If you want to improve collaboration on your team, there are a few important ideas you will want to consider to help make that happen.

Collaboration is not a single event.

It is an ongoing process that you implement to ensure your people share and request information to increase performance.

So, why is collaboration so vital to your success?

According to statistics shared by Zippia, “Companies that promote collaboration and communication at work have been linked to reducing employee turnover rates by 50%.”.

And employees are “17% more satisfied with their job when they engage in collaboration at work.”

Even more impressive is their finding that “Individuals who work in collaborative settings at work are more than 50% more effective at completing tasks than those who work independently.”

You can find a prior article I shared on the 4 Ps to Drive Communication Across Departments and read about how every organization will need to focus on Purpose, People, platform and Problems to ignite collaborative conversations.

If you want the people in your organization to collaborate, you will first need to provide them with three vital nuggets of information:

–THEY NEED TO KNOW WHY  

(IDENTIFY IMPORTANT PROBLEM / QUESTION)

–THEY NEED TO KNOW WHO

(INVOLVE PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT KNOWLEDGE / INSIGHTS)

–THEY NEED TO KNOW HOW

(IMPLEMENT PROCESS TO MAKE IT SIMPLE / SATISFYING)

And AFTER you take the time to share this information with your team members, you will want to implement specific items to grow collaboration into your workplace culture…

Here are FIVE simple ideas to improve collaboration:

1.

Organize your company collection of helpful reference materials, articles and training videos on a single platform in a vault that allows your team to access information easily to reduce the need to have repetitive conversations on common issues.

2.

Publish an organizational chart with the names and pictures of every employee and have them each share 2-3 things that they are happy to talk about as experts with other team members.

3.

Inspire new connections and relationships across departments by inviting team members to reach out to just ONE person each month that they are unfamiliar with to have a 20-minute introductory zoom call conversation.  You can use conversation card questions as a catalyst!

4.

Establish a “challenges and discoveries” page on an asynchronous communication platform or internal communication page that encourages people to share obstacles they are experiencing and discoveries they have made so all team members benefit from group knowledge.

5.

Strengthen relationships, trust and leadership awareness by having ALL leaders and managers set aside a block of time each week (or in 1-on-1 meetings) to ask questions and model curiosity by requesting advice and ideas from their team – this helps to build a culture of psychological safety where your people feel that asking for help is encouraged and beneficial.

Choosing to implement just a few of these five ideas to increase collaboration will create significant improvements in your team communications.

Collaboration is the responsibility of Leaderhip

Just like teamwork, teambuilding, and workplace culture – collaboration is a result of intentional leadership.

If you want to create more effective leaders and inspire your disconnected employees to become Winning Teammates, you may want to consider the positive impact that a teamwork speaker or corporate team building event can have on strengthening the relationships that are the foundation of all collaboration.

All leaders want their teams to collaborate across and within departments –

The separator between those who DO inspire more collaboration and those who continue to complain about the lack of it is taking specific action to help build systems that encourage it.

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Sean Glaze is an author and leadership expert who has worked with clients like Cisco, John Deere, Coca-Cola, and Emory University to increase collaboration, boost productivity, and build exceptional workplace cultures.

As a successful basketball coach and educator for over 20 years, Sean gained valuable insights into leading winning teams – and now he travels around the country to share those lessons…

Sean’s engaging conference keynotes and interactive team building events help accelerate the growth of more effective leaders.

And Sean’s books, Rapid Teamwork, The 10 Commandments of Winning Teammates, and Staying Coachable are entertaining parables with powerful take-aways to improve team performance and leadership!