiosity within teams, thereby opening employees' desire for new ideas (Heracleous, & Papachroni, 2016). This curiosity fosters teamwork and collaboration in Apple Inc.
Conclusion
In retrospect, although teamwork has become a key component across industries, Apple Inc. has a unique, practical teamwork concept to meet the ever-changing demands of its customers. Its teamwork thought is anchored in the company's passion for new and creative ideas. Apple Inc. has placed a five-point mantra call to encourage its employees to collaborate in their tasks. Teams and departments work together in coming up with new ideas designed to meet the dynamic customer demands. Apple Inc. focuses on timely, quality, and reliable solutions, an aspect that promotes teamwork among its employees. Teamwork in the company is not a reserve for certain sections but a top-down pattern. It begins with the top management and filters down to other staff in the organization. Apple Inc. should stick to its teamwork concept for now and the future if it needs to remain at the top of the technology industry.
References
Heracleous, L., & Papachroni, A. (2016). Strategic Leadership and Innovation at Apple Inc . SAGE Publications Ltd.
Milian, M. (2011, Aug. 25). Why Apple is more than just Steve Jobs. CNN. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/08/24/steve.jobs.team/index.html
O'Neill, T. A., & Salas, E. (2018). Creating high performance teamwork in organizations. Human resource management review , 28 (4), 325-331.
Siang, S. (2017, Oct. 06). The secret to launching a successful company like Apple? Teamwork and happiness. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-secret-to-launching-a-successful-company-like-apple_b_59d7bba7e4b0705dc79aa766
Skripak, S.. Cortes, A. & Walz, A. (2018). Teamwork in Business. Fundamentals of Business . Retrieved from https://otn.pressbooks.pub/fundamentalsofbusiness/chapter/chapter-1-teamwork-in-business/
