Improving Team Collaboration

Teams are an important part of any organisation

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Collaboration between team members is vital to a company's success, regardless of the size of the business.

Team members who work together can enhance the company's ability to achieve quality outcomes. Additionally, collaborative workplaces build a higher level of trust and encourage better engagement, which improves productivity. A collaborative team environment can be difficult to achieve, but it is not impossible.

Team leaders must make sustained efforts to achieve a cooperative atmosphere in the workplace that they can implement across the entire organisation by concerted efforts to instil collaborative values. Clear communication with team management software can help an organisation achieve its goals faster and more efficiently.

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Collaborative teams are subject to challenges because team members may not always work well together. Below are some of the barriers to teamwork that can lead to a decrease in production or failure to achieve production goals efficiently.

A person who evades their responsibilities

When team members share responsibilities for production outcomes, some individual team members may be required to do additional work. The reason being is to make up for those who don't contribute their share of efforts. If a team member fails to contribute their share of responsibilities, the team can become resentful and less effective.

Team members should discuss who will do what and how they will hold each other accountable for individual contributions before beginning a project to avoid failure or inefficient production.

Decisions influenced one-sidedly

Sometimes, a single individual or a small group might dominate a whole team. It may result from strong personalities, high performance and abilities, or differences in status among the team members. People may decrease their efforts if they don't feel that their ideas are welcome and appreciated or if they don't feel that others are listening to them.

The absence of trust

Team members require confidence and mutual trust that everyone on the team shares a set of common goals to collaborate effectively. Suppose goals are unclear, or there's a lack of trust. In that case, some individuals may feel uncomfortable sharing their ideas with the team or may not understand what others are trying to accomplish.

The lack of trust can lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding, weakening the team's production efforts.

Conflict amongst individuals

When working together, conflicts are a normal occurrence. Although conflicts can produce positive results, they can also negatively affect a team's performance. Managing conflict incorrectly can reduce task progress or lead to others disregarding their responsibilities.

Inadequate team or skills

If a team lacks collaboration skills, the overall ability of the team to function is limited. Poor collaboration can hurt team performance. Conflicts may arise more often, and team members may find them difficult to resolve. Team members with inadequate experience or knowledge may be unable to complete all the assigned tasks and activities.

Too many team members and group thinking

The coordination and communication between a large team can be more complex than in a small one, which impacts their ability to function effectively. It will become more challenging to schedule meetings, and tasks will take longer to complete because of the complexity of decisions.

'Groupthink' is another thing to consider. A team member may feel uncomfortable challenging the group's direction or speaking up to avoid disrupting its normal routine. Therefore, it limits their creativity and leads them to make poor decisions or mistakes.

So now that you know what can decrease a business's production rate, we have implemented a few strategies that can help boost your team's collaboration.

Business strategies to boost collaboration

Below are a few strategies we implement at Best Web Design that improve our team collaboration and cohesiveness.

1) Regularly promote the company's mission

A business should give its team members a reason to want to come to work every day. Regularly promoting the company's mission is an effective way to connect the team to a common goal because the teams are ready to work collaboratively towards achieving those goals. Reminding the team about the company's mission creates more clarity.

The team will remain focused and resolve issues to maintain the mission as a priority, regardless of any challenges that may arise.

2) Clear and honest communication

An effective collaborative team depends on how honest and clear team members communicate. When team members feel comfortable contributing, they're more likely to collaborate more effectively. Clear and honest communication allows a team to share opinions without the fear of judgment and can develop a more efficient production rate.

3) Creativity is key

A creative space improves team collaboration and innovation because each individual focuses on creating a better way to get tasks done efficiently. As a result, a company's team can share innovative ideas and work closely to determine what's best for the company.

An environment that allows team members to challenge ideas can make them feel like key contributions to the company's mission. For this purpose, it makes them more connected and keener to learn from one another, improving their collaboration skills to increase production goals.

4) Communicate and set team goals

Team members must know and understand what's expected from them to work collaboratively towards achieving the company's goals. Clearly defining your team's expectations and setting a strategy to review the progress often leads to effective collaboration and production. For the best outcome, all team members should be part of the goal-setting process to fulfil their responsibilities in achieving those goals.

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5) Identify individual strengths

Everyone in a team has different strengths and weaknesses; recognising every individual's skill will create a complete team that complements each other's strengths and weaknesses. Building on their strengths will create an effective collaborative environment that makes individual team members feel appreciated and valued and boost motivation and production rates.

6) Leading by example

Your team cannot collaborate when you're unavailable. High levels of collaboration must characterise your leadership because teamwork and involving your team members as much as possible are essential to set an example. As a result, your employees will follow the example you set.

7) Share information

The entire team will feel empowered when you share knowledge because they can contribute more to the team's goals and discuss issues openly. Keeping the team on the same page is made easier by using information-sharing tools where each member has access to the same information.

So then, it allows them to collaborate more effectively than when they are not on the same page. The sharing of insights allows your team to discuss issues that affect their progress and improve collaboration.

8) Team collaboration tools

The key to success is building long-term team collaboration. Your team can foster long-term collaboration by creating a digital workspace. In real-time, team members can share information when they use collaboration tools.

Additionally, these tools provide numerous features that allow them to track their progress. As a result, every member can track team progress and ask questions about any issues that are unclear. These tools improve team collaboration by reducing confusion and allowing members to contribute effectively from anywhere.

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At Best Web Design, we ensure consistency in communication and achieving production goals by deploying a marketing team at your offices when required. We place our employees at your office full-time to fulfil specific positions internally. Especially to help you and the team align with completing tasks and keep your production goals in place.