How to focus on collaboration for innovation
How would you describe your culture? What would you say are your organization’s values? What would your clients or customers say are your values? Is your workplace joyful? If your workplace is joyful this article will build upon your passion and enthusiasm. It is not joyful, maybe you need a mind-shift to enhance your workplace’s collaborative energy.
Begin that process with respect and listening. Move from respect and listening to empathy. How do you show respect, listening, and empathy to others and how can you instill these patterns at your level where you work? Regardless of your level you can take it upon yourself to respect everyone, listen actively to others, and show empathy for others. From the bottom up, or from the middle up, you can generate innovation by working from wherever you find yourself in the organization.
Describe your organization’s culture in one word
Can you describe your culture in one word? If not, try this simple exercise. Go on the internet and research words that describe culture at work. Write down all the words that you think describe your workplace culture. Eliminate half of the words on your list. Go through the list and cross out another half. Keep repeating the process until you have only one word remaining.
Culture incorporates transparency and communication, learning and growth, building connections, and having availability to leadership.
What is your firm doing to enhance these four areas of culture?
Everyone wants to be listened to and respected
On the one hand respect means to admire someone else because of their abilities, qualities, or achievements. On the other hand, respect means considering the feelings, wishes, rights, and traditions of others. Both are relevant for a healthy culture.
How do you appreciate others at work? Do you offer additional responsibility to people who make mistakes? After all, every one of us makes mistakes. The key is not to avoid making mistakes but to learn from them and to work together going forward.
Does this pattern of learning from mistakes reflect your culture?
The best places to work and the most productive and innovative environments have an inclusive and diverse team where everyone is respected, where the team understands what the goals and priorities are, and where team members are aligned with the goals and priorities.
Employees know each other. They have connecting, authentic relationships. Time has been taken to ensure that these relationships develop. Everyone is valued and respected. Team members listen to each other. They know that their success is tied not only to their own accomplishments, but to the team’s success. A collaborative environment encourages active learning and cooperation. If learning and cooperation are hallmarks of your culture or if it is not part of your culture, read on for tips on developing this culture or improving what you already have.
How do you value everyone?
What do we know about our workplace colleagues? Have we taken time to build our team? At meetings consider an ice-breaker to learn a little bit more about each other. When having one-on-one meetings, start off with small talk. Topics for small talk can include pets, sports, family, books, vacations, what people like to do for fun, what is going on in their hometown, the weather next weekend, new places to go for entertainment, trips we have taken or would like to take, favorite movies, and other topics of outside interest. The point of small talk is to learn more about other persons, their values, interests, and different ways to connect. Take time to listen actively for at least 5 minutes. While people are talking back and forth you can think about what else you can ask.
As you build relationships, you may discover ways to connect and collaborate.
How can you support the other party?
By being a servant leader and helping others you can build relationships that may help in the future. You need to be genuine and authentic in your group. Build trust. Be available to help. As a leader be there to encourage and coach. Do not dictate. This will develop better relationships and understanding. Work with others to develop their strengths. With positive reinforcement and experiences, confidence will grow along with self-esteem and interest in looking out for each other.
Provide timely feedforward
Feedforward is contrasted with feedback. Feedforward means being around to catch others doing things right. Lean into reinforcing positive behaviors when possible as opposed to criticizing mistakes. If something does not work, instead of feedback on how they screwed up or blew it, focus on feedforward. That is “what can we learn from this and what can we do going forward?” The emphasis is on “we” and not “you”, and the focus is on “the future”. In this way we are both gentle on the person and tough on the problem. Feedforward is a team effort, a shared responsibility.
How do they know you care?
Teddy Roosevelt coined the maxim “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” Isn’t it true that caring is more powerful than combat? How, then, do we see others at work? Are people simply a means to an end? Do we value and cultivate relationships and are we authentically involved in the lives of others? Reflect on what we really think and believe about others in our workplace. Are we seen as empathetic to the needs of others? Would our colleagues say that we have their backs? Are we there for them when things go bad? How do we show that we truly care? If we truly want to cultivate an environment of caring and appreciation, maybe we need to look inside ourselves first. Who do we need to forgive? Who do we need to apologize to? Who do we need to reach out to? What have we done for others recently? How have we shown appreciation?
Six ways to show appreciation at work
- Saying thank you for something specific often goes a long way. A thank-you note or a personalized thank-you reinforces that we care.
- Acts of service in helping out, doing something to make their life easier can mean a lot.
- A gift of time such as time off or covering for someone so that they can take time for something that is important to them.
- Celebrating success. Often there is no celebration or celebration only when the big project is completed. What about when milestones are completed? A celebration might mean going for ice cream, a walk, or something else.
- Appropriate touch. In person this can be a high five, a handshake, or a fist bump. Virtually this can be a high five, or fist bump towards the screen.
- A tangible gift. A personalized gift is best. Taking the extra time makes a huge difference.
Hopefully these tips will foster more and better collaboration in the workplace and encourage innovation.
Check out these links to my publications if you would like to learn more about collaboration, conflict resolution, or enhancing your servant manager skills.