COLLABORATE!!! COLLABORATION IS THE KEY TO INNOVATION!!!!

Collaboration in the workplace is when two or more people (often groups) work together through idea sharing and thinking to accomplish a common goal. It is simply teamwork taken to a higher level. A collaborative team is a group of individuals who share common beliefs and work towards common goals. Collaborative team members spend time discussing what they hope to accomplish as a team and set team and individual goals for reaching that vision.

What is Collaboration?

Collaboration is a working practice whereby individuals work together to a common purpose to achieve business benefit. 

Collaboration enables individuals to work together to achieve a defined and common business purpose. It exists in two forms:

• Synchronous, where everyone interacts in real time, as in online meetings, through instant messaging, or via Skype, and
• Asynchronous, where the interaction can be time-shifted, as when uploading documents or annotations to shared work spaces, or making contributions to a wiki

Shared work spaces are among the most visible entries in the collaboration space. Aimed at rolling document and application sharing up with chat and perhaps versioning and other auditing capabilities, they may have more or fewer features, and may be available either for license or on a syndicated basis “in the cloud,” as they say. Google Docs is a notable example of the latter, Microsoft SharePoint and EMC Documentum eRoom of the former.

Wikis are perhaps best thought of as online encyclopedias or “how-to” manuals. They are applications that let users freely create, edit, and reorganize content using a Web browser. Perhaps the most visible example of this breed is Wikipedia, and variants exist throughout enterprises of all kinds and sizes.

The plus and the minus of wikis are that more or less anyone can enter anything into the resource – so while they’re a great way to capture and share what people know, they also must be vetted to ensure nothing erroneous gets planted within (intentionally or otherwise). The good news is that, over time, active wikis tend to be of fairly high quality due to the self-policing nature of an engaged user base.

Collaboration at the conceptual level, involves:

• Awareness – We become part of a working entity with a shared purpose
• Motivation – We drive to gain consensus in problem solving or development
• Self-synchronization – We decide as individuals when things need to happen
• Participation – We participate in collaboration and we expect others to participate
• Mediation – We negotiate and we collaborate together and find a middle point
• Reciprocity – We share and we expect sharing in return through reciprocity
• Reflection – We think and we consider alternatives
• Engagement – We proactively engage rather than wait and see

Collaboration relies on openness and knowledge sharing but also some level of focus and accountability on the part of the business organizations. Governance should be established addressing the creation and closing of team workspaces with assignment of responsibility for capturing the emergent results of the collaborative effort.

Why is it important to collaborate?

The team sees value in working together as the common goal gives them a meaningful reason to work together, along with receiving mutual benefits for the company as well as the team. Equal Partaking- Collaboration provides every team member with equal opportunities to participate and communicate their ideas.

The Importance of Collaboration in the Workplace

One of the biggest factors that contribute to the success of any business is whether or not its employees are able to perform together a team. With increasing competition, it has become extremely important to encourage creativity in the office, in order to improve productivity and promote healthy employee relationships.

Working in teams enables employees to be quicker and more effective in their work, as compared to people who work on projects on their own. Collaborating also makes employees more responsible, which goes a long way in raising their motivation levels, especially when teams work virtually.

Collaboration in the Workplace

• Collaboration is said to take place when two individuals or a group of people work together towards achieving a common goal by sharing their ideas and skills. It can happen in traditional as well as virtual teams. With advancements in technology, using cloud-based programs to share files and communicate has become commonplace.

A few other important aspects that collaboration brings to the table include:

• Brainstorming- Collaboration allows team members to come together on a common platform and work towards the achievement of a common goal by thinking, brainstorming, and offering various perspectives to provide solutions.
• Providing Value- Working towards the same goal inspires in the team members with a strong sense of purpose. The team sees value in working together as the common goal gives them a meaningful reason to work together, along with receiving mutual benefits for the company as well as the team.
• Equal Partaking- Collaboration provides every team member with equal opportunities to participate and communicate their ideas.

