8 Steps to Collaboration to Work in a Collaborative Environment

It sounds incredible working with other business owners to grow your business simultaneously. Collaboration is a boon for organizations looking to expand their horizons. In the modern business world, collaboration is the new buzzword. From CEOs to interns, a lack of collaboration will lead to project failure. Richard Branson, a business magnate, said, “A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.” Nowadays, all leaders are committed to creating a culture of collaboration to reap the full benefits.  

What is collaboration?

Have you heard that a pair of working horses can pull a higher gross weight than one alone could? That’s the power of collaboration. Working in a collaborative environment means getting more work done faster. It is a process through which a group of people constructively explore their ideas and power to look for a way out that is far more extended than one’s limited vision. With the growing trend of remote work and millennials striving for a flexible working environment, teams need to communicate, collaborate and share ideas quickly.

Importance of collaborative team management

Comic book fans know it well! Marvel’s The Avengers, featuring Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, and Thor, gives a massive lesson about teamwork. It teaches the value of teams, and one team is better than an individual. The magic happens when a group of people is working together with trust towards a goal. When you’re part of a team, you can accomplish wonders. Let’s see the importance of collaboration in an organization.

• Effective collaboration creates an amicable, team-friendly structure.
• Motivates the workforce to outperform themselves constantly.
• Encourages flexibility and thus, allows the business to respond to change faster.
• Enhances problem-solving by developing a combination of various solutions and result-oriented approaches. 
• Supports an empowered way of working to remove any workplace constraints.
• It promotes a comprehensive team structure with less hierarchy and complete transparency in all aspects. 
• Encourages multi-disciplinary work.
• Foster’s responsiveness for a better change and defines accountability within the organization.
• Promotes a sense of achievement significant for a motivated workplace.
• Actively involves all project members in collaborating extensively.

Overall, team collaboration gives teams the authority to make decisions correctly and helps them maintain transparency among the team members.

Building a collaborative work environment

The question is: How to build a team that improves collaboration and communication? Read on for tips to create a collaborative workplace that encourages proper communication and promotes accountability.

Step 1: Identify Individual Strengths

In a collaborative environment, it becomes essential to be realistic about everyone’s vulnerabilities. On your mission to promote collaboration, start with building teams around individuals who do complement one another. One member compensates for the disabilities of others and vice versa. You will quickly delineate which team member will be contributing to which part, pairing them with the appropriate tasks that suit their strengths. 

Step 2: Establish Realistic Expectations & Clarify Goals

With clear, realistic expectations in the team, they will be more able to focus on the tasks and decision-making. Altogether the team gets an opportunity to share their ideas and get support for the same. Now you’ll ask how to clarify the goals to each team member?

• Review their roles
• Check their responsibilities
• Clarify their expectations
• Allow cross-functional learning

Step 3: Use Collaboration Tools 

Numerous high-successful organizations employ online collaboration software to create a collaborative environment to collaborate better. Cloud-based collaboration technology allows companies to access data from any location to ensure people collaborate on a common platform. Teams can share files simultaneously, communicate in real-time, and have an interactive collaboration, bringing out more creativity.

Step 4: Encourage Open-Mindedness

The modern workplace has people from various backgrounds and life experiences. Give each of them a chance to be open-minded about their ideas and behaviour and approach every situation with a unique perspective. With individuals sharing their experiences, it creates a sense of security in the team. They give a respectful approach to work, thus positively impacting overall performance.  

Step 5: Reward Innovation

To create a culture of innovation, organizations need to make innovation a human capital issue. You can prioritize innovation by linking it to the company’s reward system. Innovation is the key to maintaining a competitive edge in the growing industries. Therefore, encouraging teams to challenge the status quo means maintaining exemplary standards. It makes employees feel valued if you recognize their outside-the-box thinking. 

Step 6: Celebrate teams success publicly

Don’t forget to celebrate your team’s success for improving team spirit and performance. Success primarily doesn’t involve money, it also counts whenever one achieves a goal. Take the team out for lunch or order in pizza. Motivate them to share their success story in ways to make a difference. This is more likely to boost their confidence, and make them more inspired to contribute more to the team. Show them their efforts are not taken for granted. 

Step 7: Support a strong sense of community

It is imperative to share a sense of community to feel secure, nurtured, and supported. Nobody wants to be a part of a team where they are made to feel like an outsider. It destroys the whole meaning of working in a group and makes it impossible to accomplish anything meaningful. Make them feel a strong sense of community, be more comfortable, share the proper knowledge appropriately and help to solve deep problems. Teams will be more committed and have a global perspective. 

Step 8: Proper Delegation of Tasks

You cannot do everything alone, and of course, you cannot have the same people showing up all the time. When you start delegating the tasks, individuals feel powerful as they will feel their actions will impact the organization. They’ll be more motivated to be there in the team and make their efforts. They feel valued, overwhelmed and feel they have an essential role to play. 

In short, to get your collaborative environment to thrive, don’t let anyone be a bottleneck. 

Conclusion

In a nutshell, we hope that through these collaborative working environment tips you would be able to learn how to build and empower your team for better performance in future.