Team collaboration is an essential element in every organization because it involves both individuality and group cohesion. It takes place when team members understand how to use their roles and expertise while working together to achieve a common goal.
A collaborative team can approach any problem from distinct viewpoints and come up with more innovative solutions because each team member possesses a unique set of distinguishing skills.
It helps teams work together effectively to accomplish tasks. In this article, we will discuss how to collaborate effectively.
Team Collaboration vs. Teamwork: What’s the difference?
Roles Within The Team
In collaboration, a group of people works together to solve a problem or finish a task. The focus is on working together and finding a solution as a group.
For example, when a team is brainstorming, everyone is in the same room (or on the same video call), discussing a problem and trying to solve it as a group.
Teamwork, on the other hand, refers to a group of people working together. Each of them has a different job to do. So, they each try their best and work together to reach the same goal.
When a basketball team wins a game, it’s because everyone on the team played well. Everyone who played basketball did their job well, so the results were good.
Leadership
Most of the time, there is no leader in a collaborative team. Each team member is encouraged and expected to make an effort and use their own skills to help the team.
But teamwork has a different case. In order for a team to work, someone has to organize the people in it and help them reach a common goal.
Now that we’ve talked about the difference between teamwork and team collaboration let’s look at what skills are needed for better team collaboration.
3 Types of Collaboration Skills
Each member of a collaborative team masters their own field. Because of this, the team can look at any problem from different angles and find more than one good solution.
Having the same goals and values holds a collaborative team together, no matter how different the people are.
However, collaboration takes time and work to develop, get to know your team members, and set up a good working relationship.
Furthermore, there are collaboration skills that everyone should acquire so that the team can operate efficiently and rapidly. We’ll explain how these skills affect teamwork.
#1 Communication Skills
Any relationship requires good communication.
You can communicate with your coworkers in person or through written forms at work. In either case, you should be careful with your words.
Tips for better communication skills:
- Always think about what and how you’ll speak to your coworkers. If you don’t agree with someone, try to say so in a polite way.
- You won’t be able to see a colleague’s facial expression when you write to them. Before sending your message, reread it and try to look at it from your colleague’s point of view.
- Before you speak or write anything, make sure the message is clearer and easier to understand.
- If applicable, consider the tone of your voice and body language. These can significantly affect the interpretation of your message.
- Develop the skill of active listening. If you need help understanding what your coworkers say, feel free to ask for clarification.
#2 Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is a skill that helps you understand and control your own emotions as well as quickly figure out how other people are feeling at any given time.
Let’s say your coworker is in a bad mood all day—this may indicate that they are exhausted or need help at work.
If you show genuine interest in your coworkers’ life and get to know them better, it will be simpler for you to recognize these signs and provide support.
Tips to improve emotional intelligence:
- Display greater compassion and empathy towards your colleagues.
- Employ transparency and objectivity in your communications.
- Don’t be easily offended.
- Do not take criticism personally.
- Pay close attention to your teammates’ vocal and nonverbal clues.
- Exhibit resiliency.
#3 Respect for Diversity
If you are part of a multicultural team, encouraging diversity should be one of your top goals at work.
To be able to collaborate closely with cross-cultural colleagues, you must respect all forms of diversity and avoid all forms of discrimination.
Tips on how to show respect for diversity at work:
- Communicate openly
- Be sensitive to ethnic and religious backgrounds,
- Establish consensus
- Promote group discussions
- Make sure everyone on the team feels like they can speak their opinions.
Benefits of Team Collaboration
Promoting collaboration in the workplace has several advantages. Here are the reasons why it’s a great practice:
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- Better productivity and efficiency: Collaboration lets people focus on what they do best, which is good for the whole team. Each person brings their own strengths and skills to the team, making it more productive and efficient.
- Improves social skills and communication: Team members increase their social skills and communication by learning to relate to their peers, enhancing their decision-making abilities, presenting results and strategies, sharing their knowledge, and developing their communication skills.
- Common goals: A collaboration environment recognizes that employees can be successful not just on their own but also by working together. Most of the time, the results are greater than what people can achieve by working alone.
- Increases diversity: When people from distinct backgrounds work together on a team, you’ll have more chances to understand what makes them different. They will complement each other in many ways, which allows team members to learn from one another and about other company aspects.
- Encourages learning: When people on a team collaborate, they can always learn from each other’s successes and failures, as well as from friendly competition, debriefing sessions, and open conversations. They will take an organized approach to learn new things.
