Effective team collaboration in workplace benefits both the employees and the companies. Collaboration, contribution and communication is a matter of sharing ideas together. Teamwork is major key that thrives to success. It advances with the advancement in technologies.
What is Collaboration?
As per the collaboration definition, collaboration is something where a group of people share their ideas and thoughts to accomplish a new goal. It is often created by a teamwork that is taken to a greater level. It is considered as a big theme for an entrepreneur for the growth of the company.
What is Communication?
Communication is a minimum standard that conveys the roles and responsibilities of the team members to achieve the target. It is achieved as the minimum entity of non-word messages.
What is Contribution?
Contribution can be defined as role played by the team members to bring out the results in advance. This can also be defined as payment done as common to the team. The higher the results of the team, more the contribution is from team members.
Teamwork Comprises of the Following:
- Purpose which deals with Why is the team organized, When does the team achieve target and What is the target meant for.
- People deal with Who are the members of the team.
- Process deals with how can the works be executed?
Objectives of the Team:
Each and every member of the team should understand the goals of the team and team building. Few of them are mentioned below:
Why am I here?
- What is the consummate ending of this project?
- What is the given deadline?
- What is the budget?
- How often we gather?
- Who is incharge of implementing the ideas?
- What are the roles and responsibilities?
Effective Team Collaboration Strategies:
Teamwork is a major key for the success of organization. It challenges the team lead to balance the co workers and to facilitate effective collaboration between them. Various points and ideas are put together to achieve the overall results. The secret key towards collaboration is the work of each individual’s work which is otherwise called as individuality.
Since, team members contribute different ideas the team should exercise in a wise manner. It specifies five different activities that will help the team members to complete the task. They are:
- Forming the team where the team lead plays a vital role because others may not be clear with the concept.
Storming collecting the ideas and describes how a team works. - Norming is when the members of team resolve their differences. Here everyone will be strengthened towards the commitment.
- Performing leads to the achievements of goals. It develops a team spirit.
- Adjourning is something in which the team may be disbanded after the task is done. It also helps team members to spend time on celebrating for the finished tasks.
Team collaboration strategies done through different steps.
- The first and foremost thing is to cultivate mentality as “we” instead of “me”.
- Respect the team members through eye contact, proper body language and by listening to their ideas.
- Let others to approach.
- Supporting each others ideas and working together.
- Listening to other co-workers ideas and advises.
- Spending time with the team members and in their communication.
More than working as an individual, working as a team enables the enterprise to achieve the goals. This is tagged as team collaboration. It also depicts that there is no “I” in the team but it is only “we”. It will mainly focus on how to make a successful organization. It reduces the workload and divides the work among the team members. They can contribute for the success of the team.
Building a collaborative team:
If a collaborative team has to be built, it should contain a hierarchy of members. It consist of people with different assignments. It realizes everyone’s cooperation is important for the team to succeed. It creates a flexible structure of employees within same team.
A leader should contribute both as a leader and as a worker. If we expand our thinking in a positive way then one can generate a highly collaborative team. Even the junior most member of the team has to play his vital role.
Team Communication Strategies:
Team communication is important when good communication is major key to achieve the success of the team. It will be difficult to achieve the success of the team when we inspire the difficulty of others. Human nature coexists with different natures.
By observing other teams, a team can achieve the skills of leadership, trust, communicating with the other coworkers within the team and outside the team which will help to develop the enterprise. There are many important tips to develop a team to yield the best productivity.
There are different kinds of strategic communication. They are:
- Internal communication
- Organizational communication
a. Internal communication
The term “strategy” plays a vital role in business world. It is in the field of business related matters rather than communication. It deals with the other activities such as diplomacy, public relationships etc. Communication provides the objective for the executive systems explicitly. Internal communication strategy takes a lower priority task than the task over external strategies that are implemented. It usually occurs when the staff members are in the result of crisis situation.
Need for internal communication:
It aims at internal communication activities that lead to lower priority of risks. The management of an enterprise is responsible regardless of the information that is required to communicate with the staff. Internal communication usually defines the way in which the communication starts with the staff and should not lead to a crisis strategy.
In few cases modern technologies should also be taken into account. With the rapid development of the technology, the staves can easily and simultaneously gain access to information technology from sources both in and outside the company.
Effective Communication contributes to the following:
- Everyone will participate.
- Welcoming the suggestions and feedbacks.
- Appreciating openly.