Here’s why businesses should encourage collaboration among their teams:

It Promotes Self-Analysis

Collaboration challenges people to think, articulate and receive clarity about their competencies. It serves as a mirror that gives them a glimpse of their strengths and weaknesses. Because two heads are better than one, teams work better together and plug each other’s gaps.

It Results in Problem Solving

When a variety of knowledge and skills are pooled, it creates a talent pool that is vast and more competent, able and experienced. Virtual collaboration minimizes or even eliminates the need for finances and infrastructure. Thanks to the Internet, businesses can gain better market reach and organizations with people from diverse backgrounds can thrive.

It Makes You Look at the Bigger Picture

No two people are the same, and when you have several people from different backgrounds working for you, you will need to know how to leverage those differences and identify how they can complement each other. You also need to understand that even if the project does not shape up the way you wanted it to in the end, the partnership could still achieve a great deal.

It Teaches

When your teams are collaborating, they are essentially learning new things from each other. Your organization becomes a body which encourages a culture of continuous learning, and supports that learning through opportunities for growth and development, as well as through safety nets for failures. Whenever team members collaborate, they enhance their capacity to go and grow beyond their comfort zones and take your business to new heights.

Advantages of Collaboration

• Pooling of Talent and Strengths- When members of a team collaborate, they are able to utilize the knowledge, experience and skills of everyone involved. For instance, one member may struggle with presentation skills, but might know all about the technical aspects involved. Effective collaboration will allow all the members to share their talent and find the most optimal solution to every problem. This will augment the chances of the business to achieve more in less time.
• Development of Employee Skills- Collaboration is mutually beneficial for the employees as well as the organization because when they work together, interact and share ideas, they see and understand how others work, think, negotiate and operate. This gives all the employees a chance to pick up skills from their colleagues or team mates and build upon their strengths. These newly-learned skills can then be practiced in their own field to look at things with a new perspective and make improvements and enhancements.
• Speed up Solutions- Collaboration speeds things up. It fast-tracks progress. A problem that may take months to get resolved when handled by a single individual, but may take just a few hours to resolve when several other members employ their unique standpoints and expertise to get things done. These viewpoints will open up several doors to multiple ideas and solutions that a single individual may not be able to come up with.

Increased Efficiency

Collaborating in the workplace enables businesses to finish important projects and meet crucial deadlines efficiently. With multiple individuals working on a project, the work can be divided up equally and efficiently between those with the time and the expertise to handle specific tasks. This also significantly reduces the project delivery time. Often referred to as the divide and conquer strategy, it entails teaming up of several individuals together, dividing up the tasks among them, and accomplishing the project in relatively less time.

Enhance Employee Retention and Job Satisfaction

As mentioned, collaboration brings meaning and adds value to the way team members perceive their job. Because of this, they feel good about what they do. The sense of team spirit is felt most strongly when victories can be shared. Employees are more likely to continue working for a business longer when they have strong ties with the people they work with and feel that they’re a part of something important.

Collaboration Amongst Virtual Teams

While these principles are the same for virtual teams, there are added difficulties when your employees are spread out over different geographical locations or even when all employees live in the same area but some team members work from home. Here, communication is key. Ensuring remote teams are also working during the set work hours is also important. Luckily, time tracking software can easily track employee hours and ensure all team members are pulling their weight.

What is team work and collaboration?

Teamwork & Collaboration Skills. content. The ability to work effectively with others on a common task; taking actions which respect the needs and contributions of others; contributing to and accepting the consensus; negotiating a win-win solution to achieve the objectives of the team.

Teamwork & Collaboration Skills

The ability to work effectively with others on a common task; taking actions which respect the needs and contributions of others; contributing to and accepting the consensus; negotiating a win-win solution to achieve the objectives of the team

Behavioural indicators include:-

Building and Maintaining Relationships

• Give and receive feedback from peers or other team members in order to perform the task.
• Share credit for good ideas with others.
• Acknowledge others' skill, experience, creativity, and contributions.
• Listen to and acknowledge the feelings, concerns, opinions, and ideas of others.
• Expand on the ideas of a peer or team member.
• State personal opinions and areas of disagreement tactfully.
• Listen patiently to others in conflict situations.
• Define problems in a non-threatening manner.
• Support group decisions even if not in total agreement.

