Working Collaboratively: 17 Simple Tips to Build Collaborative Teams
How many times in your business career have you been in an organization where real energy was expended to build collaborative teams? How successful were these efforts? Working collaboratively is not an easy task, is it? But we’d all agree that the payoffs certainly outweigh the efforts, wouldn’t we?
Over the years of my career, I’ve had the good fortune of being exposed to many smart people and working 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 post: Lessons Learned in LIfe … Class Continues Daily
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 that 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:
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.
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 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.
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.
Working collaboratively with colleagues … 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.
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.
Working collaboratively in the workplace … ensure all learn and respond
Ensure all learn and respond … to important new discoveries. Be sure and get inputs from all.
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 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.
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.
Direction
Are you providing too much direction? If you try to tell your teams how to do everything step by step, you are really limiting them on providing quality customer service. If you free them up to do what they know is necessary – based on agreed expectations – you are providing the freedom to make your customers happy.
Understand roles
Does the entire organization understand the critical role they each play in delivering an exceptional customer service experience? Too many organizations do not place the same importance on internal customers — and resultant, the customer-facing teams do not get the support they need to deliver to external customers.
Working collaboratively … motivation
Do you motivate your team? You are sure to win more customers if you reward your team for delivering a great customer service. Look for ways to provide positive teamwork reinforcement on a daily basis.
The bottom line
We are all very busy: personally, professionally, and socially. One of our scarcest resources is time. Time to sit and think. Time to stretch our own limits. Time to learn new things. Time to imagine, create, explore, and experiment. Make the time to build collaborative teams … only then can you start.
As Emerson said in the lead-in quote above, time can often be a teacher.
But if you are as impatient as I am, look to your colleagues, your friends, your mentors and to your own self to challenge you to reach new heights. Tap into the parts of your brain you may not use every day. The parts of your brain you may not even realize you can tap into.
Most of all, reach out to others to collaborate. The sum of group collaboration is always greater that the work of each individual.
Ask yourself these questions to identify areas for improvement. Then pick one and focus on it — attacking too many initiatives at once will lead to frustration.
Once your team has mastered one goal, move on to another. Working together for a shared goal and seeing ongoing improvements will keep the team focused, motivated and positive.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of employee engagement. And put it to good use in adapting to changes in your business environment.
It’s up to you to keep improving your ability to mentor and coach. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, history may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
It’s up to you to keep improving your coaching and experience from all around in your environment.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?
Do you have a lesson about making your learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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