Today's 110th Team Building Tip gets you and your team thinking about what are the ingredients for successful collaboration. For many teams today the ability to collaborate effectively is a differentiator between good teams and exceptional teams. Check out what I have posted on Collaboration here at the Teams365 blog in the past.
Before we look at five ingredients for successful collaboration it is important to keep in mind "Why are we collaborating? Is collaboration needed?
Morten Hensen in his book Collaboration poses this very question.
Once we have determined that collaboration (rather than another strategy such as going it alone, or competing etc) is the best route, we want to then think about a couple factors:
1. The Relationship - What's important about the relationship with that person or persons? Why is collaboration the best strategy. What are their strengths? What are yours? How can you together create more?
2. End Result - What will success look like? What is the shared responsibility for the end result? Why is this end result important? What do you each need to do individually in order to be successful?
3. What's important - When looking at the relationship, the results and everything else, we want to be asking ourselves "What's important about this". This question helps us get "out of the muck" connecting our actions with the bigger picture. It can support enhanced motivation or engagement, as well as also confirming at times that collaboration isn't the best strategy and shouldn't be undertaken.
4. What's at stake? - Another question to be asking is "What's at stake?". If this is successful - What happens? If you are not successful - What happens?
If you are using this as your weekly team question spend time asking yourselves these four questions around the issue(s) you are to collaborate around.
Enjoy your weekend!
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton
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