What You Need to Know About Teamwork and Collaboration

Lessons from Mars: How One Global Company Cracked the Code on High Performance Collaboration and Teamwork

To thrive in 2020, one of the skills that the World Economic Forum says you need is coordinating with others, which includes teamwork and collaboration. In this age of rapid change, working collaboratively and as part of a team is a requirement for success.

Working this way will help people to creatively problem solve in the workplace. Working together also allows people to develop deep relationships as they interact with each other. They know that they have others who they can count on. To improve teamwork and collaboration, you have to first understand what they are.

What does teamwork and collaboration mean?

Teamwork: A group of people working toward a common goal. There is usually a team leader and members tend to have the same skills.

Collaboration: Working with at least one other person to create or produce something. Collaborators tend to have different skills even though they are also working toward a common goal. For this type of relationship to work, partners have to respect and cooperate with each other. Other requirements for successful collaborative relationships include:

• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each collaborator.
• Sharing all information so members can perform tasks efficiently and effectively.
• Agreement by members on all goals and how the work will get done.
• Goals of the group are always more important than individual goals.

Is collaboration the same as teamwork?

The end goal for both collaboration and teamwork are the same. In both instances there is a specific end goal – a certain type of outcome that members are working toward. As mentioned before team members tend to have the same skills while collaborators have different skills.

What are important skills for teamwork and collaboration?

For successful teamwork and collaboration, members must possess the ability to join in and participate,  speak up and encourage others to do likewise, and listen carefully to what others are saying. They also have to ask questions to clarify their understanding of things.

How do you promote teamwork and collaboration in the workplace?

• Share your vision and intentions to get buy-in from team members and collaborators.
• Be empathetic to others.
• Respect other people’s beliefs, opinions, expertise and experiences.
• Encourage everyone to participate – share opinions, expertise, experiences and so on.
• Keep the common goal – the outcome – front and center and work at developing possible solutions (options).
• Manage options proactively.
• Openly share knowledge and information so members can work toward group goals.
• Be generous when giving credit and do not take credit for other people’s work.

Why is teamwork and collaboration important?

These days to to achieve great accomplishments in the workplace requires that people work in teams or work collaboratively. This kind of working together enables the group to solve big workplace problems in creative ways. Working this ways allows members to learn ongoing as they tackle new issues.

The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) and Rob Cross, Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Business at Babson College examined 1,100 companies to learn more about purposeful collaboration. The results support why collaboration is so important. Here are some highlights from the study.

• Companies that promoted collaborative working were five times as likely to be high performing.
• High-performance organizations are up to 5.5 times more likely than lower-performers to incentivize individual, team, and leader effectiveness in collaboration.
• Two-thirds of the companies responding to the survey had collaboration as an organizational value.
• By applying more of a collaborative focus around what creates high performers, you can figure out how to manage talent differently.

If you do not think you are great at teamwork and collaboration, reading the above is an excellent way to improve. You will get a few tips on how to incorporate teamwork and collaboration into your work-life.

 Lessons from Mars: How One Global Company Cracked the Code on High Performance Collaboration and Teamwork Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Build Common Ground, and Reap Big Results Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking with People Who Think Differently The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork: Embrace Them and Empower Your Team You Are the Team: 6 Simple Ways Teammates Can Go from Good to Great