Is Your Team Bad At Collaboration? This Video Can Help Fix The Problem Keith Ferrazzi of Ferrazzi Greenlight explains new ways to collaborate, and why the old myths of collaboration are wrong.
By Jason Feifer
Collaboration has always been central to getting work done, but today companies are rethinking how, when and where they collaborate.
"I think there's a myth associated with collaboration and one of those primary myths is that broad-based collaboration slows down innovation and slows down the pace of change," says Keith Ferrazzi, an award-winning speaker, philanthropist, and bestselling author of the new book Competing in the New World of Work. "It's not true, and in the last few years, we have seen that in the new world of work, inclusion and speed are no longer enemies. We can leverage online collaboration tools and begin to crowdsource ideas with the broadest numbers of individuals to accelerate innovation from more diverse inputs."
According to Ferrazzi, collaboration has everything to do with how employees show up for work. Ferrazzi's research shows that 74% of team members are conflict-avoidant and lack the courage to speak their minds, and 72% of team members do not believe that they and their peers collaborate on the most important business problems. Exceptional teams re-contracted a new social contract among that team and rethought the behaviors they needed to work on to achieve their immediate objectives. Finding out if your team is encumbered by hierarchy and control is crucial because it could stop them from innovating. Peer-to-peer accountability is equally important because it allows you to critique and challenge each other, building a strong foundation where all are committed to each other.
"Remote meetings are another form of collaboration," Ferrazzi says, "and what we found is that many organizations failed to utilize remote tools effectively. Our research shows how we need to reengineer meetings in a remote setting. Every layer of the collaborative stack needs to be innovative and needs to be practiced differently."
One of the most powerful tools he saw underutilized was breakout rooms. There was a higher degree of psychological safety in small breakout rooms within meetings. Everyone's voices were heard, and they opened a shared document to add the input afterward.
Ideas like these will help you come together with your team with a shared commitment to each other. The experience will be invigorating and your productivity will skyrocket.
To hear more about how Ferrazzi is leveraging online collaboration tools and how you can develop high return practices, watch the video above. It is an excerpt from a longer course he produced.