Achieving the task

• Give and seek input from others (in formulating plans for recommendations).
• Assist others in solving problems and achieving own goals.
• Share information, ideas, and suggestions.
• Ask for help in identifying and achieving goals and solving problems.
• Check for agreement, and gain commitment to shared goals.
• Notify others of changes or problems in a timely manner.
• Make procedural suggestions to encourage progress towards goals.
• Check for understanding.
• Negotiate to achieve a "win-win" outcome.

Do I Have These Skills?

You'll need to be able to prove to employers that you actually have the skills they want for the job. In applications and interviews they will ask 'competency questions' that begin with phrases such as 'tell me a time when ............. ' or 'give me an example of .............. ' Your answers are the evidence that you have what it takes.

To find out how well developed your skills are already you could try this simple exercise:

Rate yourself on each of the behaviours:

• 1 = I do this very well. I am consistent and successful in it
• 2 = I am good at this. With some practice I can make it perfect!
• 3 = I am getting better, but still need to work on this a bit more.
• 4 = I am not particularly good at this - yet!

Revisit this exercise several times through your years of study - you'll want to have as many skills as possible at 1 and 2 before you apply for graduate jobs.

And, think about all the life situations you've been in - university, work, leisure, travel, social - and identify incidents and examples from them that show that you have already used the skill.

What are the benefits of collaboration?

But first, it's important to understand some of the benefits of collaboration in the workplace:

• It moves a company more effectively towards its goals. ...
• It creates greater flexibility. ...
• It appeals to the tech-savvy. ...
• It engages remote and work-from-home employees. ...
• It helps new employees get up to speed.

5 Benefits of Collaboration in the Workplace

Unified Comm & Collaboration

Collaboration in the workplace has long been heralded as a sign of an effective, high-functioning team. Not long ago, achieving collaboration meant breaking down cubical and office walls and pushing employees to work together 24/7. Although this approach worked for many employees, others felt stifled.

Today, companies are placing more of an emphasis on balance: enabling employees to collaborate when and where they need to, but also letting them take advantage of alone time to brainstorm and complete individual tasks. Unified communication and collaboration (UCC) technology is helping to achieve that balance, by enabling real-time communication, information sharing and collaboration between employees, when it makes sense and no matter where they are located.

For value-added resellers (VARs), UCC is an exciting new area to grow your business. But first, it’s important to understand some of the benefits of collaboration in the workplace:

1. It moves a company more effectively towards its goals.

A Work.com study found that 97 percent of employees and executives agreed that the level of collaboration directly impacts the outcome of a task or project. When a team or department is collaborating smoothly, openly sharing information and able to communicate seamlessly, they are able to work at their most effective level.

On the other hand, when employees work in individual silos, it can take longer for a team to finish a particular project or task. As Gensler found, the most effective workplaces balance individual focus with team collaboration. Not every employee does their best when they are constantly in close contact with their coworkers; many need some alone time balanced with teamwork. Collaboration technology such as video conferencing and desktop sharing enables this balance because it seamlessly links end users when collaboration makes sense – rather than all day, every day.

2. It creates greater flexibility.

Today’s collaborative technology, such as tablets and smartphones, enable employees to work more flexibly than the traditional 9-to-5 office day. Many end users are able to work from home and on the road, and even take advantage of real-time collaborative capabilities with remote coworkers around the globe.

This level of flexibility fits many end users’ lifestyle better than a strict eight-hour workday. And improved flexibility can lead to greater efficiency and effectiveness. In fact, a 16-year study by Idea Champions recently found that only 3 percent of people come up with their best ideas at work. The other 97 percent said they encounter great ideas throughout their day, at home, on vacation and even in the shower. With the mobile capabilities of collaboration technology, workers are able to take advantage of sudden bursts of creativity and productivity – rather than confining both to the office.

