What is collaboration?

As your company looks for ways to increase productivity, improve efficiency, and drive positive business outcomes, consider how your people work together and how encouraging collaboration can lead to positive impacts. This article is about the importance of collaboration in the workplace and how you can foster a collaborative environment at your company.

Collaboration definition

Collaboration is a process, practice, or strategy where individuals work together to achieve a specific common objective or task. People commonly collaborate in schools and the workplace. Students may team up on a group project, while coworkers may work together on a new marketing strategy for a client, for example.

Collaboration is more than people working independently on separate aspects of a project. This is coordination at best. Collaboration means people work together on the project. Each person brings various skill sets, allowing the group to achieve more comprehensive results than any individual could create alone. 

People are naturally collaborative — engaging together effectively and being creative as a team or community is empowering and can bring positive business results. Successful collaboration relies on qualities like:

• Openness
• Interpersonal skills
• Knowledge sharing
• Focus
• Communication
• Accountability

Encouraging your team members to collaborate on various tasks allows your company to make unified decisions and increases its chances of success. When your people collaborate, the work environment promotes growth and innovation for team members and the company as a whole. 

Different types of collaboration

Collaboration takes different forms depending on how it's used. The tools and resources needed to collaborate with remote team members differ from what onsite collaboration requires. The type of collaboration your people do also depends on who they're working with — others within the company or external teams. Understanding the different types of collaboration can help you and your people work most efficiently and effectively together.

Share these types of collaboration with your team members to ensure everyone understands how they can best collaborate. 

Internal vs. external collaboration

Internal collaboration involves team members from the same company or department working together. In other words, internal collaboration is your people working with your people. This type of collaboration can be as simple as members from the same department discussing an issue to find a resolution or as complex as multiple members from various teams within your organization providing input on the same document. 

External collaboration involves working with individuals, entities, organizations, or other partners outside your company. This may include clients, suppliers, and contractors. Your team may collaborate with a client or contractor to ensure the client has a say in your processes or to achieve a specific result. Your company may also collaborate with external parties that have expertise or equipment in areas your company may not. 

Virtual vs. in-person collaboration

Technology allows team members to collaborate virtually. Virtual collaboration has become one of the primary ways team members work together in an increasingly digital world. Collaborating virtually can include video calls, document sharing, email, and cloud storage. For example, document sharing allows multiple people to access and edit the same content simultaneously. Tools like this enable remote and hybrid teams to collaborate regardless of their location or schedule.

In-person collaboration is more common in traditional workplaces where team members meet in an office or shared workspace. Collaborating in person involves team members physically meeting to share ideas, discuss, and otherwise work on a shared task. This form of working together is beneficial because team members can interact and get answers in real time while looking at the same information. But the reality of in-person collaboration is that it can be difficult to get everyone in the same place at the same time when work needs to be done.

Many companies use a combination of in-person and virtual collaboration, especially in hybrid work environments. Onsite team members can gather in person while still including remote team members via video call, for instance. 

Team collaboration

Team collaboration is common in the workplace. With this model, each member of the group knows their role and how it affects the team as a whole. Team collaboration typically involves a leader who supervises and keeps everyone on track while contributing their skill set. 

This type of collaboration has set deadlines that require the team to complete tasks within a predetermined time frame to ensure goals are met. The team typically gets collective recognition for its accomplishments.

Contextual collaboration

Contextual collaboration involves adapting a digital platform that combines all your team's digital tools into a single centralized place. This allows your people to access and use all the necessary content in one place rather than switching between tools and apps, simplifying how your team collaborates. 

Contextual collaboration adds context to the work your people are doing and helps improve team efficiency, because team members spend time collaborating rather than searching for the content they need.

Cross-functional collaboration

Cross-functional collaboration refers to team members from different departments coming together to reach a goal for the company as a whole. For example, members from your content-creation, sales, marketing, and social media teams may collaborate to develop an effective SEO strategy for a client. Cross-functional collaboration is common, especially for tasks or projects that require particular skill sets.

Community collaboration

Community collaboration focuses less on completing tasks and projects and more on fostering community and learning as a team. Knowledge sharing is central to this type of collaboration, removing hierarchies and siloed subject experts that may overshadow less experienced team members. 

Through community collaboration, senior team members can easily share their expertise and knowledge with younger team members. Passing knowledge on in this way better equips the entire team to solve problems and work efficiently rather than the experts working individually. 

Social collaboration

Social collaboration involves your team being able to quickly find solutions and reach a consensus with the help of everyone's collective knowledge and expertise. Your team may use a platform that allows for real-time collaboration so team members can reach each other and get the information they need quickly. Space where team members can chat, message each other, and otherwise crowdsource information helps your people solve problems and collaborate much more efficiently.

Why is collaboration important in the workplace?

So, what's the importance of collaborating at work? Collaboration, at its core, is designed to maximize success and share unique skills and knowledge. While each person at your business can impact its success, a unified group is more powerful and likely to make a bigger impact. Collaboration also helps your people work more efficiently and solve problems more effectively.

