Madhav Malhotra
In this blog post, we are going to try and understand why collaboration as a skill is really important mindset and value system, especially for new job seekers as they enter into the workforce. We are going to tackle the team lead aspect of building collaborative environments in a different blog post.
Why is this important?
Workplaces and the work itself are often collaborative in nature. Most objectives require individuals, who bring different experiences, values, and cultural backgrounds to the table, working together for a share objective. More often than not, the success of an outcome depends heavily on how well individuals are able to work with others
What does Collaborative Mindset look like?
At an individual level, collaboration as a skill is not a single ability, but a combination of important skills and attitudes applied together.
- Active Listening: Active listening is a foundational skill for collaboration. It allows individuals to genuinely understand their team members, hear their ideas and concerns, and build a shared understanding of the problem they are working to solve together.
- Communication: Along with listening,communication skills can play a key role in forging strong relationship. Being able to clearly express what is going well, what needs improvement, and everything in between helps create clarity and alignment within a team.
- Trust: Trust can be tricky, as it is also influenced by how a team’s culture is set up. At an individual level, however, operating with a high degree of trust in your coworkers, and assuming positive intent, can go a long way in fostering closer and more effective working relationships.
- Acceptance that collaboration takes time: This might seem like an obvious one, but it is important to be spelled out. Collaboration does not happen instantaneously. Even if you have all the remaining 3 aspects, there will still be difficult moments of conflict, disagreement etc.
Active Listening, Communication and Trust can help navigate those waters, but accepting that the waters will need navigating and there will be turbulence is an important learning to anchor yourself to.
The Role of Culture
It is important to note that a group/team's culture plays a key role in fostering these collaborative attitudes. We are going to discuss that in depth in a different blog post as building that culture is a key team lead/manager skill.