A long, long time ago, in an office far, far away, you heard about this magic juice called collaboration, and you realised you definitely want a sip.
Unsurprising, considering how so much good in the world was brought to us by collaborators: Artistic endeavours, scientific developments, technological advancement – name any field, and you’ll find it’s had more than one breakthrough that’s the result of two or more people putting their heads together to figure stuff out.
Lennon and McCartney, Jobs and Woz, the ISS, Procter and Gamble… This list could go on and on and on and we still wouldn’t run out of great collaborations to enumerate, because it’s just how it is. It works. And if an extensive list of great collaborations isn’t enough proof, we’ve also got science formally recognising collaboration as a more complex human interaction than we originally thought by actually setting up a new branch just for the study of it.
So now you want in on this awesome Collab Club – but how do you get started? Here are 4 things to keep in mind on your newfound journey towards getting your team to work together in magical collaboration!
- # Don’t be a lone wolf
MailChimp’s Richard Maddux summarises the importance of this quite succinctly: “Life and work is made better by letting other folks in.” Good collab starts when collaborators acknowledge that you always work with someone, knowingly or otherwise.Collaboration magic can’t happen if you or your office foster a culture of going it alone. So the first step: Don’t be a lone wolf.*
*This isn’t to say you should be spoon-fed your tasks. You still need to be independent. Just remember that there is a world of difference between lone-wolfing and working independently: A lone wolf is just – and really, there’s no way around saying it – a bit of an edge lord, trying to get brownie points for themselves while everyone else is busy scoring all-time career-highs for the team. An independent worker, on the other hand, is someone who understands how the group functions as a whole and knows their duties and responsibilities within that team dynamic. It isn’t hard to see which one you should always strive to be if you want collaboration to flourish.
- # Give your collab a little nudge here and there
Collab magic needs a little more than just hand waving and uttering incantations: It needs to be pushed in the general direction of where you want your brainstorms to make landfall. Use Post-Its, draw doodles, encourage everyone to go wild in the chat boxes, share content! Some teams enjoy lightning sessions where they sit for 15 minutes straight and just pour out all their ideas into a general bucket for later sorting, sifting, and refining. Others like to gamify meetings. Talk it out with your members to figure out which methods best gets the team in the mood.
(Just remember that nudging is not nagging. Don’t nag! Naggers are largely ignored, and they cause more harm than good by making people want to shut off all channels of communication, and we all know that’s the last thing we’d ever want for our teams)
- # Keep track of everyone’s ideas
When collaborating, always remember to keep track of people’s ideas. The big ones, the small ones – all of it. There’s something in everything that comes out of collab sessions! Don’t underestimate an idea, no matter how wildly absurd or boring and simple it may be – remember, all avalanches start with a single rolling snowball.
Of course, this also means you’ll need something that can keep up with the flow of bright ideas. Your team’s ideas are an avalanche you’ll have to ride: You need to be prepared to ride its momentum. It’ll be fast, fun, and bumpy, and you’ll need a great snowboard for it, so get you a nice note-taking app or a teamwork platform like Trello or Campgrounds so you don’t have to worry about your fingers falling off from taking notes.
- # Flex that collab muscle!
You know how if you want to be leaner, stronger, and better built, you hit the gym and work out? Yeah? That’s the way it should be for team collaboration too! The more you take time for collab and brainstorming sessions, the quicker everyone falls into its rhythm, the faster the gears turn, and the better the end results get.
The first few tries are always going to be a bit difficult, especially if your teammates come from a culture of tedious bureaucracy or closed-door managerial styles – but it’s just like your first few lifts. Keep at it, and in no time you’ll find your team doing all the heavy lifting without even breaking a sweat.