The Collaborative Edge: Why It Works In Your Favor

Is your company or organization one that stresses the importance of collaborative efforts, teamwork, or simply establishing a culture of trust and relationship-building? If so, you’re on the right track; organizations often have untapped potential at their fingertips; given the globalization of business as a whole, there is an overarching shift away from the cutthroat competition mentality. Instead, the focus is shifting toward collaborative efforts.

This culture of collaboration is not something that happens overnight. The first step of building a culture of collaboration is in business leaders’ hands. They must demonstrate that they value collaboration by creating an environment of respect and tolerance for divergent opinions. In doing so, you give employees the opportunity to create the solid relationships with one another that are necessary for collaboration.

Why would these relationships be necessary, you ask? People who know one another and have established a relationship of trust are significantly more inclined to help one another. In addition to these relationships, a team must have a clear view of the business goal. This fosters the need for clearer communication among one another.

The take-away message of this philosophy is simply this: collaboration is becoming the most effective way to get things done in the workplace. In a multi-generational workplace, which comprises much of today’s businesses, collaboration has taken on a new art form, and this divergence from the earlier definition of “collaboration” deserves a more holistic approach.  Shifting from an “I” to a “we” culture change takes time and can be messy. The transition falls to an organization’s leader to encourage the conversion from the traditional trend toward a more strategic teaming convergence allowing those brainstormers to share information and knowledge in a more informal, accelerated and possibly more efficient way.

Written by Lauren Currenti, SPS Team