All the disruptions to our work environment have made it harder for our employees to work together, and the unrelenting uncertainty of the pandemic has resulted in many of us taking on a “go it alone” mentality. But working together is more important than ever—and your job as a leader is to promote better team collaboration. Watch Bobbie LaPorte’s October 25 “Your Best Next Move” video for two tips on how you can foster collaboration without over-burdening your team.
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Download File: https://www.bobbielaporte.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/GMT20211025-144436_Recording_640x360.mp4?_=1Transcript of Your Best Next Move: 2 Tips to Gain Better Team Collaboration
Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tip for your Best Next Move – where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act, and see what you can do right now.
I’ve been hearing a lot lately about the need for collaboration in and across teams. Perhaps working remotely resulted in decreased collaboration as everyone adjusted to a new working style. But it is clear that with the increasingly complex problems facing companies, collaboration and the ability to tap into the skills of others is more important than ever.
Organizations need to pull together experts with unique, cross-functional perspectives to solve rapidly changing, complex problems that have long-term implications.
But – conditions in our current environment are often working against this need to collaborate.
Here’s why:
• Research shows that anxiety around uncertainty makes people more risk-averse, and they are less likely to seek out differing perspectives.
• We know from neuroscience when we feel threatened, we tend to fall back on actions and solutions that have worked in the past.
• Our desire to try to bring things under control can also lead to a go-it-alone mentality. People often focus on self-preservation, and as a result, collaboration across an organization can break down.
We all do it – it’s a natural tendency, but one that limits the options we create for ourselves and our teams.
And this need for increased collaboration – of tapping into the skills of others – is particularly true in our ever-shifting environment where no leader or any one person has all the answers.
As a leader, you must be strategic and clear about how you want your team to collaborate during these times.
How do you do that when time is a concern for everyone? We all have more demands on our time; our schedules are more challenging than ever. Balancing your requests for collaboration without adding more to your team’s already demanding schedule is important for you to consider.
Here are my 2 tips to gain better team collaboration:
- Use standing meetings to brainstorm, align roles, have creative and strategic discussions. Instead of scheduling a new meeting to accomplish this, work this into existing meetings so you don’t add to people’s already crowded calendars. For example, use your weekly staff meeting once a month to focus on how you can identify collaboration opportunities.
- Remind your team about their purpose, what you are working on to achieve together. Helping people see how their work fulfills a higher purpose motivates people to work in a more collaborative, collective fashion; and it helps them see how their own knowledge contributes to but doesn’t fully satisfy, the complex needs of your business.
Collaboration can be challenging in today’s hybrid work environment, but it is possible to integrate it into your daily work routine. With a little thought and planning can yield results that might surprise you.
As always, I want 2021 to be a year of momentum for you, one of possibility thinking that takes advantage of the agency we sometimes forget we have.
That’s my tip for this week. I’ll see you next week. Take care of yourselves.
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