Collaboration is a working practice whereby individuals work together for a common purpose to achieve business benefits.
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 workspaces or making contributions to a wiki
The best way to define collaboration would be to outline it as the process of two or more people or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. It is also defined as two or more people working together to achieve shared goals.
Here are the different types of collaboration within an organization.
1. Team collaboration
As the quintessential form of collaboration, team collaboration has been around for the longest time. It involves collaboration within a team where everyone knows everybody else, their skill sets, and their contribution to work at large. A team leader usually leads the team towards effective collaboration and leads the charge to keep the equilibrium within the team. Deadlines are set and achievements are equally recognized.
2. Contextual collaboration
Contextual collaboration happens when you bring all of your digital tools together on one single digital workplace platform so your entire team can access all the files and data they need without having to switch between apps or tools when they need to collaborate.
3. Cross-functional collaboration
Cross-functional collaboration happens when teams from various departments or verticals come together to accomplish a common goal for the entire organization. This happens more often than you might believe and organizations that get this right often rank many notches higher when it comes to innovation and execution of ideas that change entire industries. A digital workplace enhances the potential of cross-functional.
4. Community collaboration
Community collaboration is all about fostering a sense of community in shared work within teams. It is centered around learning and sharing knowledge within teams as opposed to carrying out tasks or completing work in team collaboration. The whole idea of community collaboration is to remove silos and hierarchy while encouraging knowledge sharing within teams. Community collaboration turns teams into knowledge banks instead of siloed subject experts working individually.
5. Social collaboration
When team members can reach any other team member or a group of team members on a real-time basis on a platform designed to accommodate such features, you have achieved social collaboration. It is a form of collaboration where teams can rely on reaching consensus quickly on any problem and finding a solution using the team’s collective expertise instead of depending on their limited skill set.
6. Cloud collaboration
With a digital workplace and cloud collaboration, your teams can upload, access, work on and deliver their work entirely on a cloud-based digital workplace platform. All stakeholders can be added to a document as it exists live on the cloud. Collaboration takes on a whole new meaning here as individual team members can contribute to work without having to be physically present in the office. Cloud-based collaboration software is a must-have for any business that wants to succeed in the current landscape.
7. Virtual Collaboration
With the advent of digital workplace technology, virtual collaboration has become a buzzword that resonates around the world. Virtual meetings are no longer the forte of distributed teams. They have become mainstream. The key to success in such an environment is to invest in a digital workplace platform that can bring your business all the benefits of virtual meetings and the convenience of a platform that also allows you to access work resources within it.
Effective collaboration brings many benefits to organizations that seek to succeed in an evolving environment. An organization where employees collaborate effectively is already miles ahead of the competition. Also, effective collaboration in an organization has some more benefits like unfettered innovation, collective knowledge, enhanced teamwork, maximum redundancy, minimal oversight, maximum performance, effective analytics, accessible data, problem-solving, adaptability, skill-sharing, engagement, etc.
The most important thing effective collaboration can achieve within an organization is making employees happier, reducing stress by making work easier, making way for better work relationships, and reducing overall stress.
What are the 3 important skills for collaboration?
1. Accurate transfer of information
In an age of digital workplaces, one needs to be highly successful at the transfer of information. It’s impossible to take for granted that your colleagues know what you intended to convey. It is essential to develop methods of communication that ensure critical information is not misconstrued or dropped off entirely. Building a skill set that lets you transfer information with minimal loss is key to succeeding at collaboration.
2. A mindset for collaboration
It has long been a popular adage with digital work that collaboration cannot be taught. Good collaboration needs to be built as an ecosystem, and it’s important to realize that you’re a key part of that transformation. Collaboration requires a certain kind of open mindset that is more about the team than it is about you. It is important to approach everything with an open mind and discuss possibilities instead of challenges.
3. Learn to interact with technology
The work landscapes of the future will be rife with constantly changing and evolving technology. In such a scenario, it is important to understand how those technologies work, learn how to use them to drive collaboration. Also, you must master these technologies and their interfaces.
It is not that challenging to bring workplace collaboration and to make sure that everyone gets the latest updates. Here are a few tips for improving team collaboration:
1. Evaluate why it isn’t working
Figure out the problem first. Find out why is your current collaboration strategy failing. Is it about trust, chemistry, competitiveness, or something else—just evaluate the current situation and build a strategy for the future accordingly? If you don’t have a clue about where to start, here’s what you can do: survey team members and ask them for their opinions and perceptions. After that, step back and observe the team in action as their leader, come to your conclusion, and craft your strategy.
2. Aggregate and adapt
A collaborative project manager will bring ideas to the table by collecting ideas, suggestions, and goals of their teams. This helps project managers to aggregate the skill sets of the whole team. The collaboration will bring successful results by remaining adaptive and flexible.
3. Listen first
When working in a team different idea needs to collaborate into workable solutions and that depends on effective collaboration. Finding the root of any new suggestion will require attentive listening to everyone before coming to an outcome. The active collaboration includes providing feedback to discuss in real-time. It also involves quick response to team members who want to be heard and valued.
4. Be transparent
The most effective collaborators are not much worried about the titles and roles. They are more focused on finding the solutions regardless of who is finding them. Also, the effective collaborators share information across the board that increases a sense of workplace community.
5. Energize
An energized, motivated team is the strongest asset of a project. An effective collaborator team will make sure that everyone works smart and hard. It will bring energy into a conversation by helping team members feel valued. The teams should be always appreciated for a job well done. Team collaboration will also talk about issues that will bring team motivations about what needs to be done.
6. Give credit where needed
Another key trait of effective collaboration in the workplace is constant recognition and appreciation. As a manager or someone with authority, you can make appreciation an integral part of your team’s everyday interaction. If someone is doing a good job or if someone has delivered their assigned task before the desired due date, just recognize and appreciate them and their work via team meetings and group discussions.
7. Keep an open mind
Keeping an open mind is not just about encouraging everyone in the team to come up with innovative ideas. There’s something more important—listening to others’ ideas. Create a collaborative work environment where employees keep an open mind about sharing and listening to each other’s ideas, suggestions, criticisms, and concerns. This, in turn, will ensure quicker problem-solving, better teamwork, enhanced trust, and most importantly greater team productivity.
8. Revitalize and infuse inspiration from time to time
Most managers make the mistake of believing that their staff is working optimally. To be an effective and collaborative manager, you must ensure to infuse inspiration and vigor into the workspace and your team from time to time. Also, when it comes to offering criticism, do it kindly—try to critique the mistakes rather than the employee. Of course, there will be issues (big and small) that will need to be addressed, but all of that can be done in a way that encourages and motivates the team, not the opposite.
In conclusion, as more workplaces prioritize employee engagement as a metric for success, it’s essential to foster a collaborative environment for better engagement. Therefore, growing companies need to understand the value of collaboration to look for ways to encourage it within their teams. So, bring a collaborative spirit amongst your teams and turn your workforce productive.