Today, fostering collaboration is a hot topic in business. Some businesses are looking for answers on how you implement, teach the soft skills, and build a collaborative environment. Others are looking for ways to improve their technology game in order to make collaboration easier. According to technology experts around the web, some current trends in technologically-driven collaboration include using the Internet of Things (IoT), software as a service (SaaS), and your own devices. In this section, our experts will share some of their experiences developing collaborative teams and give tips on the best ways to get your team to collaborate and communicate well. Show
For team collaboration, I recommend the following for managers:
I can offer tips on what's worked for managing my team. Without goals and specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timeline objectives, it’s easy to veer off path and get caught up chasing what’s urgent instead of focusing on what’s important. I meet with my team every Monday to establish goals for the week. This is when we discuss goals for the week, blockers, suggestions, concerns, and so on. This is a hugely important part of our collaborative culture - everyone "owns" the success of the company as well as the success of their team and themselves. Being ultra-collaborative is hard work, don't get me wrong, and that's why we take it seriously and work hard to make processes more efficient. Every week, we assess capacity and workload and collaborate on priorities in order to achieve balance. To ensure no one burns out, we adhere to a strict eight hour work day and frown upon work over the weekends. That way, we can all come in energized Monday morning and ready to tackle another week. We also use a bunch of collaboration tools. It’s important that we are in lock-step with each other." The number one thing any team can do (and it's the thing that works only as high as you take it) is build trust. Communication is huge and that's likely the kind of answers you will get, but communication like that only comes from trust. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team has a few guides on how to build trust. Asking about people's backgrounds and personal stories is a great one. It doesn't feel productive in the beginning. Small example: Let's say we're talking about trust and your perception of me is that I don't follow the rules and I'm disrespectful to authority. In general you perceive me to be a jerk so you don't want to communicate at all with me. In our trust meeting, I told you I came from a single parent household and my mom worked very hard but wasn't home, and as a result most of my life was spent on my own and figuring things out. Immediately (in this poor example), you see that perhaps I'm not doing anything intentionally, I hate feeling managed and like to figure things out on my own. I likely don't know I'm being perceived as a jerk for doing so . . . So much good comes from these meetings. These trust meetings are good but they are much more powerful when the team can unify behind a common goal, a vision. Therefore, during these meetings it's important to reiterate what the most important thing is. If reducing costs is the most important thing to the company, then it changes what marketing plans we can implement and, in particular, might mean using our current resources and teams. If reaching a certain demographic is the goal, then how does the entire team work toward that? Often teams get departmentalized and sort of siloed and they don't realize that they can impede or enhance another team's productivity. For example, SEO work often involves editing htaccess files and doing 301 redirects and adding small javascript files to the server. If an organization moved all that type of work to the developers, then there's this crazy war around what is important. The SEO says he wants more traffic and the developers says they need to work on bugs. Both are right, but without a guiding vision, they won't know what the priority is." In an era of digital disruption and change, Dr. Presser’s integrated methods are being used to design collaborative culture, and to produce business results. “People like best what they do best, and they do best what they like best,” says Dr. Presser. Keys to developing team collaboration are:
Here is some helpful terminology:
Dr. Presser continues, “The most important thing to have when developing a collaborative culture is a clear understanding of teaming needs and challenges, and the most important thing(s) to look for are the teaming qualities that will ensure success under those working conditions. To build positive, collaborative team interaction it is essential to recognize that a team has a life of its own, and that different modes of teaming can be just as important to collaboration and productivity as different areas of expertise are to the work that needs to be done.” It is not enough to tell team members they need to collaborate. Managers need to put things in place to motivate people to collaborate and to enable them to work effectively together. To create a culture of collaboration among team members (in tack teams or cross-functional teams) managers need to ensure three structural elements are in place:
In order to sustain a culture of collaboration, managers need to ensure team members have four skills:
My recommendations for forming collaborative teams include:
Whenever a new member of my team is introduced, I like to take them out to a free lunch at a nice restaurant somewhere. Who wouldn’t be excited about a nice, free meal during work hours, and a chance to interact with your team on a more personal level?
There are also tools that help you to collaborate on projects together directly; you can experiment with platforms that allow you to work on projects in different phases and communicate with your team as you go.
