What Makes For A Really Good Team Collaboration

Running a company is not easy. You need to get customers, make sure all your work and projects are completed on time and keep your customers satisfied so that they come back to do more business with you. And this is not something you can do alone, you need a team's help.

You need the help and understanding of your associates and employees so that you can divide and coordinate all the different tasks and duties. And all this is possible only with proper team collaboration and management.

However, while some teams have a natural understanding and bonding between the team members, others may not. But the good news is team collaboration is something that can be imbibed and developed with time and practice. So the following tips should be helpful to you if you need help with team management and better team unity.

1. One clear goal

The team works better if you have a clear goal which everyone knows and understands. It is rather difficult progressing if everyone does not understand what they are working towards and trying to achieve. It may be a difficult or simple goal, just make sure everyone is clear about it, and know their respective duties and work to reach the goal.

2. Provide for remote team collaboration and better communication

This is very important, especially if some or all of your team members work remotely. You need to create a feeling of oneness in the team, even if your team members are across the country or world. You need to implement a great internal communications program so that you can foster better collaboration between the different departments in your company.

With most companies having freelancers and frequent travelers, team management can get tough especially if they are located outside the country and in different time zones. The secret to remote collaboration is ensuring your team uses the best tools on their devices so that they can easily and effectively access, share and approve company documents.

So, choose a tool that empowers your collaboration, preferably an all-in-one project collaboration tool where you have all the required features in a signal tool, and which is linked to the team's tasks and other related work.

The benefit of using task collaboration tools is that team members tend to discuss only work while using the tool instead of chatting about unrelated things and wasting time and productivity.

You have to choose the right tool for your team based on its size, culture, working and your overall working infrastructure. Examples of efficient collaboration tools are Slack, Basecamp, Teamwork, and Trello which help keep track of the biggest and smallest details. Of course, these tools are useful only if you use them collectively with other team members to perhaps start a discussion about some task or topic.

3. Foster trust between team members

Trust is very important for efficient collaboration but is not something you can gain overnight. You need to coax all team members to share their ideas and thoughts, give constructive feedback and discuss views with each other.

They should realize that ideas are meant to be shared and discussed, and not meant to be fought over. You can also show everyone that you trust them enough to complete the tasks allotted to them. You can also show your trust in your team by encouraging team members to come up and voice their individual views and suggestions. Once they realize you trust and need them, they automatically put in all their efforts for the company.

4. Develop strong partnerships

Team unity is an integral part of effective team collaboration. So, it is your job to get your team members to work together by perhaps building smaller units or partnerships within the bigger team. Start by building partnerships between members of different disciplines as it helps your team members feel comfortable in each other's company. This, in turn, bridges any existing communication gaps between members and different departments. You could partner the juniors in marketing leads with the junior customer support members, assign them their individual tasks and challenges, and ask them to present their developments in the coming meetings.

This way you get can get constructive inputs from all team members which may help solve problems and find solutions. In the midst of all this, the team members also develop trusting relationships with themselves and different departments which in the long run can improve your team's communication and work efficiency.

5. Share information

Once team members share whatever knowledge and information they have acquired freely with each other, they automatically have more time to work and focus on their work together, and not just to answer requests. This is best accomplished using a central document storage location in your computer network where anyone can retrieve any online file they want anytime they want. While some team members may freely share their progress and ideas through online Dropbox or file storage with the team, there are a few people who feel shy and are hesitant about sharing anything till they think they are ready to do so.

However little do they know that they can actually perform better if they discuss their ideas with their team members. Asking for feedback and sharing raw ideas usually lead to eventual time-saving solutions as it can prevent them from taking the wrong path and making the wrong decisions.

6. Be ready for conflicting opinions

It is but natural for team members to have conflicting views and opinions about a topic as different people think differently. There, however, is nothing wrong with this. In fact, if harnessed properly, these conflicting opinions can be constructive.

This is because it creates a means and channel for all team members to brainstorm ideas and views. So it is better for your team if you are ready for this, and plan beforehand how you intend to handle it. You could try a team vote, carry out a SWOT analysis to find out your team's strengths and weaknesses or decide if you will encourage further discussions. Once you have your plan of action in place if and when a conflict arises, you find that you can tackle them much better.

Team management will seem so much easier and efficient once you implement these six team collaboration tips in the running of your company. TIn addition, team collaboration tools like TruEdit are also necessary. Softwares like these will help your team to create a perfect workflow that ensures your team members work together towards a single goal, with maximum productivity and minimal misunderstandings.