- Better Problem Solving: Collaboration in the workplace entails combining diverse abilities to create a pool of knowledge and skills. More capable and experienced individuals in a team will enhance problem-solving by expressing their professional opinions and using their own expertise to help.
- Break down barriers: Successful companies always encourage team members to collaborate. Collaboration between team members of a single department extends to all departments within an organization. Because everyone in a company contributes to specific goals, it creates a great feedback loop that can be used for projects. Everyone on the team will be able to voice their opinions to meet the company’s objectives better.
25 Ways to Improve Team Collaboration
#1 Develop intentional leadership
This kind of leadership makes it easy for people to work together and thinks about and implements things that make teams work well.
By leading with intention, you can start to successfully move through:
- When to ask and when to say
- How to give people both challenges and help as they learn
- How to get business results while also helping people grow.
With the help of intentional leadership, you can better do your job as a leader and help others be their best selves.
#2 Establish common objectives
Everyone on the team needs to be on the same page when it comes to both company and team goals. To act in line with the team’s vision, everyone on the team needs to know what that vision is.
To establish common objectives, you can:
- Know what you want to achieve.
- Talk to each other often and openly.
- Share your thoughts, experiences, and points of view whenever you can.
- Take advantage team meetings to reassess and go over your shared goals.
- Lessen all the prejudice.
#3 Set clear expectations
The members of the team need to know what their responsibilities are so they can focus on doing these jobs as well as they can.
Consider the following:
- Define roles and expectations early.
- Identify common goals.
- Everyone should be held responsible for their work.
- Inspire and motivate.
- Regularly evaluate performance.
#4 Set standards
The success of the whole team depends on how well the standards are set.
Establishing standards is essential to the success of the team as a whole.
Once everyone on the team is aware of their responsibilities, you will be able to manage these tasks.
These standards may include:
- Selecting the appropriate collaboration tools.
- Delegating work fairly and equitably.
- Fostering understanding and mutual respect
- Scheduling reasonable deadline
- Exhibiting empathy and flexibility.
- Using emotional intelligence to identify early signs of burnout and take preventative measures.
#5 Focus on individual strengths
Knowing your teammates is advantageous for many reasons.
One of the reasons is that each team member’s individual strengths will be identified.
For instance,
- One teammate may be exceptional with people
- Another may excel at creating templates of any kind
- The third may be the most tech-savvy of the group.
This leads us to the second component of the equation.
By understanding each team member’s strengths, it is simple to leverage them and make remarkable progress as a group.
#6 Energize
A highly energized and motivated team is a project’s greatest asset. Effective collaborative teams will ensure that everyone works intelligently and diligently. It will energize a discussion by making team members feel valued. The teams should always be recognized for their outstanding performance. In addition, team collaboration will address issues that will motivate the team to do the necessary work.
#7 Create group problem-solving
Bring your team together by promoting open communication and useful ways to solve problems.
By facilitating the opportunity for people to share new ideas without being judged, you’ll exhibit to your team that everyone can help the team move forward.
What’s important, though, is that team members support creative conflict, especially when disagreements arise. This will make it more likely that your team will come up with better ideas during the debate.
#8 Listen first
When working as a team, different ideas need to collaborate to make effective solutions, and this depends on how well people work together. Before coming to a conclusion about a new idea, you’ll need to listen carefully to what everyone has to say. Part of active collaboration is giving feedback so that a conversation can happen in real-time. It also means responding quickly to team members who want to be heard and feel like they are important.
#9 Make change a positive step
Learn to accept change and let go of your fear of what you don’t know. Include your team in the process of decision-making. Establishing and reinforcing change-readiness will inspire others to accept it. You can also serve as an example for your team when it comes to accepting failure and criticism with poise.
#10 Create a trustworthy and trustful environment
Trust works both ways.
Team members must feel they can be honest and trustworthy with one another, while also being self-reliant. Once you make this kind of environment, it will be easy to improve your relationships and handle your work.
For example,
If you’re waiting for a coworker to finish their part of the task and they do it on time, you’ll finish your part of the work on time, too. So, it will be easy for you to collaborate.
But if you run into problems while working on a task with other people, let them know. So, your teammates can work with you to figure it out.
By giving your team time and effort to build trust, you will prevent significant delays, help your team manage time better, and show that you can be trusted.
#11 Be transparent
The best collaborators don’t worry too much about their roles or titles. They are more concerned with discovering solutions, regardless of who discovers them. In addition, effective collaborators share information across the board, which fosters a sense of community in the workplace.
