Teamwork capabilities are not merely just an emerging trend in organizations; they are vital in organizations. If you need to innovate with colleagues, have a team project due, or just want to know how to deal with that difficult person, interpersonal skills are valuable. That is where collaboration skills come in; a question that must be asked is, what are collaboration skills and why are they so important in the modern workplace?
In this article, we’ll explore everything you need to know about collaboration skills: goal, explanation, examples, and exercises is now available for you to enhance your skills. If you’re asking now, “Is collaboration a skill I can learn?” Or if you need a clearer explanation of what collaboration skills are, we are here for you.
What is meant by collaborative skills?
Essentially, collaboration skills are all about the ability to combine people, ideas, and efforts in order to achieve a desired end to end result.
“They are the ‘binder’ of a team that allows the, invariably, arithmetic mean of a team to surpass sum of its components,” agrees Sayla Sabrin, founder Vivipins who expended ample years fine-tuning collaboration over diverse tech teams and a staunch advocate. “In today’s global environment such skills while perhaps once considered desirable are imperative for leading the growth and managing projects cutting across geographical and cultural boundaries.
What makes collaboration skills valuable?
This paper focuses on interpersonal skills which work hand in hand with collaborative skills so that one can be in a position to work with any group whether small or large in an organization. “Diverse teams allow different groups of people to achieve more, share information and search for the best solutions together,” affirms Tanya Lamont, CEO of Conversational, who has had opportunities to learn how important collaboration skills are for achieving organisational goals when working remotely. “It does this by improving decision making, rates of work and overall organizational climate.”
Sofia Perez, Owner and Content Manager at Character Counter as well also enlightened me about the career relevance of collaboration skills that one can learn on the website. “I personally like using action example when the members of the marketing department meet to coordinate and manage marketing events particularly online marketing campaigns,” noted Perez. “Because such platforms target different customers – graphics, written text or short videos – my staff get involved in these meetings to come up with different solutions which may have not been thought of by someone else.”
If everyone within a certain works in a team, interactions are more effective and less likely to involve confusion and mistakes. Also, good collaboration skills foster working relations and cooperation in a workplace, enhance interpersonal relations between co-workers, and often result in high morale and staff turnover.
Collaboration skills: are they soft skills or hard skills, or even better, both?
When it comes to professional development, the most important set of competencies is the collaboration skills that may also be defined as the specific set of interpersonal competencies that help the employees to cooperate and communicate effectively. Hard skills which includes specialized knowledge and experience is useful in doing tasks, but the soft skills including interpersonal understanding and specialist communication and flexibility in working or changing is vital in team collaboration skills.
It is partially both; while hard skills make you complete it efficiently; soft skills allow you to communicate or coordinate properly with your team. All together these things establish a basis for an effective team work and advancement within the chosen career paths.
Collaboration skills: examples
Alves explaining the state of cooperation states that flexibility, emotional intelligence, and perseverance are the key soft skills. These qualities enable the working professional to remain productive in that unpredictable working environment and keep ones morale high, an imperative factor that must go a long way to ensure long term sustainability.”
Lamont found it appropriate to draw attention to problem-solving skills as well. “They foster change and are essential in any organisation that aims at chaning and improving on its system,” she adds.
In the text below I will explain these and other collaboration skills as well as how you can use them to achieve better outcomes on the job.
1. Adaptability
When running an idea, one need to be ready for embracing change as well as new inputs from others in a group. Flexibility helps to keep working when there are changes and obstacles coming so that the team will be able to change its posture and demeanor in regard to particular tasks.
2. Emotional intelligence
The term brings into focus awareness of self- emotional states and learning to control those emotions and being aware of emotions of other people. This is a critical interpersonal skill because helps facilitate the establishment and maintain of good working relations especially in a team, conflict solving skills and social skill.
3. Resilience
Recovery is a highlighting of the power to ‘get up again’ from a knock down and to stay cheerful in the face of adversity. In a collaborative context, resilience enables you to stay motivated and engaged to the affairs of a team without waning midway due to any type of challenges.
4. Problem-solving
Conflict solving skills are important in every context that involves people working together. Able to decipher various situations, able to forecast various problems and, therefore, develop an adequate problem-solving strategy for enhancing performance and enable the team work through possible difficulties toward success is a virtue for innovation.
5. Active listening
The key step in this skill is, let’s listen to not only the words people are speaking to us but also ask them questions to clarify what they said and ensure we understand one another. Active listening maintains relationship value by approving that each participant’s views matter thus enabling the achievement of the set goal.
6. Communication
Not so long ago, few would have thought that something as basic as the ability to make yourself understood when speaking or writing was important. The way that it can be resolved is to avoid employing misunderstandings, maintain coherence in what team members do, and simplify a cooperation process.
