The Importance of Collaboration
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- Archived Blogs
- July 20, 2023
Collaborating with folks inside (and outside) a company is vital in today’s business world, yet doing so can be challenging for a variety of reasons. What is collaboration? Why is the professional world pushing for more collaborative teamwork? Why should you, a small business owner, be concerned with ensuring your employees actively work on their collaboration skills? We answer these questions and more.
What Does Collaboration Mean?
Collaboration is when two or more people work together to achieve a goal (business or otherwise). Each individual contributes unique perspectives, skills, and strengths as everyone works to find innovative solutions to a problem. In a series of surveys over the last five years, employees gave the following general insight:
There are four ways for a business to collaborate: (1) externally, (2) horizontally, (3) internally, and (4) vertically.
- External collaboration means sharing information with people outside of an organization. Examples include collaborating with customers while upgrading an existing product (crowdsourcing), cooperating with a competitor who offers a complementary product or service (partnership), and even teaming up with vendors to help streamline the supply chain process (sourcing).
- Horizontal collaboration means working with (and sharing information between) employees within the same department or division. Given the recent survey results, it makes sense for companies to change their current methods to a more collaborative atmosphere.
- Internal collaboration means sharing information with employees from all levels of the company. For example, the marketing and sales departments typically silo their processes (or sometimes compete against one another). However, both departments will increase productivity by joining forces to attract new individuals to the business, converting them into customers, and nurturing existing customers for potential upsells.
- Vertical collaboration means sharing knowledge with diverse levels of management in a company. Employers and managers must encourage and foster a collaborative environment between themselves and their employees. Without leadership’s support (and active participation), firms will find higher rates of employee burnout and missed deadlines that affect the company’s bottom line.
A business encounters various challenges, benefits, and unintended harmful effects using each collaboration type.
The Challenges of Collaboration
Collaboration is never seamless, although we would like to think otherwise. Poor collaborative efforts in the workplace result in difficulties for employees in the office (and remotely).
Lack of support for remote teams. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, most companies with the ability to work remotely automatically transitioned to keep their businesses running. However, employees unfamiliar with remote work experienced: (1) a feeling of disconnection from colleagues and leadership, (2) culture shock, (3) decreased communication with fellow employees due to the lack of (or too few) task management systems in place, and (4) little to no emotional support from leadership to deal with burnout.
Competition between departments and employees. Healthy competition between employees works well for companies. However, management must stay aware of the dangers of “pitting” employees or departments against one another for certain types of rewards. By doing so, a company’s environment can quickly turn toxic. Companies also learn that employees are less likely to share resources, information, or skills with someone from another department.
Need for more training. Management must train employees when using new technologies. Otherwise, they find resistance within their workforce, especially if managers leave it up to the individual employee to learn how to use it.
Little team governance. If management does not assign a leader for a project, employees may not feel motivated to complete their part or feel there is little direction (or point) to what they are doing. A leader, in turn, will evaluate each team member to find their strengths and weaknesses and figure out how to use both for every employee to achieve the best results for everyone.
Miscommunications. Ensuring clear direction is necessary. Otherwise, employees may do the opposite of what management expects, holding up a project or causing rework to get it right.
Improving engagement by employees. Heightened stress, competitive feelings between colleagues, personal problems, and high (or no) expectations from management will always result in decreased employee engagement. A company’s leadership must find ways to motivate employees. Without motivation, the attrition rate will skyrocket.
Too many meetings. Not every decision needs a forum. Sometimes a telephone call or quick internal message will be sufficient to finish something. If a strategy session for the next steps needs to happen, have the meeting. Otherwise, pick up the phone or send a quick message to whoever needs to know the information and move on.
Unnoticed individual achievements. Employees who complete their part well but receive no personal praise from management (even while the entire team receives recognition) may feel unmotivated to take part in another team project again. People need accolades for a job well done, even occasionally. Claiming “it was a group effort” and ignoring the individuals who contributed is a demotivator for anyone.
The Benefits of Collaboration
Conversely, there are benefits for a company that consistently collaborates.
Better productivity. Happy and motivated employees tend to have higher productivity. A recent survey discussing work-from-home statistics stated that companies receive a 47% jump in productivity (these numbers typically include folks who work from home all the time or within a hybrid environment).
Contribution opportunities. Employees who feel comfortable (or at least seen by their colleagues and leadership and feel safe from censure) contribute more. Employees learn to accept and work with others’ differences and skills, which makes them feel more comfortable and willing to express their ideas rather than withhold them.
Effective problem-solving. By having employees with different skill sets, education, and life experiences work together, unique solutions for solving a problem (or problems) arise. There is no limit to the number of viable solutions, although too many may be detrimental (see the next section for more details on this subject).
(Note: It is important to remember that when composing a group for a project, management should not include individuals just for diversity’s sake. Of course, diversity is essential and actively encouraged. However, managers need to make sure to include individuals in a balanced manner that helps everyone and the project.)
