Collaboration skills are key to any team’s success because they give organizations the tools to work toward common goals and more effective communication. But what do you do when teamwork doesn’t work? You can’t afford the loss of productivity, the depletion of energy, or the drain on the bottom line.
Our research has revealed several common reasons for teams not working. Some of the most familiar include competition, turf wars, lack of team governance processes, and inadequate information sharing. Sound familiar?
Fixing a team’s problems isn’t a one-person job. Team members need to feel a sense of ownership over how the team operates. When problems arise, leaders must get team members to look at what’s going on and start to think about how true collaboration would replace or resolve their problems.
Building a truly collaborative team requires leaders to address what isn’t working, view trust as a must-have resource, and insist on behaviors that support collaborative principles.
Problems with teamwork are often tied to lack of trust. Without trust, people operate out of fear. Eliminate that fear, and teams gain productive energy, creativity, speed, and better results.
Building trust requires a leader who is willing to show integrity, change behavior, and take on the hard work of dealing with differences.
Another key to effective collaboration is to operate on principles rather than structures, politics, or personality. An effective team leader helps the team turn these values into agreed-upon behaviors — which become the foundation for mutual trust, respect, and high performance.
When teams embrace an effective governance system and leaders commit to a culture of trust and collaboration, the building blocks are in place for success and strong performance.
Conflict is reduced as work relationships open up and build trust.
Decisions are faster, of higher quality, and customer-driven.
Cycle time is substantially reduced and non-value-adding work eliminated.
The workforce takes on full responsibility for the success of the enterprise.
The productive capacity of the workforce doubles.
Start replacing fear with empowerment at your organization by equipping your team with collaboration skills. We can deliver our world-class, research-backed boundary spanning collaboration and teamwork content to them