With time, my team has come to like using the Scrum method. We meet for about ten minutes every morning and quickly talk about what we are working on, what progress we have made, and what roadblocks there are for our success. This allows projects to transition easily from one employee to the next. Other points include:
To get teams to collaborate, consider the following:
For new managers looking to foster communication, employ these tips:
Though we work primarily in construction, the same idea of demolishing information silos and providing collaborative tools can apply to collaboration in any industry. We believe it is one of the reasons that software [has] been so successful. Everyone can participate on these platforms and get open access to the information within. People like to collaborate. Therefore, when you provide a way for them to work together that also shows the product of their efforts, collaboration will naturally follow. The trick is finding the right environment for your team. Do that and they will do the rest." The best way to collaborate with a team is twofold. First, learn what it takes to be a good facilitator. Know how to steer conversations, how to manage tangents, and when to cut dialogue when you have enough input. Second, learn each person’s communication preferences and learn to communicate with them on their level and inform them your preferences for communication. Lastly, if you have the ability to learn each person’s personality, strengths, or workstyle preferences, share those upfront or take one of the assessments. Knowing everyone’s preferences takes the guesswork out of communicating and working together. The strategies I would recommend to a new manager to foster effective team collaboration are as follows:
“The very first thing that you need to do when trying to inspire a team to collaborate is to explain the task at hand. This may seem like a fairly obvious thing to do, but many leaders forget this part and jump right into the work. Letting the team know the objectives, team roles, the importance, etc. will allow the whole team to have a common goal, something that everyone can impact and work towards. Another important aspect is the atmosphere within the team. There needs to be an apparent community. It shouldn’t be five individuals trying to get their own work done, but instead a group of five doing completing one big-picture task while doing separate parts. Respect, openness, and support are extremely important to establish in a team. Giving your own personal opinion is very valuable when working with a team. You definitely do not want to stay quiet and let everyone else make the decisions. You could potentially be offering a completely new and different perspective that the rest of the team didn’t think of. There’s a reason you are on the team. But at the same time, allow others to voice their opinions and don’t shoot down any input. This will create a negative atmosphere and the team will be less willing to work with each other.” I have found this simple tool helps teams forge greater appreciation for the diversity of work styles, while at the same time highlighting potential weakness and conflicts in the workplace based on behavioral style. Being aware helps with creating greater understanding. This leads to less conflict and greater synergies on the team." Another big thing we do annually is we send our employees from different locations out to conferences such as Apple's WWDC in California . . . It is a time that works in effectively bringing people together. I make sure to not use a top-down approach. Even as a co-founder myself, I value opinions from all members of the organization. With a company-wide understanding that you won't ever be ignored, this opens the floodgates for crucial communication, a necessity for future collaboration. Finally, lead by example and show them that you're there to support them on the ground level. Set goals, but don't micromanage. This will drive people to work great independently but with a fostered culture, this will later translate to effective team collaboration." Developing an organically creative and collaborative environment, especially in a working world that relies on individual productivity and mobility, can be rather challenging. While “collaboration” has become a buzzword in business today, the reality is that in our era where technology is king, collaboration is the most effective method of problem solving. My first step is to create the right environment. This means not creating a culture where systems measure success solely on individual performance. These types of milieus create an atmosphere where workers focus on their own personal progress and discourage the very idea of collaboration. The goal is to create settings that reward independent efforts while including methods that incentivize teamwork in such a manner that collaboration is an integral part of accomplishing work-related tasks. The second step is to use the right tools. Too often team members cannot collaborate easily due to disparate job roles or a lack of understanding regarding an organization as a whole. Find the right tools to build a bridge of understanding across departments and roles within your organization. The third step is to identify collaborative leaders. Keeping in mind that leadership styles vary, the key is the ability to identify and empower managers who empower the staff and thrive in collaborative environments as second nature. This is crucial to making the organization more collaborative overall. Businesses today operate in an increasingly complex and ever-changing landscape. Therefore, now more than ever, companies must learn to rely on the intelligence and resourcefulness of their people to thrive. Collaboration is no longer optional. It is an essential ingredient for organizational survival. To energize teams, encourage creativity, and promote workers’ production and level of satisfaction, take the following steps:
I would advise a new manager that when building a team, finding the right ingredients for a high performing team isn’t always about getting the smartest people together - it’s about finding personality and skill sets that complement each other. I would also recommend the following principles:
What is it called when two or more people or groups must be involved to achieve a specific goal?Collaboration Meaning – The best way to define collaboration would be to outline it as the process of two or more people or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. It is also defined as two or more people working together to achieve shared goals.
When a group of people come together to achieve a common goal it is called as?A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal.
What is two or more people working together in a structured formal environment to achieve common goals?Collaboration (from Latin com- "with" + laborare "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation.
What is the connection of people working together to achieve a common purpose?Teamwork is the collaborative effort of a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way. This concept is seen within the greater framework of a team, which is a group of interdependent individuals who work together towards a common goal.
|