At Thrive we know that pre-pandemic the topic of collaboration was high on our client’s agendas. We witnessed an increase in open plan offices with more collaboration spaces, as well as more organisations stating collaboration as part of their company mission.
Fast forward to Autumn 2021 and collaborating is an increasing challenge right now. With 18 months of remote working followed by a transition to new working patterns, it is becoming something of an urgent problem. Recent insights from Gartner – the global research and advisory firm – shows that seven out ten HR leaders are more concerned about collaboration now than before the pandemic.
Collaborating is of course more complicated now due to us working in different places at different times. And yes, the tech and the tools available are helpful but frankly by themselves they aren’t enough. The behavioural scientist Francesca Gino in an article in the Harvard Business Review states that the key to successful collaboration is to think about it as ‘a skill to teach rather than a value to cultivate’. We like this definition as it allows us to be much more specific about how we can improve collaboration and also be able to look at it from a psychological perspective.
We’re going to focus a lot on how to build collaborative cultures in a hybrid workplace over the coming months and to help us get started, it’s useful to understand our collaboration strengths and weaknesses. To do this, let’s look at the six collaboration skills that Francesca Gino identified. They are:-
– Listening
– Empathy
– Feedback
– Leading and following (flexing between the two when collaborating)
– Communicating with clarity
– Looking for win-win outcomes (searching for common goals when collaborating with others)
Whilst perhaps being over simplified, these skills remain a good place to start in terms of raising our self-awareness on the topic. To do that, we need to ask ourselves four simple questions.
1. Which of these six skills do I rock at?
2. Where do I struggle?
3. Who can give me some honest feedback on how collaborative I am?
4. What actions can I take to improve?
The action question is critical if you want to develop your collaborative skills. For example, if you identify that you struggle with listening, you could start by reading up on coaching skills – which listening is a big part of – to get a theoretical detailed view of how to listen more effectively. You could identify someone you work with who is a great listener and reflect on what they do that works well, and even ask them directly. You could also make sure you aren’t distracted the next time you have an in-depth conversation with someone; switch off from everything else and give someone your undivided attention which will allow you to tune in and listen better.
So take the plunge and start thinking about yourself in relation to collaboration. And by the way, I think I need to get way better at flexing between leading and following as I’m constantly clashing with my business partner on this!