5 Tips to Improve Collaborative Working

How do we create an environment where collaboration creates eureka moments?

5 tips to improve collaboration among employees

“The company owner doesn’t need to win. The best idea does.” This is a quote, which really resonates with us here at Cloudbooking.  It is from the book, The 360 Degree Leader by John C Maxwell. Ultimately it is collaborative working and not the individual that takes an ordinary organization to an extraordinary one.

However, in our busy modern workplace full of agile workforces, how do we create an environment where collaboration creates eureka moments? It requires a special environment – one where teams working on projects together based either in the office or remote can feel imaginative, productive and fully engaged. The meeting rooms which house these great ideas are evolving all the time, with space, light, temperature, color schemes all analyzed to the nth degree.

However, whilst all these subjects are a science in themselves, the quest is really about finding what can businesses do to create that special synergy in an era where many colleagues don’t even sit beside each other or may not even be in the same building!

So, here are some tips to start creating your own collaborative working environment to help create those eureka moments.

1. Firstly, we would advise a bit of pre-meeting work. Quality time for the teams together away from the cut and thrust of the meeting room. Bonding at social events makes it easier for people to get to know each other as human beings. Learn each other’s little quirks and what makes us tick is ultimately what will make co-workers connect when they meet up to discuss projects.
2. Don’t be afraid of saying what you think. In the excellent book, Good to Great by Jim Collins, he demonstrates how the best-performing companies in the world can have meetings where there’s a high level of what some deem – confrontation. However, the reason these meetups succeed is because no one takes it personally. It’s a team of people committed to finding the best solutions to a common aim.
3. Do your best to make sure everyone is fed, watered and well-rested. We are all big kids at heart, so whether you are three or 33 when we are hungry, thirsty or tired we just don’t perform well.
4. Don’t put pressure on an immediate outcome. Collaborative working meetings are about energy and synergy mixed up in a big melting pot. The answers in a brainstorming session don’t always come at 2.58pm when the meeting room has to be vacated at 3.00pm.  Allow the participants to go away, think and reflect, and then come back with their thoughts.
5. Encourage company social networking. You will find that interaction on most platforms may well move you nearer to the big goals. After all the technology is here to manage a mobile workforce so you can communicate with almost anyone wherever they are.

Make a change

Technology has given us the ability to leverage our organizations. It can help to improve work productivity and boost the economy. However, it is the right implementation of these tools, which will actually make us all realize our business potential.  Human relationship is a topic, which has been at the essence of mankind’s psyche since long before we even walked upright out of the caves. We’ve already come a long way through collaboration, so use the tools and technology at your fingertips. We know a great deal now and we owe it to our organizations to do the best we can to make them great.