Building Collaborative Teams

Leaders are frequently faced with the challenge of establishing effective teams that not only fulfill the stipulated goals but also work as per the schedule. The task of building collaborative teams becomes even more daunting when the team encompasses specialists with numerous elements of diversity including race, age, nationality and academic qualifications among other aspects. Whereas such diversities might serve the collaborative teams positively, they might also prove to be a major stumbling block towards the successful attainment of stipulated goals. Effective leaders should have the capacity to develop appropriate strategies for successful workgroups or collaborative teams. (Gratton, 2007)

The establishment of a community-spirit stands out as a crucial strategy for leaders to build collaborative teams. Such a strategy plays an instrumental role towards fostering high standards of team spirit within the workgroup. It is also essential for the leaders to focus upon the establishment of adequate communication channels within the collaborative team. Communication breakdown is one of the main factors that undermine the performance and/or effectiveness of collaborative teams. Essentially, without an effective communication platform, it would be quite challenging for the collaborative team to achieve the stipulated objectives.

Consequently, the leader should devise appropriate strategies for ensuring that effective communication takes place between all members of the collaborative team. As mentioned earlier, the presence of numerous diversities within a collaborative team can seriously jeopardize the workgroup’s performance. In line with this perspective, the effective leader must ensure that team members are fully appreciative of diversity within the group; the leader should emphasize on the strengths brought about by these diversities. (Gratton, 2007)

In most cases, the different members that comprise a collaborative team are usually assigned with different tasks or roles. In order to enhance the effectiveness of such teams, every member must fully understand his/her tasks; consequently, the leader should devise comprehensive mechanisms that are aimed at enhancing role clarity among the different members of a collaborative team. The framework for assigning tasks among the various members of a collaborative team should be based on the specific strengths of individuals within the group. For instance, some team members might be good at information technology while others might be excellent at public relations; the effective leader should strategize on the most appropriate way of harnessing these kinds of skills. (Gratton, 2007)

From a personal perspective, the aforementioned strategies align with my approaches towards the enhancement of performance and/or effectiveness in collaborative team environments. This is because I always seek to focus upon the strengths of team members as opposed to weaknesses. Furthermore, as an effective leader, I always strongly emphasize upon the establishment of effective communication channels within a team environment or work group.

As a result of these kinds of approaches, it is possible to formulate effective solutions for the various problems that might undermine the overall performance of the collaborative team. Within a collaborative decision making environment, my leadership style would come in very handy more so in terms of formulation of solutions. For instance, while addressing a human resource conflict, a systematic analysis of causes of the problem followed by evaluation of potential alternatives would be done. Consequently, the best intervention mechanism would be chosen from all the available alternatives. Another example pertains to the completion of urgent tasks; in such a situation, the different members of the collaborative team would be assigned specific tasks in order to avert any form of time wastage.

Reference

Gratton, L. & Erickson, T. J. (2007). “8 Ways to build collaborative teams,”Harvard Business Review, 85(11), 100-109

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