Teamwork Makes The Dream Work Improving Collaboration

Teamwork Makes The Dream Work Improving Collaboration A team that can’t work together is no team at all. They need to be able to share resources and information to better inform their work, as well as to recognize that their own workload and progress can create or eliminate barriers in another’s. Moreover, a collaborative workplace is one where ideas can be fostered by anyone, helping provide you with the best strategies and solutions. So, how do you create the collaboration you need? Lead by example If you want your team to trust one another, to hold each other to account, and to recognize the value of the work of the whole, you have to do the same. Amongst the most important things you should be doing for your team is rewarding hard effort, avoiding passing the blame, and taking responsibility for failed goals. If you lean too heavily on the “stick” part of the carrot-and-stick approach, then you risk creating a hyper-competitive workplace where every individual is only watching their own backs, instead of focusing on how to work together. Keep communication convenient If your team doesn’t have the right channels to communicate, then they will have a hard time getting answers to questions, sharing resources, and developing strategies together. You need to think of the different strengths of different mediums and foster the effective use of all of them. Email can be great for directly sending documents and other resources. Instant messages are great for quick questions and answers. For length conversations, unified communications phone systems from providers like Single Point Global can eliminate the need for the face-to-face, saving your team time and effort. Make sure they have all the essential channels available to them. It may be worth creating guidelines or sharing tips on how to best use them, too. Ineffective communication only leads to more errors and delays. Make sure everyone knows where they are Another tool that is, in part, about providing better communication is the project manager. For collaborative projects, whether it’s between one small team or a larger collective of different departments, tools like Basecamp can make a huge difference. For instance, they can help everyone see where everyone else is, in terms of progress towards a shared goal. A workflow map can also show where one team’s lack of progress might create a barrier to another team’s immediate objective, allowing the managers to get together to find a way through or around the problem, instead of wondering what the hold-up is. Encourage better interpersonal dynamics There’s no way of forcing colleagues to get along well. If issues develop, the best you can do is address and resolve them. But you have a better chance of a more harmonious, and thus collaborative, workplace if you work on creating the conditions for good team bonds. The jury is still out on whether team-building exercises really work. However, you can encourage socializing outside the office with things like a bi weekly meal with the team and use solutions like overlap zones in the workplace so that your team gets used to interacting each other much more easily. You can’t dictate whether everyone gets on well or even if they have a professional relationship. You can, however, offer them the tools and a positive workplace culture that can help those team bonds grow much stronger, so make that a priority.