5 Strategies to Immediately Unlock Effective Team Collaboration in Any Workplace
Team collaboration is a powerful productivity tool. Imagine for a moment if you have a team full of talented employees, but they all speak a different language. That would make it pretty difficult to move in the same direction or communicate from day to day. Talent alone doesn’t result in a high-performing team. It takes collaboration.
Poor collaboration doesn’t just take a toll on efficiency. When your teams don’t collaborate well, employees get frustrated and check out. In fact, 33% of HR professionals report that poor team collaboration leads to poor morale. And poor morale means higher turnover rates, lowered employee retention, and a lot of wasted talent and money.
But consider the other side of the equation. Let’s say you have a highly collaborative team environment. Employees can communicate efficiently and effectively. They trust one another. They navigate conflict with generosity. They hold one another accountable. Sounds pretty idyllic, no?
The impact that would have on your productivity as a team becomes difficult to quantify. But let’s give it a try. Here are the top 3 benefits of cultivating team collaboration.
The Top 3 Benefits of Team Collaboration
Benefit #1: Improved Problem-Solving:
Problems can feel incredibly overwhelming in a silo. Yet, teams that collaborate effectively are often better equipped to tackle complex challenges.
Let’s say a sales manager comes to you with an issue — their team has been struggling to hit their quota of cold calls. The manager suspects the sales team is increasingly getting burnt out. Plus, their outdated technology is slowing down operations. With the number of players involved, fixing that problem on your own may be impossible.
So, you pull together your operations team and the sales leaders to brainstorm a solution. You collectively brainstorm and pool resources. The result? A more comprehensive understanding of issues. The sales team is now able to devise an effective plan to tackle their to-do list.
Benefit #2: Increased Productivity:
Team collaboration leads to greater productivity because collaborative teams often work more efficiently. When members share the workload and support one another, everyone completes tasks faster.
Research has shown that employees working in collaborative settings were over 50% more effective at completing tasks than their coworkers who work alone. That’s because team collaboration empowers each member's strengths to complement others'. This in turn results in more streamlined processes across the board.
Benefit #3: Boosted Employee Morale and Engagement:
Team members who feel valued and heard within a collaborative environment share a sense of belonging. And they're more invested in the team's goals.
Team collaboration is integral to improving your employee experience. One report shows that companies can reduce employee turnover rates by 50% by promoting communication and collaboration. When an employee works with a great team, they’re more likely to stay with a company.
Team collaboration increases employee engagement and retention overall, which leads to higher job satisfaction. Motivation increases, and everyone shares a stronger commitment to achieve objectives.
>> Become a collaborative effective team with Bridge Innovate. Learn more about the Five Behaviors of a High Performing Team learning experience.
5 Strategies to Immediately Unlock Effective Team Collaboration in Any Workplace
By now, it’s evident that team collaboration is worthy of investment. But if you want to boost team collaboration, where do you start?
Here are 5 strategies to unlock better team collaboration in your workplace:
1. Inspire Innovation:
To stimulate creativity and novel thinking, encourage a culture of innovation. Let your team feel the freedom to brainstorm together. Invite them to share risky ideas, and embrace diverse perspectives. With this mentality, innovative ideas can flourish. This innovative thinking then leads to groundbreaking solutions and approaches.
Let’s say you run a marketing team and you’re facing a challenge. You’re stuck in a rut, brainstorming in the same old way to run a campaign. It hasn’t gotten you far in the past, and it won’t get you far this time either. Inspire innovation by setting aside dedicated time for brainstorming sessions.
Make such sessions entirely safe. Encourage your team to throw out the most out-of-the-box ideas without any consequence or judgment. Then, someone suggests integrating gamification into their campaign strategies. The idea sparks excitement. A chain reaction ignites. Out flows innovative concepts that revolutionize your campaign approach.
2. Define and Communicate Your Team's Goals:
Setting clear, concise, and well-communicated goals is a deeply meaningful exercise. Research conducted by the APA shows that setting goals is motivating. It gives everyone a sense of purpose and helps us feel accomplished. When you want to rally your team to collaborate more, provide a roadmap for the team. Align everyone toward a common purpose. Then, when team members understand the objectives and how their contributions fit into the larger picture, they're more focused and committed.
Need some help to create more meaningful goals? Harvard Business Review shares several important tips here.
3. Foster Honest and Open Communication:
Nothing is more stifling to collaboration than when communication breaks down. Encourage team members to express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns freely. This creates an environment of trust and transparency. When everyone feels heard and valued, it fosters a culture of respect and enables constructive discussions that drive progress.
Consider this. An organization runs a project that almost derails due to miscommunication. But then, during a candid team meeting, everyone shares their thoughts on the design process. They voice concerns and propose solutions. This transparent dialogue brings a renewed sense of unity and every team member feels valued and heard.
From that point, their project can run smoothly. Open communication becomes the norm, fostering an atmosphere of trust and respect.
4. Model Collaborative Behavior:
Collaboration starts at the top. If your executive team struggles to collaborate and communicate with one another, your entire organization will too. Executive and team leaders play a crucial role in setting the tone for collaboration.
Lead by example. Show active participation, and demonstrate collaborative behavior as a leadership team. Then, encourage others to follow suit. Leaders need to exhibit openness, willingness to listen, and a collaborative spirit. In effect, modeling can create a ripple effect that permeates the entire team.
Think of a startup's CEO who actively engages with the team, listens to their ideas, and values their input. This approach cultivates a collaborative spirit throughout the company. As the CEO demonstrates openness and a willingness to collaborate, team members mirror this behavior. The result is a culture where collaboration is not only encouraged but celebrated.
5. Invest in Team Development
Investing in continuous learning and development becomes pivotal when you're aiming for success. Start building a collaborative team by investing in essential team development tools. Use tools like the Everything DiSC® Assessment to measure an individual’s preferences and tendencies based on the DiSC® model.
This simple yet powerful model describes four basic styles of work — D, i, S, and C — offering personalized insights that deepen one's understanding of self and others. With DiSC insights, workplace interactions become more enjoyable and effective.
Or learn how to work as a team using The Five Behaviors® model. This model helps develop cohesive teams through five key behaviors: Trust, Conflict, Commitment, Accountability, and Results.
Investing in team development models and skills doesn’t just benefit individual team members. It amplifies the collective capabilities of the entire organization, driving success on multiple fronts.