Breaking Down Silos Through Collaborative Work
The modern workplace today, whether a sole entrepreneur or a multinational with thousands of employees, is filled with uncertainty, a constantly changing barrage of new and unexpected challenges, competitiveness and chaos. Clearly, organizations small or large need a new approach or paradigm so employees can not only survive, but thrive.
It could be argued that collaborative working has always been the secret sauce of any successful human or business enterprise. But today collaborative working involves new sets of tools that help workers and customers collaborate in new ways. The “new collaboration” involves sharing clear and common purposes, encouraging open and constructive conversation, and using software and other tools to track activity, guide decisions, and encourage accountability.
Today’s collaborative teams are expected to become more than the sum of their parts. If this can be accomplished, better and quicker innovation, learning, and growth takes place. Over time, collaborative workers tend to develop higher levels of confidence in themselves and each other, and customers also develop into advocates for them.
Creating High Performing Teams
Any organization that suffers from “silo mentality” where workers don’t interact enough with each other is likely to stagnate and suffer in today’s rapidly diversifying and globalized workforce. For companies to nurture collaboration, they must choose individuals that are open enough to the idea of thinking outside the box, cooperating in groups, and working together with people from other departments to gain insights into problems and opportunities.
With today’s complexity, minds must come together to figure out large issues that can only be solved by groups of people rather than by individuals.
In the following video the benefits of collaborative working are discussed:
