Teamwork: How to facilitate collaboration?
“Alone we go faster, together we go further.” African proverb
It is true that you achieve a lot more when you work together. Partnering with people whose experience and skills are different and complementary to ours allows us to move forward faster and further. Hence the importance of teamwork.
According to cnrtl.fr, a team is a group of people who come together to accomplish a common project. Each member of the team works together to achieve this same goal. They share common values and a common vision, they put together their experience, skills and know-how, and they are driven by the same desire to succeed.
However, it is not enough to bring several individuals together to make a team. You have to create a link, a team spirit that unites all these people so that they want to collaborate together and succeed in their project common.
Discover 6 tips to facilitate teamwork.
1. Clearly defined goals
It all starts there. If you are assembling a team, it is because you have a project, a mission to carry out. To be certain that your team takes your project To succeed, you must ensure that each member knows the objective (s) to be achieved, the role and responsibilities of each and the expected results.
Make sure everyone understands what you want them to do, what goals they need to achieve, and make sure everyone is committed to achieving them.
2. The importance of communication
Communication is the key to effective collaboration. Without communication, each member of the team moves in their own corner and chaos can quickly take hold of the project. It is then impossible to know which tasks have already been completed, which are in progress and which remain to be done. How do you know if a task is late, if an employee is facing a problem, or if they need help to finish on time?
Communication makes it possible to improve the effectiveness of your team. Everyone knows the progress of each task and the evolution of the project in real time, which makes the work much easier. It is also by communicating daily that we correct small operating errors and that we work more effectively together.
Another important point: each employee must be able to express themselves freely and share their ideas. By promoting exchanges within the team, you develop the creativity and ability to innovate of your employees. Problems are resolved more quickly because solutions are found together.
3. Encourage trust, mutual support and honesty
“Trust is the invisible glue that leads a team to win.” Bud Wilkinson, American football player
For a team to collaborate effectively, members need to trust, respect, and support each other. To do this, it is important to define basic rules that emphasize politeness and good manners. Each employee should be respected and treated equally, and tasks should be distributed fairly in order to avoid a feeling of injustice and the emergence of tensions.
Everyone should assume their responsibilities and mistakes, and problems should be discussed together in order to find a solution more quickly. Also encourage mutual support between employees. Finally, conflicts and tensions must be resolved immediately to prevent a bad atmosphere from setting in and ruining team productivity.
4. Strong team cohesion
For your team to work well, you need to develop team spirit. To do this, team members need to know each other and develop a strong sense of belonging. Once they get along, team members communicate more easily together and enjoy working with each other. They will be more motivated, they will want to challenge themselves and will not hesitate to make more efforts to succeed.
To create this team cohesion, organize regular opportunities to bring the whole team together in a friendly atmosphere. At the office, organize regular team lunches. Also, choose moments of relaxation outside the workplace where everyone can enjoy themselves away from the responsibilities and restrictions imposed by the workplace. These moments of exchange promote communication and allow everyone to build relationships.
Cooking workshops or wine tastings, sports activities, escape games, etc., there is no shortage of ideas. Encourage your employees to be proactive. They will have even more fun participating if they are in charge of the organization.
5. Good collaborative tools
Today, thanks to the rise of the Internet and digital transformation, a multitude of tools have emerged to facilitate team collaboration. Among them, the project management software has become unavoidable. Complete, it includes a set of functionalities that have become essential for organizing team work, facilitating collaboration and promoting communication.
For example, the collaborative platform Wimi makes it possible to centralize all the data of a project, thus offering a global vision of its progress. In a few clicks, you share your documents with colleagues as well as with your customers, partners and suppliers. Thanks to the shared agenda, you know the availability of your collaborators, the various deadlines and the key events of the project. Finally, with the various integrated communication tools (instant messaging, audio and video calls, screen sharing, etc.), you can easily communicate with all the people involved in the project and you save precious time.
6. Celebrating what you're doing
There is nothing better to unite and motivate a team than to celebrate each success, however small it may be. Value the skills of your collaborators, be grateful for the efforts made and thank each person for their involvement in the project. Don't wait for the project to be finished to have a drink. Celebrate each milestone to encourage the team to keep up the momentum.
To conclude
A successful team is a team whose members are focused on the goal to be achieved, communicate constantly, respect and trust each other, feel involved in the team and in the project, and use collaborative tools.
Now you know how to facilitate collaboration within your team. It's up to you to play!
