Stronger Collaboration Skills are the Secret to Office Teamwork

Cross-functional collaboration has been on the rise in organizations for the past 20 years driven by the growing complexity of projects and the need for organizations to be both innovative and efficient.

Consider the healthcare field: Patients rarely see only one medical professional. A pregnant patient who experiences heart complications will encounter multiple specialists as each healthcare professional’s unique knowledge is needed.

And this is true for collaboration and teamwork everywhere. It allows for the sharing of workers’ unique skills, knowledge and perspectives in addressing fast-moving challenges. Cross-functional teams form and dissolve as the need for them fluctuates, pulling in workers across departments with relevant skills based on the task at hand. And when it works, the results are improved business performance and innovation in terms of products, services and processes.

But team dysfunction is high. According to Behnam Tabrizi of Stanford University, 75% of cross-functional teams are dysfunctional. And it's easy to see why. Teams are often formed based on individuals' technical skills, rather than by how effective someone is at working collaboratively. This dysfunction easily leads to poor project outcomes like missed deadlines, budget overruns or poor quality. But it can also lead to personnel issues such as low morale, low engagement and ultimately, increased turnover.

Teamwork training fills the collaboration skills gap and has been shown to improve team outcomes.

Build your team of collaborators. Bring everyone together for a fun, virtual workshop: Effective Teamwork Strategies.

How can organizations prevent team dysfunction and help improve collaboration?

Advances in connectivity tools and easy access to shared data help facilitate collaboration in a work environment where colleagues could be remote or sitting right next to each other. Thinking about the pregnant patient mentioned earlier, doctors can easily access medical history and add their own notes to the digital chart. But tech tools are only one small part of team collaboration.

Because collaboration is interpersonal. 

That’s why it’s paramount that organizations get the right people and attitudes in place, as well as strive to develop the competencies that ensure successful collaboration, according to research by the Warwick Business School.

Their research from several years ago identified what makes an effective collaborator, pointing to ten key personality attributes organized into three categories:

1. Strategic and adaptive orientation – strategically minded, creative/innovative, leadership
2. Effective information exchange – good communicator, open to sharing, good listener
3. Prioritizing common values – team orientation, empathetic, believe in collaboration, behave ethically

The easiest solution to ensuring the collaboration capability you need for high-functioning teams is to hire for it. But with good reason, organizations usually hire for technical expertise first. If they have the luxury of multiple qualified candidates, a personality test could help identify the collaboration qualities outlined and tip the scales in favor of one candidate.

However, if the top candidates (or existing employees) lack some of these soft skills, those who don’t naturally excel at teamwork can become more adept through training. Strong communication and emotional intelligence abilities are crucial for successful collaboration and can be learned.

These identified social skills help with three key team performance tasks: decision making, creative solutions and information sharing. And, according to research by Harvard University, “workers with higher social skills causally improve team performance beyond what their individual task-specific skills would suggest.”

Team training has proven effective in skills development

“Training for teamwork-based attitudes, behaviors and cognitions is necessary for a team to be an effective and productive unit,” according to research referenced in Team Training in Organizations. Team training, however, should not be confused with team-building activities, such as retreats or games. Team training, instead, focuses on things like information sharing, cooperation and shared mental models – improving outcomes that depend on every individual team member to contribute.

In fact, the most effective team training, according to research, focuses on helping teams work together more smoothly and avoid common communicaiton errors. Topics would include: active listening, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, decision making, leadership, and strategic thinking.

Moving an organization’s employees around as their expertise is needed enables a business to adapt quickly and efficiently. But, the needed collaboration skills may be weak. By giving employees the tools to make them better collaborators, organizations help ensure the employees’ success and better teamwork outcomes.