3. It appeals to the tech-savvy.

In many industries, younger and more tech-savvy employees are more likely to gravitate toward collaboration technology, since technology is such a large part of their life already. Millenials are especially supportive of collaboration to improve productivity; one study found that 49 percent of that age group support social tools, such as Skype and Face time, for collaboration in the workplace.

Since Millenials are about to take over the workforce, now is the time for employers to sit up and take notice.

4. It engages remote and work-from-home employees.

Despite all the benefits of working remotely, sometimes it can also leave employees feeling cut off from their coworkers. By fostering a high level of collaboration, a company ensures that all employees – whether they work from home, headquarters or an overseas office – benefit from real-time information and continual communication. This higher level of engagement means that a company will benefit from the knowledge and expertise of all employees, no matter where they are located.

5. It helps new employees get up to speed.

New employees learn best from their coworkers and higher-ups, and learning is best achieved through collaboration. On top of that, collaboration creates a natural mentor-mentee relationship between new employees and their veteran counterparts, which helps inspire and engage both groups even more.

How do you collaborate effectively?

Here are the top five ways to lead a high performing team and collaborate with them most effectively:

1. Get everyone on the same page. ...
2. Set expectations. ...
3. Use tech tools. ...
4. Be open about everything. ...
5. Hold effective team meetings.

The 5 Best Ways to Collaborate With Your Team

As more teams are becoming remote, it is even more essential to get the right team together to accomplish set goals. The problem that most workers have is that they aren’t trained to collaborate. They attend colleges that simply don’t teach the necessary skills needed to be a good collaborator when working in teams. Yet everyone is in a team while at work, so those skills are even more important than ever before. Employees work less independently now, a trend that should continue especially because of how connected we are.

A new research report by ESI International shows that less than one third of teams effectively drive project success. 65.5 percent of workers believe that their organization’s project performance would improve if their teams worked more collaboratively. Furthermore, 80.9 percent need help with communication skills, 49.6 percent need help with leadership skills and 47.3 percent need help with critical thinking skills. The problem (again) is that companies are not providing training on these skills, so it’s left to the individual worker to handle.

Here are the top five ways to lead a high performing team and collaborate with them most effectively:

1. Get everyone on the same page.

The most important thing you can do to collaborate is to get people to work with you on the same goals. If everyone is distracted by working on their own projects, nothing gets done. As a member of the team, or the team leader, you need to sit everyone down and discuss your short and long-term goals, how you’re going to hit them and dictate who does what work.

 

2. Set expectations.

Everyone on the team needs to know what they have to do and when they have to do it by. They should know how much work is expected of them and the amount of hours they should put into it. They should also know what part of the project they need to be working on and who they can count on for support and resources. Leaders need to connect their teams goals to the overall strategic plan of the company. It’s important to also align the individual expectations with the shared expectations of the team. You also need to establish program metrics and timelines with the team and share progress updates so that people know when things are accomplished and can focus on other aspects of the project. Reporting is important so don’t forget to update your boss or the executives on your status so you can show steady improvement.

 

3. Use tech tools.

As you know from being on this site, QuickBase is a cloud-based platform to easily build your own business process applications that can help you collaborate better in teams, no coding required. QuickBase allows you to set reminders, alerts and notifications to match your team needs. Google Docs is a free and easy to use way to share Microsoft Word and Excel files, edit them and see who is accessing them. However, if you’re using spreasdsheets for online collaboration, you may want to assess if they are slowing you down or worse, causing manual errors. Evernote allows you to take notes and share them so that you can flesh out ideas and work better in a team. Timebridge gives you features like the ability the share your calendar availability, a meeting countdown, and setting up a staff meeting in one step.

 

4. Be open about everything.

If something isn’t going right or you aren’t getting along with a team member, you need to be upfront with it. The more you hold back the more it will impede collaboration between the team. People love transparency because it makes them feel like they are part of a team. If you aren’t honest and hold things back, then you won’t be able to get everyone on the same page and people will be angry at you for not being upfront. If something goes wrong, bring it to their immediate attention so they can help you solve the problem.

