Encouraging Collaboration Among Colleagues
3 January 2012
Read by 2849 persons
Title: Encouraging collaboration between colleagues. Working in pairs or teams stimulates strategic innovation and creativity within the company.
Teamwork promotes innovation and stimulates creativity. Indeed, collaboration, which is more of a favored creative process, brings many advantages to companies that have chosen this type of strategy. According to a study conducted by Steelcase experts on Contemporary Challenges in Collaboration: "In today's company, people no longer isolate themselves in their corner to try to find innovative ideas. No more decisions made solely by a manager. No more strict adherence to hierarchical relationships and execution phases without consultation."
Working in pairs or larger teams therefore finds its place today. Thus, sharing information, coordinating work, generating ideas, debating, making decisions... are all activities carried out jointly by a group of colleagues. A trend confirmed by the study which reveals that companies are aware that collaboration promotes strategic innovation, they seek by all means to ensure the success of their activities, to encourage and develop exchanges and synergies within their teams.
Therefore, focus on all-round collaboration. The results of the study show that most ideas emerge from work done in pairs and that this remains the most frequent form of collaboration. Also, games, in various forms, are an integral part of the collaborative process of companies, but they must be authentic. Another important point: to collaborate well, users must feel that they are in control, and this goes through the appropriation of the space. Furthermore, collaboration requires great trust between participants and that they feel they form a community.
And finally, the study also shows that the spaces that encourage collaboration the most are used without constraint, like tools. And for good reason, their dynamic and changing nature gives them an almost living aspect. In this dimension, the layout of the workspace must therefore facilitate collaboration, while also taking into account cultural and generational differences as well as the diversity of work methods.
In terms of recommendations, the Steelcase study advises making good use of space to encourage enthusiastic collaboration. Thus, the layout of the space must encourage work in pairs or more spontaneously, anywhere, to allow each user to express themselves in their own way, equally, and also to encourage trust and sincere sharing. Experts also advise companies to "allow each user to take ownership of the space, to endorse play by giving it an important place in the company's world, to value failures and not just successes, to encourage and protect the flow, and finally, to express friendly, authentic, human values."
From this perspective, spaces will have to be increasingly efficient, to connect people with each other, and ensure their connection with tools and information, underline the Steelcase experts. The results of the study prove that a functional and ergonomic layout offers all employees the possibility of giving their best in order to increase productivity. Similarly, the enhancement of the emotional dimension linked to the workspace makes it possible to further express the company culture and to contribute to the well-being and motivation of employees.
In short, to guarantee a good atmosphere within the company, top management is increasingly called upon to encourage exchanges and meetings between employees, whether formal or informal, to achieve better cohesion between managers and guarantee synergistic work that yields good results.
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Expert Opinion • Nicolas de Benoist, researcher within the WorkSpace Futures team
What are the latest trends in team management and what is their impact on decision-making?
Even if space is at the heart of companies' problems, it is difficult for me to point out the most recent trends in management. Broadly speaking, the manager must move towards "coaching" rather than the precise management of daily tasks. He must empower the employee. This has two major consequences: the manager must judge his team on the finality and objectives to be achieved rather than on the means and processes to achieve them. Furthermore, he must no longer direct them to the letter, but must learn to accompany them by giving them advice that allows them to solve their problems themselves. He must also understand the diversity of cultures and professional philosophies. Most teams are multidisciplinary and spread across different cities, regions or countries. These differences considerably influence the perspectives of employees, their expectations of well-being, personal satisfaction, etc., to best support them. He must develop a real curiosity about diversity to adapt to this complex but extremely rich relational and cultural context.
Increasingly, the manager must encourage transparency and sharing. Digital technologies generate a lot of information and multiple flows that increase company performance. But they also lead to a lot of opacity, because digital information disappears from the physical world, becoming invisible in the workspace and in people's daily lives. Thus, the manager must encourage individuals to meet so that invisible information, the hidden part of the company's iceberg, reappears above water, in broad daylight, and is fully used by all stakeholders for the benefit of innovation and agility of the company. The challenge of sharing information and transparency is crucial.
To what extent can workspace design increase productivity?
It is considered that space has a very strong cognitive impact, that it can significantly influence the way we think and behave in the company. Its design therefore has a direct impact on people and on productivity, much more than one might spontaneously think.