Your company and team members can benefit from collaborating in numerous additional ways.

1. Improved job satisfaction

Collaboration improves how your team members feel about work. Collaborating creates an open workplace where team members can share their ideas and be heard and valued, which leads to happier team members. When your people are happy and enjoy working with each other, your company culture and retention rates improve.

2. Increased productivity and performance

Effective collaboration increases productivity and performance across your teams. When team members work together, they accomplish more in less time. With combined skill sets, your teams also achieve improved performance overall.

3. Innovation and creativity

As team members share diverse information and perspectives, they gain momentum and creativity. As this happens, team members generate new ideas, and your company as a whole becomes more innovative. 

4. A boost to learning and development

Collaboration creates an ideal environment for your team members to learn from each other. Every team member has something to offer and comes from a different experience, which means even senior team members can learn from newer team members.

5. Alignment of your people

Collaboration allows you to align remote and onsite team members. Your people work together regardless of their location, ensuring tasks get completed on time. This also helps prevent remote team members from feeling isolated. 

How do you foster a collaborative environment?

While collaboration offers numerous benefits, many companies struggle to run effective collaborative working environments. Working collaborative values into your company's culture takes intentional effort over time. Here are several tips for fostering a collaborative culture at your company.

Emphasize your mission

Bring your team members together over a shared goal with your company's mission. Your mission should be clearly defined and simple, yet compelling. When your people have a reason for what they're working for and are passionate about it, they’re more likely and willing to work as a team to achieve it. Emphasizing your mission and bringing it up consistently ensures everyone understands it and can keep it in mind while working.

Lead by example

Your people look to you for direction when they're unsure of something. While you can tell them to collaborate, if they don't see you collaborating, too, they’re less likely to adopt the mindset. Demonstrate collaboration whenever possible to show team members you're serious about the implementation. 

Leading by example also helps build trust among your people. When your team members trust you and each other, working together comes naturally.

Respect diversity

Each team member offers a different perspective and thought process. To foster a collaborative environment, respect diversity and encourage everyone to share their diverse perspectives. Showing your people you value their ideas and views helps reduce bias and puts everyone on an even playing field. Respecting diversity encourages cohesion among team members, and a cohesive team can effectively collaborate. 

Communicate your expectations

Communicate your collaboration expectations early on so team members know when they're expected to work together. Discuss collaboration expectations in your onboarding process so new team members understand the culture from the start. Rewrite job descriptions to differentiate individual responsibilities and collaborative responsibilities so team members know when they're expected to prioritize collaboration in their roles.

Clearly define your goals

Much like defining your mission, be sure to clearly define and regularly discuss personal, team, and company-wide goals. Discussing goals daily helps maintain productivity, because everyone knows what they're working toward each day. Shared goals also encourage team members to swap ideas with each other and collaborate to reach their goals. 

Focus on individual strengths

Team members who feel appreciated and valued in their positions are much more likely to stay for longer. Focusing and highlighting individuals' strengths is an effective way to make your people feel valued and build your team with emphasis on each person's strengths. Focus on how individual strengths can be used in collaborative environments. Everyone brings something different to the table, so determine how that collection of skill sets can best be used in collaboration.

Promote a community-centric work environment

A community-centric work environment is beneficial for many reasons, and many team members desire this type of workplace. Promoting a sense of community at work encourages team members to connect in professional and personal ways. Building connections allows team members to align themselves and work together more effectively. 

Foster open and transparent communication

Communication is one of the most important aspects of collaboration. Communication may not come as naturally to some team members, so it's important to foster an environment where your people feel safe communicating openly with you and other team members. When team members feel comfortable speaking openly, they'll be more likely to contribute and share ideas. This ultimately leads to a more collaborative, productive work environment. 

Encourage innovation and creativity

A collaborative environment requires room for innovation and creativity. Creativity and collaboration are tightly knit, meaning encouraging one promotes the other. Encouraging creative thinking helps team members feel comfortable sharing and challenging ideas and gives them more of a stake in your goals and mission. Give your people space to be creative together, and collaboration will follow. 

Share knowledge

Knowledge-sharing is a crucial aspect of collaboration. Encourage team members to share information, experiences, and resources. Providing both physical and virtual spaces where your people can discuss, give feedback, encourage each other, and work together will help promote overall collaboration.

Use collaborative tools

Digital collaboration tools are essential in today's workplaces. With many companies utilizing remote and hybrid workforces, in-person collaboration may be more difficult or even impossible, in some cases. Collaborative tools unite your team members regardless of their location or schedule, allowing them to collaborate from near and far. These types of tools can help foster collaboration and grow your company.

Celebrate successes

Celebrating successes and rewarding your people for effective collaboration shows them where your company's values lie and can give team members something to strive for. Rewards serve as an incentive for your people to work together and can be a tangible way of showing them that good things happen when they collaborate.

Discover the power of the Content Cloud

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The Content Cloud is a game changer for the entire organization, streamlining workflows and boosting productivity across every team. Contact us today, and explore what you can do with Box.

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