By Oskar Cymerman | @focus2achieve | BAm! Radio Network EdWords Blogger

Leaders such as a teachers, administrators, coaches, and supervisors are tasked with developing effective and efficient practices to increase the performance of the individuals they lead and their organization's prestige. While there are many practices that lead to improvement, there is one that is vital to the very survival of any group or organization: Collaboration.

Collaboration is so important that it, along with Critical Thinking, Communication, and Creativity, has been slapped with the "21st Century Skill" tag, and rightfully so as research cites effective team building and collaboration as game changers to the health and performance of organizations. Moreover, Collaboration improves Critical Thinking, Communication, and Creativity in individuals as they benefit from others' wisdom and experience, continually look for effective ways to present ideas and influence other team member's decisions, and combine their skill sets with those of others.

Efficient and effective teamwork however, is not automatic. At any level, elementary to executive, successful collaboration doesn't just happen. In fact, much like an NBA team may be built around a young up-and-coming leader, a "floor general", classroom groups or business task forces are a sum of their complementary pieces with the leader at the helm. The teacher is the floor general (or captain awesome) in his/her classroom and it is up to him/her to lead the troops into battle. And, this ain't just any battle. This is the battle for our future, the future of our kids, and the future of their children. This one's big and it must be won.

And it will be.

We will succeed not through competition and the undermining of others, but through combining and compounding our forces.

Together is the destination; Collaboration is the way. Let us take it and not stray.

Today, I give you a weapon that will aid you in successful team building. Use it well.

Thanks for your time! I hope you find the infographic above useful. Please share it with other leaders. You can access the other Brain-Based Learning infographics I created by scrolling down my ED!Blog. I will feature more Brain-Based Learning teaching tools, metacognitive strategies, and posts on social-emotional learning in my future NEWSLETTERS, so please SIGN UP if you would like to receive tips that help students become better learners and you're looking to add more weapons of mass creation to your teaching arsenal :)

If you find the information in the infographic useful, consider buying "Crush School: Every Student's Guide To Killing It In The Classroom", which is a book I wrote to help students learn more efficiently and effectively using proven research based strategies.

You Have the Power to Change the World. Use it Well. Use it Often.