Why is it important to work together?
We live in a culture that glorifies lone wolves.
From David and Goliath to gunslingers riding out on the high desert, everyone loves stories of one brave individual beating the odds.
That goes for the business world as well.
The most famous inventors of the past — Eli Whitney, George Washington Carver, Benjamin Franklin — they all worked alone.
Today, Silicon Valley is awash in tales of lone entrepreneurs who built billion-dollar enterprises with nothing but a dream. Or at least that’s the perception.
We have this image in our minds of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg at 3 in the morning, working away at their dream until it comes to fruition.
But are those tales true?
When you look into the story of any entrepreneur, you’ll find they had a powerful support system backing them up.
Even in the age of the empowered entrepreneur, you still need a strong collaborative team to build anything meaningful.In this article, we’ll explore why collaboration still matters in a lone-wolf world, and break down what collaboration tools your team can use to work together effectively.
Why is collaboration important?
Collaboration is important because a team has more impact than a person working alone.
Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses. Most people are really good at one or two things, pretty good at several things, and average at everything else.
(OK, and some people are really bad at certain things. But my ability to ice skate is not the issue here).
A good team lets each person focus on what they’re incredible at, while trusting that every other task will be handled by somebody who’s incredible at that thing.
A team makes the best possible use of each individual’s talents.
But it’s not just about skills: collaboration is also about sharing the load.
Suppose you found an athlete who was the greatest of all time — 10/10 in every skill. Even they wouldn’t be able to face an entire opposing team alone.
We’re all only human. There are limits on what one person can do.
And teamwork allows for redundancies — the “covering your ass” of project management.
If your entire product is being developed by a single genius programmer, what happens if that person gets too sick to work?
You’ll have to reorganize your entire release schedule… because one person caught the flu.
That’s what people mean when they say “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
Even the best need backup. Otherwise, you risk getting stuck with a lot of broken eggs.
So what is effective collaboration?
Working together takes work.
You can’t just put everyone on your team in the same office or assign them all the same task.
Nor is it enough to have a once-weekly scrum where everyone on your virtual team shares what they’re working on.
If a team doesn’t have effective systems for employee collaboration, they’re going to be constantly tripping over each other.
Effective team collaboration comes from a carefully orchestrated system where everybody knows everybody’s role. It requires…
- Communication, so everyone understands what is going on outside their sphere.
- Trust, so everyone relies on everyone else to complete critical tasks.
- And commitment, so everybody is invested in a common goal, instead of just themselves.
At monday.com, we believe each of these requirements feeds the one below it.
When people have more complete information, they trust each other more. When members of a team have trusting relationships, they become committed to the team’s success.
So it’s clear that effective teamwork starts with effective communication. That’s why we built all our project management templates around giving clear information to everybody on the team.
In the next sections, we’ll go deeper into how that works.
Related questions answered
Is collaboration a skill?
Absolutely.
Humans are social animals. Our instinct is to work together.
But just like with any other skill, getting better sometimes involves working against your instincts.
On a project team, being too helpful can actually make things less efficient, as people accidentally duplicate each other’s work.
And while many project managers schedule frequent meetings to make sure everybody is aligned, the employees stuck in those meetings are getting less work done.
Effective workplace collaboration rests on everyone’s ability to follow a clearly defined plan.
monday.com workflow software is designed to help with that:
The template above makes it easy to tell what needs to get done, when, and who is responsible.
Leaving someone alone to work might feel like you’re abandoning them. But it’s actually demonstrating faith, in both them and the team.
The other most important thing this template gives you is workplace accountability.
Good collaboration has to fight against another instinct: self-preservation. We naturally want to escape blame for things that go wrong, and take credit for things that go right.
On an effective team, everyone knows who is accountable for each task.
Since you can’t take credit for things you didn’t do, or absolve yourself of blame for your mistakes, you learn two collaboration skills: taking blame, and giving credit.
Just another way clear communication leads directly to productive workplace collaboration. And it all starts with the collaboration tools.
What are the key features for collaboration?
We’ve touched on all these points up until now, but let’s go over them all one more time.
1. Communication
“Are they talking to each other?” That’s the most important question, bar none, that determines whether your team is working as an effective unit.
Communication is easiest when you hire the right people. But it’s also about having processes in place, facilitated by user-friendly tools.
2. Accountability
When somebody succeeds, they get credit. When someone fails, they take responsibility.
This sounds straightforward, but it’s vital. Without accountability, the members of your team won’t be committed to the team’s success.
Instead, they’ll focus on playing politics — only looking out for themselves.
3. Trust
Every member of the team needs to feel comfortable leaving key tasks to other people.
Otherwise, everyone will try to do everything themselves, leading to redundant work, bickering, and burnout.
4. Software
Teamwork in the modern workplace can’t succeed without the right technology.
The best collaboration tools are cloud-based, so they work from anywhere, and friendly to all users.
We built monday.com so your team members wouldn’t feel obligated to use it — they’d be excited. It’s especially useful for virtual collaboration, maintaining employee engagement when doing remote work.
What is an example of collaboration?
Let’s run through a few…
1. Respecting everybody’s right to speak:
Bob notices that Alice is regularly interrupted when trying to speak up at meetings.
The next time Charlie tries to talk over her, Bob asks him to let Alice finish.
2. Taking responsibility:
Charlie drafts an email to Alice, apologizing for cutting her off.
He considers blaming it on drinking too much coffee, but decides not to. Instead, he sends an email in which accepts the blame for his mistake.
3. Maintaining trust:
Debra considers herself the best JavaScript coder in the office, but the new website has a lot of JS.
It’s hard for her to step back and let him build the Contact Us page, but it frees her up to start working on the help desk.
That, in turn, means the team ships faster.
Conclusion
Workplace collaboration isn’t just beneficial. It’s unavoidable.
If you try to do everything yourself, you’ll be forever limited by the amount you can do in a day.
Nobody is an island. Even if you think you’ve crossed the finish line alone, you’re relying on the work of all who came before you.
The best collaboration is enthusiastic and intentional. monday.com workflow management software can get you to that goal.
