The years teach much which the days never knew. Cool thought from Ralph Waldo Emerson. How many times in your business career have you been in an organization where real energy was expended to build team collaboration and team bonding?
How successful were these efforts? To build team collaboration is not an easy job, is it? But we’d all agree that the payoffs certainly outweigh the efforts, wouldn’t we?
According to an old military axiom, the weakest point always follows success. At those times it’s hard to resist the temptation to loosen up, take a breather, and abandon the intense concentration needed to fight your way up the next hill.
Once a battle is won, soldiers are liable to ignore the sound of a twig snapping beneath the boot of an approaching scout, or overlook the glow of a distant campfire. Like soldiers, mountaineers say the most dangerous moment of their ascents is after they’ve reached the peak of a mountain. That’s when they’re most likely to fall into a crevasse or slip on a ledge.
Surgeons, too, can find it difficult to stay focused once an operation has apparently succeeded. Until then, the demands of operating absorb their attention so completely that the scalpel seems almost to move itself.
Over the years in my career, I’ve had the good fortune of being exposed to many smart people and worked as part of many teams trying to build team collaboration.
It never ceases to amaze me how just a few moments of discussion, or sitting and listening to well thought-out debates, can open your mind to ideas you can’t believe you didn’t think of on your own.
Creative convergence depends on group collaboration … how well do you work in groups?
Related: 10 Extraordinary Ways for Learning to Learn
I have always found the wisdom of others to be something of a gift: free of charge, no limit to its value. No limits to its value because these pearls of wisdom can be connected to some of your ideas to produce something greater than what you might have created on your own.
Creative ideas on how to build collaborative teams must include exploring, imagining, experimenting, and learning with others. Most of all, it requires reaching out to others to collaborate. The sum of group collaboration is always greater than the work of each individual.
Your marketing and customer service teams are the primary customer contact for every business. What does their collaborative teamwork say about your company?
If some of your team is not collaborating well, there are questions to ask yourself to ensure they stay positive, and engaged in collaboration.
So how do you focus and motivate a group of individuals to share their knowledge and collaborate as a team?
Consider these suggestions:
Team bonding … create trust
Your team must have faith in team goals and what you ask them to do. Be honest with each other at all times.
Make sure everyone knows holding back information will be detrimental to the team.
Leading by example
Are you and your managers leading by example and consistently reinforcing desired behaviors?
Teams model behaviors and if you do not demonstrate what is expected, how can you expect your team to behave otherwise.
Ensure all learn and respond
Ensure all learn and respond … to important new discoveries. Be sure and get inputs from all.
Trust your employees
Trust is very important in all team relationships. Thus companies should build and cultivate trusting relationships for both survival and success.
Trust can be built by allowing people to make their own decisions, trusting their opinions and inputs, and involving them in discussions. This thing will encourage them to be an irreplaceable employee at a workplace.
Team bonding … openly share ideas
Always be able to be influenced by other competing ideas that have been shared.
Disagree
Be able to disagree … and then reconcile the conflict. Make the team collectively responsible.
Proper staffing
Do you have enough team members? If you have a team who is spread so thin they can’t provide quality service over the number of customers served, consider hiring more team members.
By hiring more team members, you will enable your team to have more time for team collaboration.
Team bonding ideas … priorities set
Are your priorities constantly changing? If you aren’t consistent with priorities and aligning them with activities that customer’s value, you are leaving room for confusion.
Eliminating confusion will keep your team focused.
Communicating enough information
Are you providing enough information?
Providing a centralized location for information on all existing clients, products, and services will give your team the confidence to answer any question without having to rely on others for information.
Build team collaboration … delegate responsibilities
Companies should give power to their employees to make certain decisions. You can set objectives and let the employees set their goals and work on them.
It’s a proven fact that empowered employees perform much better at their jobs.
Companies can do this by hiring smart people and giving them powers to act.
Values and expectations
Are you clear on your values and expectations?
This is fundamental to ensure that a consistent message is communicated across the organization.
Without clarity from the top, teams are unclear of expectations and rarely surpass them.
Employees Mirror Leadership
I’d like to share a story with you.
I used to work out at a gym that’s run by the Fraternal Order of Police. I mention this to note that there are no employees at this gym.
When I first started going, I noticed that the weights were always on their appropriate racks. The organization was pretty impressive.
Over time, however, some key people started leaving the gym in favor of Planet Fitness because the gym really needed new equipment.
Bad habits started to set in, and I even found myself being affected—as someone who otherwise prides himself on being organized and a team player, I would leave weights out on the floor.
Then a funny thing happened: the gym added new, updated equipment, and the regulars started coming back.
It was fascinating to see the transformation that occurred afterward—once the “leadership” returned, their behavior affected everyone else. You would never find a single free weight out of place.
Beyond my personal story is a common principle in leadership: behavior of leaders cascades down to the rest of the group.
A psychological phenomenon is known as “negative social proof” would argue that the “right thing” to do becomes questionable when people see the right people doing the wrong things.
This sort of influence can also seep into your employees’ behavior through subtle nudges in language. Statements like we do things by the book around here to actively discourage creative thinking.
Be careful about what sort of behavior that leadership, unwritten rules, and key team members project.
Effective Teamwork: Beware These 9 Characteristics Which Destroy It
Providing training and development
Are you providing training for skills that your team may be lacking?
If you have hired the right person based on their character and attitude, but they are making mistakes, make sure they have the necessary training to ensure they know how to collaborate.