The well-thought-out design of a workspace can allow us to feel better, to think better, to be more concentrated, more deeply and for longer. Furthermore, as I described previously, the space can largely favor the sharing and dissemination of information if it is well orchestrated, and this is an inseparable condition for the company to function as a living, flexible and adaptive organism. To quote Darwin, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one that is most adaptable to change." This quote is true for the company: if everyone stays in their office with the door closed, maybe the company's intelligence or strength increases, although I doubt it, but what is certain is that it will not be able to adapt because nobody will know what is happening outside their office!
In other words, if a company wants to take advantage of its workspace, it must be attentive to spatially balancing the places of creation, production, or dissemination and think about their interaction so that they are permeable (encourage fluidity) but without disturbing each other.
What do you advise companies to do to further stimulate collaboration among colleagues?
Communication is a natural need among humans. But in the company, exchanges are suddenly less spontaneous, more limited and constrained. Hierarchical weight often prevents employees from expressing themselves freely: they do not dare to give their opinion in the presence of their manager if they disagree, they do not dare to warn their superiors when they have made a mistake, or even share an idea when it changes the status quo. In other words, a company's culture is often the first obstacle to collaboration.
If a company decides to transform its culture to encourage collaboration, it must first change its hierarchical management to a more inclusive management, more attentive to the views of others and more open to mistakes. It must also encourage informal, spontaneous and pleasant relationships between individuals which have the virtue of increasing familiarity between employees which increases the company's social capital. This capital considerably streamlines the execution of the company's work processes. It must show that meeting is not only necessary for important decisions, but also to ensure that everyone is aligned with a shared and accepted vision of the objective to be achieved.
How to encourage spontaneous meetings?
Space can largely encourage spontaneous meetings by bringing people together, by getting them to exchange in corridors, cafeterias, at the office entrance, etc. But it can also encourage inclusive meetings by putting individuals on an equal footing in space, by placing information in the right place, by encouraging all forms of communication. It can also encourage the authenticity of exchanges by breaking certain codes and cultural postures to reintroduce more natural, more human exchanges, less codified by the world of work. A wide variety of spaces can also be an asset to allow users to intuitively choose the place that best suits the type of activity or exchange they wish to have.
Nadia DREF
Lematin.ma
Published December 11, 2011.
Posted online January 3, 2012.
Teamwork promotes innovation and stimulates creativity. Indeed, collaboration, which is more of a favored creative process, brings many advantages to companies that have chosen this type of strategy. According to a study conducted by Steelcase experts on Contemporary Challenges in Collaboration: "In today's company, people no longer isolate themselves in their corner to try to find innovative ideas. No more decisions made solely by a manager. No more strict adherence to hierarchical relationships and execution phases without consultation."
Working in pairs or larger teams therefore finds its place today. Thus, sharing information, coordinating work, generating ideas, debating, making decisions... are all activities carried out jointly by a group of colleagues. A trend confirmed by the study which reveals that companies are aware that collaboration promotes strategic innovation, they seek by all means to ensure the success of their activities, to encourage and develop exchanges and synergies within their teams.
Therefore, focus on all-round collaboration. The results of the study show that most ideas emerge from work done in pairs and that this remains the most frequent form of collaboration. Also, games, in various forms, are an integral part of the collaborative process of companies, but they must be authentic. Another important point: to collaborate well, users must feel that they are in control, and this goes through the appropriation of the space. Furthermore, collaboration requires great trust between participants and that they feel they form a community.
And finally, the study also shows that the spaces that encourage collaboration the most are used without constraint, like tools. And for good reason, their dynamic and changing nature gives them an almost living aspect. In this dimension, the layout of the workspace must therefore facilitate collaboration, while also taking into account cultural and generational differences as well as the diversity of work methods.
In terms of recommendations, the Steelcase study advises making good use of space to encourage enthusiastic collaboration. Thus, the layout of the space must encourage work in pairs or more spontaneously, anywhere, to allow each user to express themselves in their own way, equally, and also to encourage trust and sincere sharing. Experts also advise companies to "allow each user to take ownership of the space, to endorse play by giving it an important place in the company's world, to value failures and not just successes, to encourage and protect the flow, and finally, to express friendly, authentic, human values."
