Improving collaboration and communication amongst your teams!

 A collaborative team that communicates well is essential for the success of any business. It can improve productivity, encourage innovation and increase satisfaction from employees and customers alike. 

Here are some ways that business owners can improve communication and collaboration among their team members: 

Define goals and roles: 

Clear communication starts with defining individual roles and team goals. Make sure everyone understands their role and responsibilities and the goals they are working towards. This can be achieved through regularly updating Position Contracts for team members, which set out the individual’s role, responsibilities, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) against specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. By defining roles and goals, team members will have a better understanding of their priorities, and will be able to focus on achieving the team’s objectives.  If you don’t like the idea of KPIs, then investigate using OKRs, Outcomes, and Key Results as a means of goal setting which evolves through the team. 

 Whenever I have done this exercise for the first time in my businesses and with clients in their businesses, I ask the team member and their manager to each specify the position’s role and responsibilities separately, and do you know what?  They never match up!  Now if they did match up, how much more effective would that team member and the team be? 

Establish clear communication channels: 

To improve communication and collaboration among team members, it’s important to establish clear communication channels. Utilise tools such as email, instant messaging, video conferencing, or project management software to ensure everyone knows to communicate. Make sure everyone has access to these tools and understands how to use them effectively.  Encourage as much verbal communication as possible.  

Most importantly, get clear on the Rules of the Game for team communication; the Who? What? And When? so that unnecessary and distracting communication is not wasting time or irritating team members.

Encourage open communication: 

Creating a culture where team members feel comfortable sharing their ideas and opinions is vital for effective collaboration. Encourage open communication, where team members are free to ask questions and seek feedback. Make it clear that all ideas and opinions are valued, and that everyone has an equal voice.   

What we have to remember as leaders is that in teams there are extroverts and introverts, there are people more focused on tasks or data, people more focused on speed and results, people more focused on people, and people more focused on precision.  Leading a team we need to understand ourselves and we have to make space to hear the quieter people in the team, and draw out their ideas and contributions so that we are not missing out on the full intellectual capital in the team.  Most importantly, don’t allow ideas or suggestions to be killed by some of the louder voices in the team, give them equal exploration and consideration. 

Communicate face to face: 

Face-to-face communication is the strongest way of getting your message across.  Albert Mehrabian research demonstrated that only 7% of what we communicate consists of verbal content.  Mehrabian’s Communication Theory suggests our communications are received as 7% verbal, the “words”, 38% vocal, the use of the voice, intonation, volume, ie the “music” and 55% visual, the body language or “dance”.   

When we send an email, we only use 7% of our communication potential, and 45% if we make a phone call.  The strength with which our communications are received relies on the receiver hearing our voice and seeing our body language to assess our credibility and conviction, our passion, and our honesty.  Or you can just read the message in black and white off an email, like this blog.  How passionate am I, the writer, about this?  How honest am I being with you the reader?   Do you know for sure? 

Conduct regular check-ins: 

Regular check-ins, such as one-on-one meetings and team meetings, can help keep everyone on the same page. It’s important to schedule these meetings regularly to ensure that everyone is aware of what others are working on, and to provide a forum for open communication. Make sure everyone has the opportunity to speak, and use these meetings to identify any challenges or opportunities for improvement. 

Provide training and development opportunities: 

Investing in your team’s skills and development is a key way to improve communication and collaboration. Offer training and development opportunities to help team members improve their skills and stay up-to-date with the latest tools and techniques. This can include workshops, conferences, online courses, and mentoring programs.   

There are specific tools for assessing how people communicate and like to be communicated with such as DiSC.  This can be used to assess an individual or better still a whole team with a workshop to work out how the team can better communicate and operate together.  It provides dos and don’ts for how to communicate with individuals successfully and can show where a team’s behavioural strengths and weaknesses lie allowing the team to create new strategies to adapt around these. 

Foster trust and respect: 

Effective collaboration requires a high level of trust and respect amongst team members.  Trust is built between teams and individuals over a long period through the team’s credibility, consistent and reliable behaviours, and generating an environment where team members feel comfortable discussing the difficult stuff.  Trust is destroyed fastest by one person’s self-interest outweighing that of the team and the other members.    

Building trust requires team members to respect each other’s opinions and expertise, and to work together to achieve shared goals. Establish a culture where it’s safe to take risks and make mistakes, and where constructive feedback is given in a respectful and supportive manner. 

Celebrate successes: 

Finally, it’s important to recognise and celebrate individual and team successes. Celebrating successes will boost morale, and foster a positive team environment.  

Take the time to acknowledge individual achievements and highlight the team’s successes, whether through regular team meetings, shout-outs in company newsletters, or other forms of recognition. By doing so, you’ll create a positive and collaborative culture that will help your team achieve its goals.