One of the most critical steps of growing a business is to foster top-notch collaboration among your teams. When your team works together through synchronous or asynchronous collaboration, it can do wonders for boosting morale, productivity, and efficiency. Ultimately, it can help you crush your goals!
Of course, building your collaboration skills comes with challenges, and you must approach it with a strategy if you hope to yield the benefits. Below, Lean Competency System has shared some realistic steps for making it happen:
Develop a Supportive Environment
To have healthy collaboration in your organisation, you must create an environment that promotes it. Your team members must feel safe to share ideas and opinions without fearing ridicule. Every healthy team includes members who know their contributions are appreciated. And it takes time to build trust.
One way to encourage team members to work collaboratively, especially if Power Point presentations are used frequently, is to use a tool to merge PPT to PDF files. This will allow team members to each have their own copy of the slides in a smaller, easier to access format from which they can make and compare notes.
Don’t Micromanage
Encourage your team members to communicate openly with one another so that they can learn about each other’s strengths and needs. And try not to micromanage any of your employees. Doing so will only hinder your team members from realising their potential. Not to mention, it will harm productivity, engagement, and aptitude.
If you have a team you trust, you must remind yourself that others are capable of helping the company succeed. Leave room for your employees to do what they do best.
Use Collaboration Tools
There are many collaboration tools on the market today to fit any team’s needs and budget. Whether you have some employees working from home or just on a different floor in the physical office, make sure you have the right online platform and tools to work together productively.
Project management and team chat software can allow you to share documents, send and receive messages, comment on projects, discuss task details, and so much more. Take advantage of modern technology to stay in touch with your team and conveniently collaborate on your goals.
Establish Clear Expectations
Your team members must understand what you expect from them if they will collaborate effectively. This is especially true for employees who haven’t worked in such an environment before.
Though collaboration is expected in the average workplace today, people who have never done it may look at the term “collaborate” as doing a group project in school. They might not be drawn to the work style if they always carried the heaviest burden on school projects.
Make sure your employees feel free to share any thoughts about working collaboratively. Encourage positive opinions while openly addressing any concerns so that you can foster cohesiveness and productivity within the team.
Celebrate Brainstorming
For innovative ideas to occur, there must be brainstorming. Hold regular brainstorming sessions that allow employees to share ideas, whether or not they are realistic.
If your team members feel they can openly express wild ideas, you might be surprised by how quickly others pitch in and lead to a strategy or concept that works! Your company will not grow if it keeps doing everything the same way.
Work to Your Strengths
Finally, it is human nature for people to dwell on their weaknesses. But if your team focuses first on each other’s strengths, you can get insights into how each team member operates and their skills and talents.
If you are unsure where to start, give all of your team members the Myers-Briggs personality test. For instance, if one team member tests as being very organised and detail-oriented, you probably don’t want to assign them to a project that requires big picture thinking.
For your company to thrive in this day and age, your team must work collaboratively. Keep the tips above in mind as you restructure and determine how best to improve collaboration. And keep researching for other ways to position your business for healthy growth and long-term success.
The Lean Competency System is an internationally-recognised workplace-based lean qualification standard. For more information, please visit our website or contact us today!
