By Sophia Letts, meditationhelp.net

Do you know how to improve collaboration for team work? If you don’t, you’re not alone. Many leaders struggle with collaboration, by leveraging mindfulness you can achieve substantial improvements in this area. The NEO Chi Institute presents four tips to improve team collaboration.

Provide an Open Culture of Communication

Ensure your company has an open culture of communication by leading with positivity and encouraging interdepartmental collaboration and feedback. When communicating with your employees, ensure they can understand what you’re saying, and avoid making assumptions about their thoughts. Speak plainly and clearly, and establish a trusting relationship. Be mindful of your communication style and eliminate barriers of communication.

Allowing employees to talk about upcoming projects, potential obstacles, and possible solutions can help build trust between teams and departments, making future collaborations easier. Once you have a solid foundation established internally, BlogIn suggests sharing news with other departments. Post newsletters or articles relating to their areas of expertise, and encourage them to do the same.

 

Provide Individuals and Teams Opportunities for Collaboration

Creating opportunities for cross-team collaboration helps foster teamwork and gives employees a chance to break out of their day-to-day routines. Try organizing lunches, some team-building activities, or mentorship programs. This can help bridge gaps between workers from different departments — making it easier to form team bonds. Consider holding walking meetings on occasion. Walking can burn some calories and has mental health benefits as well.

 

Provide the Right Tools for the Job

Find ways to facilitate cross-team collaboration to make sure all your team members can communicate effectively and efficiently. Also ensure you’re using enterprise collaboration tools, such as Microsoft Teams or Slack. These platforms can be incredibly effective for keeping communication channels open and documents accessible across teams, divisions, and entire companies.

Utilizing product road-map software allows you to divide up responsibilities with your team, so you can clearly map out all the necessary steps to launch your product. With deadlines, clear goals, and an understanding of what needs to happen from start to finish, you’ll have no problem making progress towards launching a successful business venture.

Look for creative ways to explain processes and project steps to your staff. Online infographic makers can be useful for creating visuals for your employees. Choose a template and then add your own copy, shapes, background, colors, and more.

Diversity and inclusivity can be potentially overlooked aspects of collaboration. Take time to review your organization’s hiring practices and accessibility features. To become ADA compliant you may need to do some upgrading to parts of your facility, such as the restrooms. This should be easy work for a plumber, though the difference between a residential and commercial plumber can be important. If you don’t have a specific plumber you work with, search online for options. Customer reviews should help you find one to take care of your job.

 

Provide Meaningful Rewards

Employees who work together and share ideas experience a boost in creativity, which is great for your company’s bottom line. MindTools notes that rewarding teamwork also makes employees feel more satisfied with their jobs and gives them a sense of belonging at work. Give team members praise for working together, and make it clear you recognize their efforts. When employees see other team members getting rewarded, they’re more motivated to contribute their own ideas.

Try rewarding collaboration efforts as part of your employee recognition program, or create separate recognition events where you can celebrate teams specifically. You can get creative here. Maybe each member gets their name on a plaque or gets free drinks for an afternoon if their team wins an internal competition. 

 

Collaboration Benefits Everyone

Collaboration isn’t something that happens by chance. It takes hard work, but it’s worth it — not only for your team members but also for leaders!

For more information about lifestyle and mindfulness practices to cope with anxiety, visit The NEO Chi Institute today!

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