In the contemporary corporate environment, “collaboration” has developed into a very popular term. Every business expects that cloud computing and information sharing platforms would allow its employees to collaborate effectively regardless of location. However, workers can never fully benefit from these technologies unless leaders are really dedicated to developing a culture of cooperation.
According to Kevin Lynch, CEO of cloud content collaboration provider Volerro, “a collaborative culture should be something that workers experience, rather than something that the management team preaches about.” When this occurs, productivity, insight, and invention are all boosted while also fostering a feeling of community inside the workplace.
As they try to build a framework that can expand along with their success, fledgling businesses need to collaborate even more than established ones.
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The purpose of teamwork in business
Collaboration has many advantages for businesses that have effectively implemented it into their corporate culture, but it requires dedication, leadership, and effort. That dedication must start at the top.
In the November-December edition of Harvard Business Review, Francesca Gino said that “those in authority must initiate this dynamic.” Many leaders, even those who are well-versed in enlightened management theory, fail to consistently treat people with respect or to take the necessary steps to gain it from them.
She said that workers feel heard at organizations that are successful in building a collaborative working culture, and they are thought to provide more original ideas.
Why is teamwork important?
Collaboration is included into organizational culture, which boosts employee morale and increases productivity. New managers at Pixar, one of the businesses Gino identified as being particularly effective at incorporating cooperation, go through a series of courses aimed at enhancing their leadership abilities. Improving feedback, which for many individuals is as difficult to provide as it is to receive, is a significant element of one segment. Pixar managers are confident that they can motivate their workers to perform at their highest levels with the help of the training materials and some practical experience. Even in actual meetings, Pixar has coaches who may stop work in progress and provide suggestions for improving collaboration. According to Gino, once managers become used to the practice, it starts to seem welcoming and natural.
Technology is not the whole solution
You must first demonstrate effective teamwork to your workforce in order to make cloud collaboration solutions genuinely beneficial to your company. Lynch offered six easy strategies for fostering a friendly, collaborative workplace.
1. Set team goals.
Use timeframes, plans, and organized material to establish the team’s present and future objectives. In this approach, everyone on the team may have their own unique point of view. Leadership should make sure that everyone is aware of the objectives and the precise role they play in accomplishing those objectives. Rewarding collaboration above individual success is one strategy to stress the worth of the team. Team members who feel like valuable members of the team will work harder than those who feel like they are shouldering an unfair amount of the workload.
2. Foster a creative environment.
Allow team members to brainstorm in an accepting environment that appreciates the group’s mission and goals. To be willing to provide bold suggestions, the team must feel safe enough to take chances both individually and collectively. There are several methods to provide staff with the safety they need to take chances and be innovative. Contributor to Fairygodboss Maureen Berkner Boyt advised holding lunches occasionally to recognize the largest team missteps in order to demonstrate that “we can’t win if we don’t fail, and we can have fun by laughing at our errors.”
3. Build cohesion
Create a method of communication that promotes efficient workflow, provides a clear hierarchy of priorities, and gives each employee a sense of inclusion. Team members are able to concentrate and succeed when they are all following the same playbook. At Amazon, Jeff Bezos famously instituted the “two-pizza rule”: Teams could not have more members than two pizzas could comfortably serve. This cap maintained the teams at a size that was reasonable and encouraged responsibility and production.
4. Visualize ideas.
Give your team members the chance to communicate their thoughts simply and clearly by using pictures. You may use anything for this, from simple doodles to elaborate presentations. A shared whiteboard, whether physical or virtual, is a terrific tool since most people learn better and remember information when they have seen it.
5. Break down barriers.
Multiple lines of communication, such as email, phone calls, and text messages, might eventually pose challenges to productive teamwork. [Read our evaluation of the top business phone system for teamwork, RingCentral.] Choose one communication method that the team can use to communicate successfully and decide on it. A significant amount of productivity will be wasted trying to match up versions if your company uses Office and Google, or if you have different presentation styles. It’s critical to pay attention to the leadership’s style, the workers’ degree of comfort, and their training. There are always new products on the market, and certain members of your staff may be utilizing technology that others aren’t proficient with or even aware of.
6. Follow through.
Don’t overlook the most crucial stage when concentrating so much on coming up with ideas: acting on the excellent ones. Failure to execute current suggestions would destroy workers’ motivation to come up with new ones quicker than anything else. Selecting which ideas to pursue may be a major barrier, especially in smaller firms. Popular ways for choosing between competing projects include voting and rating. Simple means to gather the votes are available via tools like Tricider and Trello. Making progress demonstrates to the team that their ideas are valued and inspires them to come up with even better ones.