From this perspective, spaces will have to be increasingly efficient, to connect people with each other, and ensure their connection with tools and information, underline the Steelcase experts. The results of the study prove that a functional and ergonomic layout offers all employees the possibility of giving their best in order to increase productivity. Similarly, the enhancement of the emotional dimension linked to the workspace makes it possible to further express the company culture and to contribute to the well-being and motivation of employees.
In short, to guarantee a good atmosphere within the company, top management is increasingly called upon to encourage exchanges and meetings between employees, whether formal or informal, to achieve better cohesion between managers and guarantee synergistic work that yields good results.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Expert Opinion • Nicolas de Benoist, researcher within the WorkSpace Futures team
What are the latest trends in team management and what is their impact on decision-making?
Even if space is at the heart of companies' problems, it is difficult for me to point out the most recent trends in management. Broadly speaking, the manager must move towards "coaching" rather than the precise management of daily tasks. He must empower the employee. This has two major consequences: the manager must judge his team on the finality and objectives to be achieved rather than on the means and processes to achieve them. Furthermore, he must no longer direct them to the letter, but must learn to accompany them by giving them advice that allows them to solve their problems themselves. He must also understand the diversity of cultures and professional philosophies. Most teams are multidisciplinary and spread across different cities, regions or countries. These differences considerably influence the perspectives of employees, their expectations of well-being, personal satisfaction, etc., to best support them. He must develop a real curiosity about diversity to adapt to this complex but extremely rich relational and cultural context.
Increasingly, the manager must encourage transparency and sharing. Digital technologies generate a lot of information and multiple flows that increase company performance. But they also lead to a lot of opacity, because digital information disappears from the physical world, becoming invisible in the workspace and in people's daily lives. Thus, the manager must encourage individuals to meet so that invisible information, the hidden part of the company's iceberg, reappears above water, in broad daylight, and is fully used by all stakeholders for the benefit of innovation and agility of the company. The challenge of sharing information and transparency is crucial.
To what extent can workspace design increase productivity?
It is considered that space has a very strong cognitive impact, that it can significantly influence the way we think and behave in the company. Its design therefore has a direct impact on people and on productivity, much more than one might spontaneously think.
The well-thought-out design of a workspace can allow us to feel better, to think better, to be more concentrated, more deeply and for longer. Furthermore, as I described previously, the space can largely favor the sharing and dissemination of information if it is well orchestrated, and this is an inseparable condition for the company to function as a living, flexible and adaptive organism. To quote Darwin, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one that is most adaptable to change." This quote is true for the company: if everyone stays in their office with the door closed, maybe the company's intelligence or strength increases, although I doubt it, but what is certain is that it will not be able to adapt because nobody will know what is happening outside their office!
In other words, if a company wants to take advantage of its workspace, it must be attentive to spatially balancing the places of creation, production, or dissemination and think about their interaction so that they are permeable (encourage fluidity) but without disturbing each other.
What do you advise companies to do to further stimulate collaboration among colleagues?
Communication is a natural need among humans. But in the company, exchanges are suddenly less spontaneous, more limited and constrained. Hierarchical weight often prevents employees from expressing themselves freely: they do not dare to give their opinion in the presence of their manager if they disagree, they do not dare to warn their superiors when they have made a mistake, or even share an idea when it changes the status quo. In other words, a company's culture is often the first obstacle to collaboration.
If a company decides to transform its culture to encourage collaboration, it must first change its hierarchical management to a more inclusive management, more attentive to the views of others and more open to mistakes. It must also encourage informal, spontaneous and pleasant relationships between individuals which have the virtue of increasing familiarity between employees which increases the company's social capital. This capital considerably streamlines the execution of the company's work processes. It must show that meeting is not only necessary for important decisions, but also to ensure that everyone is aligned with a shared and accepted vision of the objective to be achieved.
How to encourage spontaneous meetings?
Space can largely encourage spontaneous meetings by bringing people together, by getting them to exchange in corridors, cafeterias, at the office entrance, etc. But it can also encourage inclusive meetings by putting individuals on an equal footing in space, by placing information in the right place, by encouraging all forms of communication. It can also encourage the authenticity of exchanges by breaking certain codes and cultural postures to reintroduce more natural, more human exchanges, less codified by the world of work. A wide variety of spaces can also be an asset to allow users to intuitively choose the place that best suits the type of activity or exchange they wish to have.
Nadia DREF
Lematin.ma
Published December 11, 2011.
Posted online January 3, 2012.