7. Conflict resolution
Arguing may very at times and when it happens it should be resolved amicably. In this approach, issues are solved in ways that will benefit all parties so that the team does not end with an unpleasant feeling. It will prove useful in order the conflict does not disrupt the usual functioning of the working team.
8. Empathy
Emotional intelligence also assists you when relating with your teammates since you’re in a position to experience things from their perspective. Empathy helps you gain the trust and begin developing a positive climate that enhances the success in achieving goals of the organization.
9. Giving and receiving feedback
The challenge of having time for constructive criticism is important when working in a group setting. Providing feedback in constructive and constructive and receiving feedback is the best way for the team to improve the processes and the performance.
10. Trust-building
As they say, trust is the pillar of cooperation, so before we go further, we need to create certain level of trust between us. In essence, trust in a team can only be built where individuals are dependable, whenever the disclosure of information is made and when one follows through with his/her promises. Interpersonal trust is when team members have confidence in each other and as such the flow between members is more harmonic and the team faces challenges with more self assurance.
The way forward for enhancing your collaboration skills
Patience is necessary because collaboration skills do not come quickly, or without practice. This is especially true whether you’re already good at collaborating or if you’re trying to be better at it There are a lot of things which you can use in order to increase your levels of collaboration.
Engage in self-reflection
Remember any previous team-related endeavors to consider what succeeded and in which ways, at any given time, you might have been more helpful. If notes or journals are being taken, this can help to identify the collaboration skills which are important for a particular job and find out what needs to be addressed.
Seek feedback from colleagues
Other co-workers are well placed to give an account of how the team collaboration skills are demonstrated and where one might be lacking. Attend it with an open mind to see it as a window for reception of constructive opinions and not reprimand.
Communication skills are critical and therefore should be invested in.
One makes the necessary efforts of enrolling for certain classes or participating in workshops that regard interpersonal communication. This could be in the form of speech presentation, listening skills or even anger management skills. The more effective you can speak or write, the more fluidly you can work on enhancing your team collaboration abilities.
Politely demand courtesy
It allows you to engage with the people around you in a completely different way as you develop rapport with your team. An intentional act should be performed to try to comprehend their point of view as well as how they feel. This not only leads to improved relational work but also affects you and makes you a better teamwork and collaboration asset.
Be proactive in team settings
Being proactive shows the rest of the team, and especially the team’s leader, that you are dedicated and willing to take that extra mile. Therefore, do not wait to be called, volunteer to help where your assistance is required. In proactivity the ability to volunteer for a new project or to extend a helping hand to a colleague, all of which greatly improves your contribution to your team.
Always search for tools in the company that can increase your level of collaboration.
Almost every organization has incorporated some form of exercise or activity with the primary purpose of enhancing teamwork.
“One of the unique practices at DevSquad is that Collab Hackathons in which teams are split across projects and given a problem that is unrelated to the project they work on and limited time is given to solve it says Alves. “It also interrupts the conventional methods and fosters innovation as members of the team offer different insight set.”
Bonus tips: Enhancing the cooperation skills with the help of professional advices
That said, it is possible to recommend seeking professional help to reach the next level of collaboration skills: practical experience.
In this bonus section, we’ll discuss how getting a professional input and having individual effective collaboration tips and tricks will make you an even more appreciated team player.
Train with a professional trainer or a coach
Combining both leadership and communication skills, an expert coach or mentor would lead to collaborative person. “They offer a third-party opinion, which may be needed to reorient team goals, facilitate conflict resolution and present useful concepts for increasing tolerance between team members,” Alves continues.
Hire the service of an organizational development specialist
These professionals can diagnose your team and provide training on how best your team can be working together. They can also redesign workshops that address inadequacies in interpersonal relationships, which, in turn leads to improvement in your relational communication in the team.
Leverage HR resources
Consultative skills: This involves recommending sources such as group cohesion activities and other communication theme solution from the HR specialists. They can also bring relevant tools and programs that enhance collaboration within and in between your organization.
Hire a conflict mediator
If conflict is the reason that interferes with the cooperation process, a mediator can explain to the team about effective conflict resolution methods. “Bashers assist in conducting extremely sensitive confrontation exercises ensuring the two parties hear out their opponent towards reaching an agreement,” Lamont states.
Enroll in educational courses
Organizational behavior and team dynamics can be studied in any university or through any online course. Such courses can provide you with both academic and practical knowledge which might help in development of your collaboration abilities.
This way you can gradually enhance the collaboration skills as well as the overall value of the team member. Remember that the most important approach to collaborative work is knowledge sharing and improvement: you’ll find this approach helpful in any workplace.