 

5. Hold effective team meetings.

Most teams waste time during meetings catching up about personal things. Before you start a meeting, have a reason for it. Then, tell each individual team member what they need to bring to each meeting and set an agenda. This way, you can measure the success of a meeting. Don’t feel like the meeting has to be an hour or two hours – make it more about the tasks at hand because the more time people spend in the meeting, the less time they have to do work.

What is a collaborative skill?

Collaborative skills are the specific ways in which students are expected to behave in order to achieve class norms. After norms have been developed, collaborative skills are assessed, prioritized and taught.

How do you improve collaboration at the workplace?

Here are six ways to cultivate a collaborative environment.

1. Communicate company expectations. Make it clear that collaboration is the minimum standard. ...
2. Set team goals. ...
3. Foster a creative atmosphere. ...
4. Build cohesion. ...
5. Know one another. ...
6. Leverage team member strengths.

6 Ways to Foster Collaboration in Your Workplace

Learn how to leverage your staff's individual talents by creating a more cohesive work environment in your small business.

What do the The Avengers, The A Team, The Expendables and  X-Men have in common? They are all stories of individuals combining their talents to achieve a common goal. Teamwork produces victory in the world of fiction and can help you do the same in business. 

Collaboration is a big theme in small business today for a reason: it works. As CEO of the first e-commerce company in the commercial printing space, I know the importance of building a team-oriented workforce. I can attest that people thrive in an environment that frees them to collaborate. When my employees experience job satisfaction, my customers reap the benefits. However, implementing this approach can be challenging. A paradigm shift, which changes the focus from individual accomplishment to team success, is required. 

The first step to getting started is equipping each team member for robust participation. Here are six ways to cultivate a collaborative environment.

1. Communicate company expectations. 

Make it clear that collaboration is the minimum standard. Define roles and responsibilities within the team. Every team member should understand their position and what is required of them. In a collaborative environment every team member takes responsibility for good outcomes.

2. Set team goals.

Ensure concise, measurable goals are set on a quarterly basis. Getting the team to focus on goals will keep individual efforts aligned with desired outcomes. Be willing to re-evaluate goals as needed. All our quarterly goals are published on our PrintingForLess.com intranet. Each quarter the outcome of each goal is also published. This keeps us focused and transparent.

3. Foster a creative atmosphere.

Allow team members to question and brainstorm in a non-judgmental framework. Encourage the team to look at obstacles as being conquerable. Nurture a “can do” company attitude. Ask why, or why not, on a regular basis. One way we cultivate a creative atmosphere at my company is by providing leadership training that encourages character development. We purposefully hire employees who aspire to be and produce their very best.

 4. Build cohesion.

Include every person on the team in as many large decisions as possible. Create a means of communicating current work flows to avoid duplication of effort. Initiate daily team huddles where each member shares what they will be accomplishing that day. This keeps everyone on the same playbook and enables team members to re-direct their efforts as needed.

5. Know one another.

Different personality dynamics, skill sets and experiences are present in every team. It is worth the effort to have each member complete a simple personality profile. Share the results and openly discuss likes and dislikes with regard to communication, tasks and personal focus. At my company we utilize Insight Discovery? to provide personality and work style assessment. We print the resulting insight “color graph” on each team member’s nameplate.

6. Leverage team member strengths.

Position each team member for success by assigning tasks that play to their respective strengths. Reward both individual and team accomplishments regularly. 

Establishing a collaboration policy is just the beginning. Collaboration must be consistent and purposeful, with resources dedicated to its success. You may have many superheroes in your office already; but you can build your productivity exponentially by getting them to work as a collaborative team.

Conclusion

Progressive companies are increasingly realizing the value of collaboration and looking for ways to foster it within their teams, both traditional and virtual. So if you want to see your business prosper and turn your workforce into productive superheroes, it’s high time you fostered a collaborative spirit among them. The above tips should give you a fair idea of the importance and the benefits of encouraging collaboration among your employees