Businesses that have successfully incorporated a team mentality into their company culture will reap the benefits of collaboration, but it takes commitment, leadership, and diligence.
At companies that succeed in fostering a collaborative workplace culture, employees feel heard and are believed to generate more creative solutions.
Set team goals
Use timelines, plans and structured content that clearly define current and future goals for the team. This way, all team members can share a distinct point of view. Leadership should ensure that everyone understands the goals and what part they specifically play in achieving those goals. One way to emphasize the importance of the team value is to reward teamwork ahead of individual accomplishments. Team members who feel they are a part of a valued unit will perform at a higher level than those who feel they are carrying a disproportionate share of the load.
Foster a creative environment
Allow team members to brainstorm in an open, nonjudgmental framework that embraces the team’s purpose and direction. The team has to be secure enough to take risks, both individually and as a team, to be willing to suggest daring ideas. There are numerous ways to give employees the security they need to take risks and be creative.
Build cohesion
Create a means of communicating that allows for easy workflow, establishes a distinct set of priorities and makes all colleagues feel included. Keeping everyone on the same playbook enables team members to focus and flourish. Jeff Bezos famously established a “two-pizza rule” for the size of teams at Amazon: The number of people on a team was not allowed to exceed what two pizzas could feed. This limit kept the teams at a manageable size, fostering productivity and accountability.
Visualize ideas
Allow team members to use visuals to clarify and share their ideas at the simplest level. You can do this with anything from rough sketches to full-scale presentations. Most people learn better and retain more when they have seen something, and a shared whiteboard, real or virtual, is a great tool.
Break down barriers
Using multiple channels of communication – such as email, phone and text messaging – can ultimately create barriers to successful collaboration. Agree upon and enlist just one channel that allows the team to communicate efficiently and effectively. It is important to be sensitive to the comfort level and training of the employees, as well as the leadership.
Follow-through
With all of the focus on creating ideas, don’t forget the most important step: acting on the good ones. Nothing will kill employees’ desire to create new ideas faster than a failure to implement existing proposals. Choosing which ideas to move forward with can be a significant bottleneck, particularly in smaller organizations. Voting and ranking are popular methods of selecting among competing projects. Tools such as Tricider and Trello offer simple ways to collect the votes. Progress shows team members that their ideas matter and motivates more great ideas.