Video Transcript: Increasing Collaboration in Your Team
Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with this week’s “Let’s Get Growing” tip…where I help you take charge of your plans and accelerate your initiatives as you head into the end of this year.
This week I’d like to talk about how to increase collaboration on your team. Crises like the Covid-19 pandemic highlight the importance of effective collaboration for long-term success. Particularly in a crisis, organizations need to pull together experts with unique, cross-functional perspectives to solve rapidly changing, complex problems that have long-term implications.
Research shows, however, that anxiety makes people more risk-averse in a crisis; as a result, they are less likely to seek out differing perspectives. We know from neuroscience that in times of uncertainty when we feel threatened, we tend to fall back on actions and solutions that have worked in the past. The 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..and this is increased in a virtual work environment.
As a leader, you’ve probably tried many things to encourage collaboration on your team.
So, here’s my tip for this week:
You’ve probably heard me say this before, but it bears repeating: it is important to reinforce the business’s purpose and goals frequently. A belief that their work fulfills a higher purpose motivates people to think and act in a more collective fashion — to be more open to collaboration. Clearly understanding the business goals helps people see how their own knowledge contributes to — but doesn’t fully satisfy — the complex needs of the business. Leaders need to lower employees’ sense of uncertainty – connecting them to a future-facing, shared goal – and boost their confidence to reach out to colleagues. So even if your message hasn’t changed, you need to repeat it – often – because the world has changed, and your team members need to know that the existing direction still holds.
That’s my “Get Growing” tip of the week. I’ll see you next Monday… remember to see this time as an enabler, not a liability or a time to “pause”, waiting for certainty to return.
Take care of yourself!
One thought on “Increasing Collaboration in Your Team”
Comments are closed.