- Using effective mode of communication.
b. Organizational communication
Within the team there will be newsletters but the organizational communication is related to transfer of ideas, memories, feelings and attitudes which pays way for the deep understanding about the organization and its policies and even the process it undertakes. Among the other different functions employee communication with the organization is major part in which the organization can undergo major changes. It is the communication between the people and the authority level.
Need for organizational communication:
Organizational communication deals with recruiting and training the employee. The recruitment and the training is done by the staves who are well known about the mission, values and ethics, morals, procedures of the enterprise. Again the company needs sales and marketing people where it has to deal with public relation. The company tackles the public parties based on the employee relations. Individual motivation is required.
Assertiveness in communication:
- Communicate clearly and gently so the opponent will keep trust.
- Respect and listen to others.
- Give the same respect and rights to others which she/he may claim.
Admit the error without feeling bad. In developing communication strategy an organization should use consistent channel of communication which will help in passing the information and also to cross verify whether the passed information is reached as the same and understood by the staves.
In creed of all the difference an organization will unite and gather the employees together to achieve best results. It also proves the sense of importance and belonging among the team people.
Team Contribution Strategies:
Contribution mainly aims at developing the team mentality as “we”. Staves should be open minded to the idea of their teammates. Thus the team will concentrate more on internal and external customers. It acquires more knowledge and skills in one and in team, which accumulate the abilities in his/her team.
Due to inability to delegate competitors one must come out of their own way. A competitor may affect the organization by the self talk, follow through etc.
Steps of strategic contribution:
- Checking the operation lines periodically to identify whether they run smoothly. This process ensures that the fundamentals are working correctly. It also helps in overcoming the performance gaps.
- Capacitive strategic contribution should be created which invokes “white space” to make the contribution.
- Building key alliances help with the formal and informal structure of the organization that makes effectiveness.
- It includes the key-decision makers, potential competitor and influential leaders.
- Recognizing and maximizing the opportunities generally mean increasing the visibility and contribution towards the team. It follows the virtuous cycle which does not deserve hidden mails, personal phone calls etc.
Responsibilities in approaching the strategies:
A business transaction will involve the values and ethics of the company which will have demand from the social pressures in terms of morality. The social responsibility deals with the duty of the decision maker to procure the actions taken towards the welfare of the society.
Next, basic responsibility refers to the technical and routine accountability. Organizational responsibility refers to the safety and well being of the stakeholders. Atlast, is the societal responsibilities which refers to the wider community by creating overall environment, emphasizing the prosperity and welfare of the society.
Some of the psychological strategies to achieve success:
To establish the presence of mind and learn to work through emotions to reach a solution, psychological strategies are mandatory. Understanding the feelings of others will reach the peak of effective management. The usage of time is better strategy to manage the conflicting moments. Learning to navigate through the emotions will create a healthy environment.
- One should be aware of his/her emotions and analyze to trigger the points. These gathered points will help to teach or act on the emotions. This is quite smarter way to achieve the targets.
- Each strategically leading team will involve conflict and the corresponding balancing measures.
- Usage of sentimental morale determines the experience of the perception. To manage a team, emotions should be proficiently managed that makes decisions for speed and adaptability.
- The team can be broken into various groups that will be lead by the people who can work independently.
Fundamentals of a good contributing team are as follows:
Coaching refers to the skills, knowledge and experience to ask for help. Flexibility can be shown on cooperation and willingness towards the assigned work. Good mannerisms matters a lot in doing simple things. The fundamentals are as follows.
- Trust makes one to meet and maintain all the confidentiality required to support the team.
- Sharing information deals with the staves to do their respective jobs effectively and efficiently.
- Coaching refers to the skills, knowledge and experience to ask for help.
- Good mannerisms matters a lot in doing simple things.
Attributes of Successful Team:
There are few attributes which will contribute to the success of the team. Effective leadership and commitment to accountability are the major activities of successful team.
They are as follows:
- Commitment towards goals and team success.
- Interpersonal ability and interdependence.
- Wide communication and the collected feedback.
- Contribution to team process.
Planning for an outstanding team:
An outstanding team can be built with the help of inner spirit of each individual. An effective can emerge as an outstanding with the following criteria:
- Team hierarchy.
- Rewards such as incentives, allowances, bonus etc.
- Communication strategy.
- Task completion within the given deadline.
Thus building a team is to mainly focus on the functions of corporate communication that are linked to the other strategies. It proves the organizational effectiveness within the corporate communication. Planned metabolic activities and routines and special activities are the pillars of building a successful team that means managing the team intuitively and intelligently.
A well managed organization will effectively deal with social, legal and political products that are more traditional and in technological environment.