#12 Let leadership change
Let leadership roles shift and change naturally as the project develops and different needs come up.
#13 Take advantage of project management tools
There are numerous online tools for project management that can help in tracking teams, organizing projects, conceptualizing ideas, and enhancing communication. Determine which program will work best for your team.
#14 Be a model of behavior
You can strategize as much as you want for collaboration, but if you don’t exhibit collaborative behaviors yourself, this will trickle down to your team members.
Instead of simply stating your expectations, demonstrate the integrity and accountability you desire from your team.
The manner in which you handle requests and make promises reveals your attitude toward collaboration. When a member approaches you for assistance, you should grant their request. And make only promises you are confident you can keep.
The greater your team’s trust in you to have their back, the more that trust will encompass the team as a whole. And consequently, their productivity will increase.
#15 Stay curious
Curious leaders will inspire curiosity in others. Assist the team in considering and investigating outside perspectives, searching for comprehensive themes, and exploring about data.
#16 Encourage creativity
A team that collaborates is innovative. Similarly, providing a space for creativity will encourage collaboration. It’s a continuous cycle.
Sessions of brainstorming can be a great way to encourage creative thinking within a team.
For some team members, brainstorming sessions can be intimidating, especially if they are unexpected. To overcome this, inform the team the day before so that everyone can prepare their thoughts in advance.
#17 Evaluate why it isn’t working
Assess the problem first. Determine why your current strategy for collaboration is failing. Is it a matter of trust, chemistry, or competitiveness? Analyze the current situation and formulate a future plan accordingly. If you have no idea where to begin, you can conduct a survey of team members and solicit their opinions and perceptions. Then, as the team’s leader, observe the team in action, draw your own conclusion, and formulate your strategy.
#18 Be Humble
Demonstrate your humanity by recognizing when you are uncertain about something. Asking for assistance is an essential part of collaboration in a team.
#19 Create infrastructure
By analyzing potential bottlenecks and establishing clear channels of communication, you can avoid problems when organizing a project.
#20 Arrange only necessary meetings
Before scheduling a team meeting, you should carefully consider the pros and cons.
If there is a major project update that requires you to discuss it with the team, a meeting is the best option. Make sure to create a meeting agenda and distribute it to your colleagues so they can prepare before the meeting begins.
Alternatively, if you need to quickly communicate other vital information, you can use a free team messaging application.
If you wish to communicate information that is less urgent and less crucial, consider sending an email.
#21 Revitalize and infuse inspiration from time to time
Most managers commit the mistake of believing that their employees are operating at full capacity. In order to be an effective and collaborative manager, you must periodically infuse inspiration and vigor into the workplace and your team. Also, if you want to criticize someone, do it in a kind way. Try to criticize the mistakes, not the person. There will be issues that need to be solved, but they can all be solved in a manner that inspires and motivates the team, not in a way that discourages and demotivates them.
#22 Celebrate individuality
Leaders should recognize the efforts of individuals and acknowledge that everyone has different methods, styles, and schedules. And we’re not just talking about yearly evaluations of performance or weekly email updates. As a person in a position of authority, you can integrate appreciation into the daily interactions of your team. If someone is performing commendably or has completed their assigned task before the expected deadline, simply express your appreciation and recognition for them and their work through team meetings and group discussions.
#23 Organize casual gatherings after office hours
Spending time with your coworkers outside of work hours can facilitate bonding.
There are always engaging team-building and team-bonding activities available, regardless of the type of team that you belong to.
An impromptu cup of coffee in the morning or a dinner outside after work can strengthen relationships and help your team gel. Some smaller companies adopt a more regular arrangement in which team members “buddy up” and take turns going to lunch one-on-one.
Importantly, do not force these events or organize them too frequently. Choose once or twice per month to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
#24 Team building activities
Team building activities can help people on a team collaborate better. Team building activities will have a positive effect on the culture of the office because they will motivate the team members, improve communication, increase productivity, and help every member get to know each other better.
#25 Foster collaboration as a value
This may seem obvious, but it is crucial that you and your team establish that collaboration is important. Not every team prioritizes collaboration; some teams are motivated by competition or individual skill. Take the time to explain why team collaboration is essential and how your team will achieve this goal.
Conclusion
Remember that team collaboration is not a solo effort.
Collaboration requires the contributions of the entire group. We hope that you will put these suggestions to good use. Bring a spirit of collaboration to your teams and transform your workforce into a productive one.