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Positive team collaboration is the ultimate goal for every business, but achieving it takes a lot of thinking. Beyond hiring people that are competent in their positions, you also need to look for complementing personalities and the ability to solve complex problems that might arise.
Regardless of whether you’re in the office or working remotely, there are plenty of signs that your team fits well together. Below, you’ll find four signs that your team is good at collaborating – plus four signals that you need to improve things.
Positive Sign #1: Your Team Naturally Bounces Ideas off Each Other
Creating a winning team is about more than people who will simply achieve results. The best sides are always looking to innovate and change your customers’ lives for the better.
The most successful companies got to where they are because they give their employees the space to come up with new ideas. This is much easier to do when you’ve got people genuinely interested in their field, and not just those who have the skills.
If you want your team to bounce ideas off each other, it starts with hiring. Ask them questions about how they’d change a current industry problem and what they’d do differently in your company.
Positive Sign #2: There’s a Mutual Respect Throughout
If you’re a big sports fan, you’ll know that many teams become doomed as soon as they lose respect for either their coach or each other. The same goes in business; if your team members don’t respect one another, you’ll never achieve high levels of collaboration.
On the flip side, it’s a positive sign if your team respects each other – even if they’re not on a friendship level. Ways you can see this include how they talk to each other and how they carry themselves.
Another way you can test to see if your team respects each other is whether they’re honest; we’ll talk more about this later.
Positive Sign #3: Your Team Members Hold Themselves Accountable
Anyone who wants to succeed in a career or business must hold themselves accountable – no ifs, buts or maybes. Taking responsibility for your actions and outputs are essential for building a successful team, and so is holding your hand up if something goes wrong.
It’s a clear sign that you’ve achieved good team collaboration if the other members are willing to ensure that they don’t let others down. This doesn’t mean working ungodly hours, but it does require completing tasks by the deadlines you give them.
Positive Sign #4: A Desire to Solve Conflicts
It would be nice if everyone got along all the time, but that’s not how the world works. No matter how good your team chemistry is, you will end up having to deal with disagreements at some point.
A disagreement is not a red flag in and of itself. However, acting childish and not showing any desire to come to a solution is. Teams with excellent collaboration will listen to each other and try to understand their points of view before looking at how to fix the problem.
If you want to test a candidate and see whether they can handle conflict, ask them for their opinion on something in an interview and try to counter it. Then, see how they approach things.
Negative Sign #1: Your Team Doesn’t Communicate Well
So far, we’ve discussed the positive signs that your team is good at collaborating. But to ensure you’re the best you can possibly be, it’s also worth looking at the negatives. Let’s start with the first one: a lack of communication.
Many relationships break down in real life because couples don’t communicate well, and the same is true for businesses. In a world of hybrid work, it has become more critical than ever to keep others in the loop.
You don’t need to be on Slack with each other all day, but you do at the very least need to provide updates to ensure that everyone knows what still needs doing.
Negative Sign #2: A Lack of Interest in Achieving Results
Apathy is one of the most common signs that someone isn’t interested in working towards a specific goal. If your team members simply show up for work but don’t engage in the process, it’s likely that they aren’t in it for each other.
If you notice that your team is disengaged, the easiest way to solve this is by asking each person about their needs and wants. Do they feel like you include them in the team? Have you made it clear why they’re essential to the company?
Get the feedback of everyone in your team before coming together and talking about how you can fix these issues.
Negative Sign #3: A Lack of Clear Vision
Pretty much every successful business you see will have a mission statement. And if you were to visit its offices, you would see straight away that the executives know precisely which direction they should be moving in.
If you haven’t clearly set objectives for your team to work towards, it can become pretty easy to feel directionless. Over time, that will lead to burnout and little desire to collaborate.
What’s the solution to this, we hear you ask? Sit down and decide on where you want to take your business. Make sure that everyone knows exactly how they play a part in your overall success picture; it’ll be much easier for your team to work well together once you’ve sorted those things out.
Negative Sign #4: A Lack of Honesty
Every successful team and relationship in the world is built on high levels of trust and transparency. The most sure-fire sign that your team does not work well together is if they’re not honest with each other – or they hide away when asked difficult questions.
If your team is being dishonest with each other, you need to find a way to change things. Ask them why they feel like they can’t trust one another, and look to tweak things where necessary. You might need to shake things up and replace some individuals with more transparent team members in the worst case.
Are you interested to discover how we can help your team collaborate better and achieve results? Click here to book an introductory meeting.