What are the most common collaboration challenges?
Since so much time is spent collaborating with others, it’s no longer enough to just be a team player. It’s necessary to take and overcome collaboration challenges:
- Physical proximity
- Conflicts in the way we work
- Engagement and responsibility
- Proving trust
- Communication, offline and online
1. Physical proximity
It’s not a surprise that technology is changing the way modern employees interact. From enabling us to work from nearly anywhere on any device to enhance the way we communicate and collaborate, the opportunities to increase productivity via innovative technology is growing every day.
Teams work better together when members are in close physical proximity. While remote work is physically possible, it’s not always the optimal way for teams to engage. If team members mostly work remotely, it’s good to have periodic in-person team meetings.
2. Conflicts in the way we work
No two people are the same. When different processes, ideologies and goals clash, conflicts arise. If teams don’t get how to work together or why they need to collaborate, success is an unlikely outcome.
Team members must communicate to clarify what everyone should be doing in their role so they’re all on the same page.
3. Engagement and responsibility
A lack of defined responsibilities leads to a refusal to collaborate with individual team members. Team members need to understand each other’s roles to share ideas. When team members make unique contributions toward a common goal, they should receive equal credit for the outcome.
4. Proving trust
Trust is fundamental to collaboration. Building trust is easier said than done in most cases. Sometimes, employees make mistakes and it can be hard for you or other team members to trust them with any other decisions.
It’s critical to develop strong connections with those around you. Trust is quickly established if you prioritize clear boundaries and expectations.
5. Communication, offline and online
In recent years, many organizations have turned to remote teams as a means of connecting and engaging with employees across the globe. Managing teams of this sort present many, sometimes unique, challenges.
Collaboration is now coupled with technology. So many people stay in contact through different channels every day. Managers today spend up to 85% of their time on collaborative tools. Instead of discussing everything in the meetings and taking notes, a collaborative tool, such as Kanbanchi may be used. It helps to set up the workflow in a team, create tasks, collaborate with colleagues. Moreover, Kanbanchi is integrated with Google Apps, which makes daily working processes even easier.