Professionals thrive in places where they can work together and communicate properly. If your company has a focus on collaboration, team members will feel that they become natural parts of something bigger. In order to achieve this state, it is important that each individual has a collaborative mindset so they can participate actively. Here are things that managers and team leaders should do to cultivate workplace cohesion.

Create compelling causes

If you want to achieve cohesion, team members should be convinced about the company’s mission. If the mission is exciting and compelling, it will inspire all team members. Eventually, all team members will aspire to accomplish the company goals. Employees need to be passionate and clear about goals that are presented to them. If you want everyone to collaborate, it is important that your purpose and vision are clear.

Communicate better

Good communication is the minimum standard for proper collaboration. As an example, each team member should know about their responsibilities and this requires a good communication. Team members will be able to work effectively and they won’t step on others’ toes accidentally, which could potentially create unforeseen conflicts. Each member should understand what it takes to have shared responsibility in the team.

Define Goals for the Team

There could be multiple teams in a company and they usually all have different goals. It is important that team goals are clearly established if you want to drive success. Goals may need to be monitored and evaluated on a quarterly basis. There should be a reliable way to measure the progress of each goal and you should know how to determine and how to implement improvements.

Leverage the strengths of each Team member

All team members should be empowered and it’s much more productive to focus on their strengths, instead of their weaknesses. Team leaders need to know about the strengths of each team member and what they can do. It means that teams member can be assigned to the most appropriate tasks for them.

Foster interactions between Team Members

Achieving cohesiveness will be easier if you can foster interactions. Team members should be included in all major decision-making processes, whenever possible. This will help them to perform better and they can become more effective. They will be able to deal with daily hurdles better because they can ask for opinions. Also, communication will prevent competition among team members and the duplication of efforts.

Encourage everyone to Innovate

There should be regular brainstorming sessions and issues should be addressed in a non-judgmental environment. Team leaders should be able to coach all team members. They should be able to overcome obstacles and challenges. Everyone should have a can-do attitude and it is necessary if the team seeks to live up to the expectations set by the management. Team leaders should talk with each member to know about their ideas and thoughts. If an idea seems to be quite promising, team leaders should focus on it to see whether it’s viable for implementation. A team that innovates consistently should be able to become more effective and exceed expectations.

Make sure that promises are kept

Promises should be held sacred within your team; this is especially true when you are dealing with customers. This should go a long way toward improving trust and team members are able to count on one another. If relationships grow, productivity will grow too.

Encourage everyone to Socialize

We often lead a busy life and our obligations tend to increase stress. Team members need to socialize inside and outside of work. This is important if you want to open multiple channels of communication and have a better understanding. Good communication should be able to break down any mistrust and everyone should share their common interests. If you socialize properly, you can also remove false objectifying, stereotyping and individual bias.

Reward

Collective accomplishment should be honoured. The company should attach bonuses and performance rewards to any collaborative effort.

You should know that establishing a collaborative environment is only one requirement among many if you want to have a successful business. Collaboration needs to be purposeful and consistent. Your company may already have had great successes in the past, but productivity and results may increase exponentially if you collaborate well.

This post was written and supplied on behalf of The Institute of Executive Assistants and Administrators, a London based Institute that offers Executive PA Training.