5 Strategies To Improve Team Collaboration

Executing on Plans / January 30, 2019 / Admin

People stand behind every successful small business. Every person has their own interests, talents, and goals. Being deliberate about team collaboration can help employees to work better as a team so together you can execute on plans and reach your company goals.

Have you noticed some tension in your team? Are people complaining about other employees to a point where it’s causing them to get stuck and not be able to make progress on their work? You could have some team collaboration issues.

Team collaboration is essential for small business and start-ups because everyone has a specific responsibility and will need to work together at some point. If you want things to run smoothly in your company and make sure goals are able to be met on time, people need to work together.

If you’re wanting to improve collaboration in your team, check these five tips to help your team work together more effectively.

#1 Get To Know Your Team

Every person has different dreams, plans, perspectives, and skills. To help your team work together effectively, get to know each person. Find out what motivates each person and what makes them tick so you can approach them in the right way to best leverage them. Find out what each person is great at and what their weaknesses are. Then help those employees be aware of those strengths and weaknesses both for themselves and within their team. When each person is clear on what each person’s strengths and weaknesses are, they can make better decisions about which team member to go to for help or ask their opinion based on their area of expertise.

#2 Match Strengths To Work

Once you know what each person is great at, use those strengths to delegate work that best utilizes what they’re great at.

Some people may great at coming up with ideas, but may struggle to execute. So you want to put people in roles where their strengths can be leveraged and they can lean on their team members for where they are weaker. The same goes for you as a business owner. Hire people that compliment your skills so you fill in the gaps for where you’re weak.

#3 Create Space For Innovation

Every employee should feel comfortable sharing their ideas with the team. If they don’t, you’re not getting the most out of your people. When people don’t feel comfortable expressing their ideas, they’ll struggle to buy- in to plans when they have no involvement. And as a business owner, you’re not getting a good return on investment from your people if you’re not able to leverage their experiences and expertise to improve.

Change is inevitable so it’s important to ask the right people the right questions to help you understand what you need to do in your business to continually move forward.

Ask employees to share their thoughts and ideas together. Don’t just wait for people to share their ideas, ask. Then listen. Not every idea will be great, but if you listen and consider each one it shows your team that you value their ideas and they’ll feel safe to share more. Exercise debate here. Challenge and question ideas to help your team grow by thinking through their ideas so it’s not just about coming up with ideas, it’s about thinking them through.

#4 Make Time & Space For Fun

If you want to increase team collaboration within the workplace, consider organizing a fun activity or team building event for your team. These types of actives help foster a bond between your people. When they’re outside of a traditional work environment, they have the opportunity to get to know their team members as people. This helps people feel more relaxed and open when working together because they feel they know and understand each other better.

When team members feel more connected, they can be more supportive during difficult challenges. Once again, it is all about a healthy workplace environment.

#5 Lead By Example

Your small business culture starts at the top. Your team needs someone who will lead. Be a leader your team can trust and go to for help and support. Be a leader than challenges your team and helps them grow beyond their comfort zone. When your team feels they’re heard, challenged, and supported, they can achieve more things than you and even they thought possible.

Conclusion

By implementing these strategies, you can help set your team up for success and work better to achieve your goals together. When team members trust in each other and work well together, they can achieve great things!

__

About the author:

Francesca Wilson is a freelance author based in London. Her personal motto is ‘Life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself.’ 

Join 38,877 subscribers making clients happy and growing their business.