May 9, 2014
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Collaboration leads businesses to achieve their goals. As companies take the time to work through their problems together, different approaches and opinions lead to a greater perspective on the solutions ahead. Today, I want to discuss a few ways businesses should optimize collaboration to be more successful.
1. Make your meetings more effective
Oftentimes in business meetings the real reasons behind why the meetings have been held gets lost in useless conversation. To combat this issue, make your meetings shorter, but more intensely focused spurts of time. In your meetings make sure that the team members know why the meeting is being held and that you’re all working towards the same goal. Now, rather than having an ineffective 45 minute meeting, have a 15 minute effective meeting instead.
2. Encourage communication
Another problem with organizations is that at times there is a lack of feedback from all parties. The IT employees aren’t talking with the sales team, who isn’t talking with management. This lack of communication will lead to problems in the future, and less effective work in the present. Make sure that in your company there is an active sense of the importance of communication between groups and individuals.
3. Listen to and give constructive feedback
Often it is hard to take or give negative feedback. Feedback can be harsh, demoralizing, and at times offensive; however, the key is to make sure to give, and listen to constructive feedback. By giving constructive feedback the vibe is that improvement is essential to the business. This attitude will make a difference in the environment you and co-workers are working in. It’s important to make sure that the feedback that you are giving and others are giving is constructive, not harsh, or attacking.
While I won’t go into games to play, whether or not to have team lunches or parties, at Innovation Simple we want to help you to think about the work environment your business is fostering and where you can use collaboration to increase business success.