5 Ways To Promote Collaborative Teams
There is a big project coming up and the perfect team needs to be assembled in order to meet the quick deadline. But how is it possible to build a team out of current employees while making sure you are setting them up for success? Locating individuals with specific strengths, targeted focus, and creative variety is where employers need to begin.
We have discussed how personality can help build a better team, but introducing collaboration to individual teams is imperative to each employees success as well as that of the group.
Start at the top
When C-level executives show collaboration and openness to conversation, employees will follow suit. If the CEO is often found chatting with managers or employees, the door for social interaction and conversation is deemed valuable. A similar workplace would show that the more communication between team members, the better.
Supply communication tools
Employees are more likely to collaborate with each other when communication is streamlined. Sameer Patel, senior vice president of Products and Go-to-Market for SAP Cloud/SuccessFactors told CIO.com that improving communications between coworkers is most easily done by implementing a social collaboration solution within a single platform. For example, here are Traitify, we have employees around the country and need to be in contact with various members of the team on a daily basis. Each of us uses Slack to communicate enabling real-time dialog and creating a channel for everyone to connect to.
Encourage Research
Generally, when a team of people all well-versed in the same topic are put on the same team, collaboration comes to an end. It is more productive for members of a team to go through the exercise of researching a topic and then discussing their findings. However, Lynda Gratton shared with Harvard Business Review that decreasing the number of experts on a single team allows for further collaborations- “we found that the greater the proportion of experts a team had, the more likely it was to disintegrate into nonproductive conflict or stalemate.”
Be a community
Giving coworkers the opportunity to get to know each other outside of work is beneficial in many ways, from communication to building a sense of community and the long-term changes will quickly become apparent. Research has shown that teams of people that already have close relationship with one another work better in a team setting, and are more comfortable communicating.
Understanding roles
Each employee should be brought to the team for a purpose, which should be clearly defined. If you have two people that are both mentors and planners, but one has more of a planner personality, let it be known that they are to have the role of coordinator in that team setting. Allowing employees to use their strengths will allow for better communication to focus on the task at hand.
When it is time for your next team project, keep each individual in mind and everyone will work towards the common goal.
Team collaboration starts with matching up the correct personalities; if your team is ready to bring personality to the workplace, sign-up for Traitify Dash today!
