Team collaboration may be defined as a scenario where more than one person works together by sharing ideas to achieve a common goal. The potential benefits of team collaboration are numerous. The primary objective of teamwork is to enable an organization to attain something which cannot be achieved by one person. Collaboration not only promotes creativity and learning, but promotes a broader feeling of ownership, fosters communication and enhances production. An organization that wants to achieve its business goals at a relatively faster rate must embrace collaboration.
Lots of organizations are finding it hard to strengthen team collaboration. Perhaps this is because collaboration is not an intrinsic human need. In fact, you have to learn and master the art of collaboration. Simply put, it’s a difficult process. However, if you really want your organization to achieve something unique, you must do everything within your power to strengthen collaboration. Creating and developing a group of individuals into an effective team requires quite an investment. Even if one member has amazing skills and other important attributes_ teams may still fail to collaborate. If you are looking to foster collaboration in your team, we are giving you five practical tips to achieve your collaboration building dreams. Peruse the article and enhance your knowledge.
5. Enhance communication.
The best way to strengthen team collaboration is to ensure team members remain focused on cross team goals. You can only achieve this by updating everyone regarding what others are doing and how things are progressing. You can use a good project management tool such as Clarizen, Trello or Asana. These tools allow every team member to post messages, share updates and ask important questions. What’s more, these apps allow the so-called remote employees to remain connected and focused on team projects, which is critical to enhancing collaboration.
4. Recognize and reward project milestones.
Rewarding your team members is a very important aspect of strengthening team collaboration. To keep team members inspired, grounded and looking forward to achieving the next milestone, team managers must make a point of identifying and rewarding team achievements as well as other cross-collaborative breakthroughs. With regards to rewards, organizations may be forced to collect suggestions from employees for ideas on how to reward and motivate team members. Of course, you can use other proven rewarding techniques such as dinners, outings and group launches which have always been appreciated. Such rewarding techniques also allow team members to interact and develop stronger relationships through socialization.
3. Feedback is a key component of strengthening collaboration.
Feedback is always a valuable idea that companies can use to make critical decisions. Research has shown that top-performing companies value feedback since it gives them an opportunity to find effective ways of improving performance. It is imperative to note that feedback is only helpful when used to highlight both weaknesses and strengths. Feedback not only offers benefits to the receiver, but the giver and the broader organization as well.
Feedback cannot only help improve the performance of team members, but is a tool for continued learning as well. This implies that if you want to foster collaboration in your organization, you should invest time learning how team members experience working with your company and how they relate to the other team members. Continued feedback is also critical to the entire workforce since it allows your organization to remain aligned to business goals, create effective strategies and improve relationships.
2. You must encourage conflict aversion and avoidance.
It is extremely hard to collaborate in an environment where people are always in constant arguments and conflicts. Arguments will always arise, especially in a place where every member has an equal opportunity to air his/her opinion. Encourage your members to avoid engaging in conflicting arguments. Instead, tell them to know that difference of opinions may have a positive side. Research has shown that when used appropriately, constructive conflicts can potentially offer insight and help groups advance in finding amicable solutions to organizational problems.
1. Build trust.
To build a collaborative team, organizations must first create an effective workplace based on trust. Trusting the organization and trust in each other’s ability is essential to enhancing innovation and creativity. When team members have trust on each other, they are likely to collaborate and learn, work together and achieve their desired goals.