The Significance of Collaboration Skills in the Workplace

I found this article from Heidi K. Gardner, Ph.D., who has discovered through more than a decade of teaching and research at Harvard’s business and law schools that people who figured out how to collaborate across teams gained a major competitive edge over those who did not.

Dr. Gardner also discovered just how rare collaboration skills are. A 2021 McKinsey study found that collaboration skills are surprisingly rare, especially among men. The study found that women leaders, compared with men at the same level, were about twice as likely to spend substantial time on collaborative efforts that fell outside their formal job.

What exactly is collaboration? The act of bringing people together to solve problems. In my practice, my clients are stressing the importance of cross-functional collaboration – being able to work with people from accounting, HR, marketing, sales, operations – to address complex, nuanced challenges and develop creative solutions.

Why are collaboration skills so important in today’s work force? Research shows that collaborators:

-Deliver higher quality results

-Get promoted faster

-Are more noticed by senior management

-Have more satisfied clients

What are the aspects of being an exceptional collaborator?

1.    Be an inclusive leader.

Whether you are in a leadership position or not, do what you can to bring diverse people together – and be sure to be inclusive in your diversity.

What does that mean? Different knowledge domains, different backgrounds, different ages and life experiences, different educational backgrounds, different cultures, different personality types, different strengths.

2.    Show appreciation and acknowledgment.

A study by Harvard Business School professor Boris Groysberg found that workers, especially men, often take their professional networks for granted.

Acknowledge those who have helped you get where you are and show appreciation for those you’ve collaborated with. Give credit where credit is due – and never, ever throw anyone under the bus for underperforming.

3.    Ask for help.

Whatever your role is in an organization, it is likely that reaching out across the organization for different insights and perspectives will make your final product better.

Collaboration doesn’t have to be a large group – you could collaborate with one person from another department to greatly improve your report, project, or whatever you are working on.

1:1 collaboration can also be a great way to form strong business relationships with people you might not otherwise get to know in any depth.

Remember to credit those who helped you.

4.    Crowdsource.

Give people a way to contribute – and learn along the way – without having to be a part of every team.

Utilize Slack or other messaging tools to spur virtual collaborations, knowledge sharing, and knowledge distribution.

5.    Share data streams.

Scorecards and dashboards are powerful tools that allow you to measure progress against the goals you’ve set, create a sense of positive peer pressure as outcomes can be compared, and make critical information accessible.

This is never done in a punitive manner; having said that, data is data.

Of course, some data should not be shared, so make what can be accessible, accessible.

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