Office Depot OfficeMax BrandVoice: When Collaboration Boosts Productivity—And When It Doesn’t

By Richard Sine

The coronavirus pandemic has made collaboration more challenging for many workers, especially those who aren’t used to working from home.

But it’s also made effective collaboration more essential than ever, as workers who are feeling anxious and disconnected need the sense of security that a common purpose provides.   

“One aspect of [successful] collaboration is creating psychological trust and safety,” says Jacob Morgan, author of The Future Leader and The Collaborative Organization. “So it’s important for people to check in with each other, just to say, ‘Are you doing OK? Is there something I can help you with?’ Some people have been hit harder by this than others.”

“People are working different hours from different locations. It can feel chaotic, and they’re not sure how to be as productive and efficient as they need to be when working at home,” Morgan adds. “They need to build relationships and connections to ensure the work is getting done. Here’s where it’s critical for leaders to lead by example and make sure their teams are OK.”

For workers struggling with new technology or juggling new obligations like homeschooling or childcare in addition to work, it’s worth reviewing best practices for creating a collaborative work environment. These practices are all the more important when collaboration is almost entirely remote. 

Tapping The Right People

Remember when you were in school and the teacher told you to “work in groups”? The group was usually chosen at random and often inefficient. Lots of times one poor kid ended up doing all the work. 

Such experience should remind us that productive collaboration begins with assembling the right team for the right reasons. 

Teams should be “small, agile and nimble when possible,” Morgan says. 

Morgan likes Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ “two-pizza rule”: If you need more than two pizzas to feed a team, then it’s too large. A diversity of backgrounds and perspectives is a positive, but there’s no reason to include multiple people with the same skill set in the same team. 

Team leaders need to be able to explain—to themselves and to everyone on their team—why each member is crucial, says Heidi Gardner, a fellow at Harvard Law School and author of Smart Collaboration. If all you need is a person’s buy-in, or a targeted use of their skills or knowledge, then don’t invite them to every meeting. Instead, find ways to keep them informed about progress, or bring them in for a specific task. 

For significant collaborations, Gardner favors a formal project launch where the leader spells out team objectives and individual roles. Individuals should be given the time to reflect on how their skills, knowledge or background can contribute to the team. They can also discuss their own personal work styles or communication preferences.

As teams shift to remote work during the pandemic, colleagues are often working with new tools or facing new personal or professional expectations. This is a good opportunity to revisit the team “basics” that were determined during the project launch, Gardner says. 

Getting To Know You

Successful collaboration requires a degree of selflessness that can’t happen without a sense of trust. The personal bonds that foster trust are harder to form when teammates rarely or never meet in person. Leaders worried about keeping projects on track when everyone is dispersed may be tempted to become “exclusively task-focused,” Gardner says. Instead they should strive to maintain and build personal connections remotely:

• Instead of relying on email, use richer real-time communications such as videoconferencing, so you can read body language and engage in extended conversations. 
• Create a “virtual water cooler” by designating time in meetings for small talk or personal updates.
• Encourage teammates to give “virtual tours” of their home workspaces. Understanding their work contexts will facilitate understanding of disruptions from children or barking dogs. 

With so many people getting used to new ways of working, the potential for misunderstandings grows. 

“The best way to foster or nurture trust is to give people the benefit of the doubt” about work disruptions, Gardner says.

Keeping Things Moving

As projects progress, leaders sometimes unconsciously favor certain team members. Especially when they’re stressed, they tend to turn to teammates who think or look like them. Women, minorities or less assertive team members are sometimes marginalized, Gardner says, citing research in cognitive bias. The tendency can be magnified in remote-work situations where team members are more likely to be “out of sight, out of mind.”

As a result, some team members are underutilized and “there’s a dip in morale and engagement,” Gardner says. “It’s the leader’s job to check in and ensure people are contributing to the fullest extent possible, and if they’re not, find out why. Has the problem changed? Should we let Bill off the team, or do we need to work harder to draw him out?”

To combat unconscious bias and favoritism, Gardner suggests that team leaders make a list of all team members with their photos and keep it in front of them while they’re working on the project. 

Ultimately, most teams won’t be productive if consensus is required, Morgan says. Team members must support the leader’s decision. But that support will come easier if team members—even if they don’t agree with the leader—feel that “everyone is being treated fairly and everyone is valued.” 

Looking for collaboration tools that fit in seamlessly with your productivity platform? Check out Microsoft Teams, now part of the Office 365 suite and available at Office Depot. 

Richard Sine writes about business and personal finance from Washington, D.C.