Elimination of silos. A cross-departmental group working together (rather than individually) to achieve a goal means everyone is on the same page. Employees are more willing to share ideas, resources, and knowledge with others.
An enhanced company culture. Management has found that when they actively promote and train employees for a collaborative culture within the company, there is better communication, more creativity, higher-quality work, and increased productivity.
Improved communications. Everyone is in tune with the project and the company’s expectations; therefore, miscommunications between colleagues and management are less likely to happen. Leadership helps to ease this by sharing and reinforcing the company’s vision, implementing the best communication technology that works for everyone, and training employees on how to use the technology to lessen frustrations.
Learning opportunities. Collaboration allows employees to learn from others with different skill sets, perspectives, and natural abilities. By putting these folks together and letting them loose toward a common goal, everyone discovers something new (even if small) by the end of the project.
A reduction in employee attrition. Employees who are happy with their work tend to stay at a specific location longer. Although employee attrition will happen regardless, companies do not need to work harder to find folks who want to be part of the business. The company will attract employees who willingly work with others toward common goals and actively want to contribute to the company’s future (as well as their own).
The Harmful Effects of Collaboration
There are times when too much collaboration is detrimental. Companies need to remain vigilant against these specific areas when promoting cooperation.
Conflicts in working styles and the loss of individual flexibility. Due to the nature of humans, what works best for one person only sometimes works for another. Although employees abide by the standard operating procedures while completing their specific tasks, they invariably find a way to make the process easier. If collaborating with others forces a change in how to complete a job (due to compliance issues or specific requirements from leadership), employee flexibility (and the willingness to participate in future projects) may suffer.
Employee uncertainties and negative perspectives. Collaboration suddenly forced onto employees without warning or training to encourage understanding of the process may result in suspicion and tension.
Generational differences in the workplace. Older generations have learned to work independently for so long that suddenly requiring collaboration between diverse individuals may make them feel that their prior work needed to be better for the company (and may make them think the company is trying to tell them something else without coming outright and saying it).
Loss of productivity. Employees attending unnecessary meetings, experiencing constant interruptions, or having too much on their proverbial plate will experience a decrease in their productivity. Management and team leaders should ensure that employees have the help they need when they need it. The longer an employee experiences these difficulties, the harder it is to recover.
More than one leader and a lack of trust. Management should assign up to one leader during a project (with a replacement or substitute for backup). Too many folks giving orders or assigning tasks will confuse employees. Further, if the employees do not trust their leadership (or each other), the project will fail or experience setbacks.
Poor project management. Using the wrong technology, assigning someone with little experience, or not training employees in project management software will create headaches for everyone involved. Further, employees unfamiliar with project management software might use it differently than management expects, which means an employee might believe they are supplying the required information when asked but doing it in a way that makes it harder for everyone else to access.
Poor strategy execution, resulting in damage to the brand. A company without vision and expectations may not execute its strategies as best as possible, which confuses its audience and damages its reputation. Once a company experiences reputational damage, it is hard to gain customers’ trust again.
The complexity of making decisions. Brainstorming lots of ideas is great for companies during the collaborative process; however, too many will mean that deciding which idea is best for the direction of the company or project may result in delays in decision-making and execution.
The results need to justify the time and resources spent. Sometimes, projects will turn out according to plan, and others when everything but the expected happens. When a finished project does not match expectations (for management or the customer), business leaders need to understand what went wrong, how it went so badly, and ways to avoid making the same mistakes.
Strategies to Promote collaboration
We have seen the challenges, benefits, and unintentional harmful effects of collaboration for companies. However, businesses and leaders that do not currently have a collaboration mindset should consider changing how they do things by implementing one or more strategies for their firm.
The types of strategies a company might want to implement include:
Team Collaboration Tools
There are all sorts of collaboration tools a company may use. Which tool(s) your specific business needs will depend on various factors. To help find which will work best for your company, ask yourself these questions:
- How does your team currently communicate?
- What types of projects are you expecting?
- How many people will be collaborating at once?
- Do we want to use multiple tools or an all-in-one solution?
Once you answer these questions, do in-depth research on what is available. Yet be prepared; researching these tools will take time and patience. Leadership should consider the following features during their search:
- Access to customer support.
- An all-in-one solution.
- Cost-effective.
- The technology can integrate with your current software.
- Elevated levels of security.
- The features you must have that allow for scalability.
As you can see, there are multiple challenges and benefits to using and updating your company’s communication tools. However, the benefits of using tools to help your employees collaborate far outweigh the challenges and will continue to do so as time progresses.
If your company is preparing to upgrade your current collaboration game, contact Atwood LLC and see how we can help. Click here to view the services we offer and here for a direct link to our contact page. I look forward to collaborating with you and your company.
Until next time.
