When it comes to team collaboration and communication, there are a few essential tips to keep in mind. These include building trust and facilitating one-on-one dialogues, as well as using technology like Google Drive and Samepage.
One-on-one dialogues
Dialogues offer opportunities for participants to explore ideas, share perspectives, and consider competing solutions. The process helps participants understand complex issues and build empathy. It can also generate better solutions.
Dialogues can involve a wide range of groups. Some are facilitated by professional facilitators while others are organized by community members with facilitation skills. They can be held anywhere, including hospitals, public institutions, and schools. In any case, a skilled facilitator can establish a dialogue’s ground rules and conversational structure to help participants behave respectfully.
Before a dialogue, a steering committee can ensure that information is factual and well-balanced. It can also identify information to be discussed during the meeting and define the group’s objectives. A dialogue can take as little as one to three hours. Most groups include up to thirty people.
Building trust
Creating a trusting atmosphere in the workplace can help improve productivity. It’s also an important factor in avoiding workplace stress.
Team members want to feel valued and respected. They also want to feel like their ideas are heard. To do this, they should be able to share and collaborate with others. However, if your company culture is lacking in trust, it can be tough to do this.
To start building a high-trust team, managers need to know the five elements of trust. These include setting expectations, listening, sharing information, honoring commitments, and admitting mistakes.
Putting these steps into action can make a big difference in the way your employees communicate and work. Not only will your employees feel more comfortable communicating with one another, but they’ll also be more productive in the long run.
Technology
There are many technological innovations that have made it easier for teams to collaborate and communicate. When done right, technology can help you enhance your team’s performance.
For instance, email has been a primary means of communication for decades. But the advent of collaborative software has provided an opportunity to work on documents in real time, compare amendments and view original versions.
However, there is much more to team collaboration than email. In order to make the most of this innovation, you need to understand the different types of tools available and how they can benefit your company.
One of the biggest advantages of technology is that it allows employees to work from home. This can improve your responsiveness and boost sales.
A number of companies are integrating this type of technology into their workplaces to promote productivity. Employees can share images of their vacation, post shout-outs to their teammates, and discuss relevant trends.
Samepage
Samepage is a software package that makes it easy for team members to collaborate and communicate. It combines real-time document collaboration, file sharing, task management, and team chat. The platform is suitable for a wide range of business needs.
It has an excellent free plan that offers most of its features. Users can also choose a pro plan for $7 per member a month. This plan comes with unlimited storage, a customer success coach, group video calling, and Zapier integration.
While there are a few minor drawbacks, the benefits outweigh them. For instance, Samepage allows teams to share information in a centralized location, which can reduce the amount of unnecessary email exchanges.
The platform also integrates with Google Drive, Dropbox, and Microsoft OneDrive. This can enable users to work on projects without switching applications.
Google Drive
Google Drive is a cloud-based team shared drive that allows you to share, collaborate, and communicate on documents. It can also be integrated with your favorite team collaboration apps.
The ability to edit, comment, and mark up files from any device or platform is a huge plus. You can see a full history of your documents in Google Drive, making it easy to know who changed what.
As a result, you can easily get feedback from teammates. This is particularly important when working with a distributed team. Traditional email attachments limit collaboration opportunities.
Another big plus is that you can edit and revert to previous versions of a document. This means that you can see a minute-by-minute record of your edits. Also, you can see who suggested the changes and who rejected them.