5 Workplace Collaboration Styles That Encourage Teamwork and Innovation

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Collaboration is an essential part of any workplace culture. How well your team works together can make or break their ability to perform, regardless of individual capabilities.

But teamwork doesn’t come naturally to everyone. So, how can you encourage employees to not only cooperate with each other but to truly work collaboratively? How can you incorporate collaboration into your mentorship program?

Keep reading to discover the best workplace collaboration styles that foster teamwork and drive innovation.

What Do We Mean by Collaboration Styles?

Teamwork is easy in theory but complicated in practice. Even people with otherwise identical skill sets and work ethics can have completely different preferences in how they work and communicate.

Let’s say you’re the manager of a call centre and aim to establish a set of outbound calling best practices. Are you a leader with a clear, pre-existing vision of what those practices would be? Or will you leverage others’ insights to find the best approach?

A collaboration style is the approach you take to working with others in the pursuit of a shared goal or vision. This includes distribution of authority and autonomy. You might feel the need to lead or to at least follow someone who can. Or, you might prefer a more hands-off approach where everyone works and contributes in their own ways.

You also have to consider the tools and communication channels you’ll use. For example, collaboration styles following one leader’s vision may benefit from one dedicated comms channel. In an innovative group think tank, on the other hand, you’ll likely need multiple channels for different topics to prevent valuable ideas from being lost in the churn.

5 Workplace Collaboration Styles to Try

If employees are used to working solo, suddenly needing to work with others can feel awkward and restrictive. What’s more, everyone has their own preferences when it comes to ways of working.

But collaborating on projects has numerous benefits and is sometimes unavoidable. To help your employees collaborate successfully, it’s worth understanding different styles and how they will impact individuals and the team.

We’ve compiled a list of workplace collaboration styles to help you and your employees find their footing. Keep in mind that these styles aren’t mutually exclusive, so feel free to pick and choose based on your setup, needs, and preferences.

1. Delegative Collaboration

Some projects are too big to handle in an entirely top-down manner. In times like this, delegation can be your most effective tool. That means separating the projects into distinct areas and elements, then giving individual collaborators control over them.

This might mean assigning people solo projects or putting them in charge of their own teams. As such, delegative collaboration can be a great way to help employees develop leadership skills.

Autonomy is a powerful tool because it’s an expression of trust. When you trust someone to get results in their own way, they’re more likely to be passionate in their work.

Delegation can help MVPs shine but be careful. For it to work, you need to be able to rely on those you delegate to. As the saying goes, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.

2. Directive Collaboration

Directive collaboration means that collaborators all defer to a leader with a central vision. This approach can be helpful when you need to make decisions quickly or if one person has significantly more expertise than others. It also lends itself well to top-down mentorship, as leaders guide their employees’ progress to achieve the desired results.

Although we distinguish this from delegative collaboration, you may still have to delegate to some extent. Depending on the project size, it may not be feasible for one person to maintain direct oversight of all moving parts. As such, you’ll need to pay attention to your colleagues’ KPI reports to lead effectively.

When taking a direct leadership role, however, you have to be careful not to stifle the people under you. Even if you have a clear vision of your goals, you may be surprised by the insights of others. You’ll miss out on vital innovation if you don’t strike the right balance.

3. Cooperative Collaboration

Rather than having a chain of command, cooperative collaboration means everyone contributes and makes decisions equally. As a great equaliser, cooperative collaboration is a fertile ground for both top-down and peer mentorship as you witness firsthand how others achieve their goals.

It’s a useful approach when everyone involved has some kind of vital expertise. However, there is a downside, and that is that it can lead to a diffusion of responsibility. When nobody is in charge, it can be hard to hold people accountable and may take longer to reach decisions.

4. Task-Focused Collaboration

Task-focused collaboration focuses primarily on goals and objectives. You’ll need to choose appropriate planning and goal-setting methods to break down each aspect of the project. For example, SMART goals can be an effective way of turning mountainous projects into a series of manageable sub-goals.

That said, for large-scale collaboration, it’s hard to beat OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). These connect each project in your business to an overarching goal. Combined with regular check-ins, your people can have a nearly real-time view of how their fellow collaborators are progressing.

5. Community-Focused Collaboration

Perhaps more than any other style, community-focused collaboration emphasises your underlying workplace culture. It focuses on things like wellbeing and engagement as well as how you can help your people thrive. Naturally, this also means better enabling both formal mentorship programs and informal mentor connections.

Like task-focused collaboration, this style benefits from regular check-ins. However, rather than mere progress updates, these provide insight into how engaged an individual employee is, any obstacles they’ve encountered, and the kind of support they need.

Community-focused collaboration is about giving everyone a voice. Yet, unlike cooperative collaboration, this doesn’t necessarily mean doing away with top-down leadership. Rather, leaders can use this style to improve their own leadership skills by better understanding their people.

Be Willing to Change Your Approach

Whether you’re a team leader or team member, it’s natural to gravitate towards a collaboration style that suits you. But that would defeat the purpose of collaboration. No matter how much you prefer one approach, you need to be open to change.

Throughout your career, you’re likely to come across various collaborative styles. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different approaches, especially if you’re approached to mentor others who may engage differently than you do.

Identify the best collaboration style(s) for individual situations and teams. You might just find that mixing it up helps bring everyone together in the best way possible.

Author Bio

Cory Plachy is the Senior Marketing and Communications Manager at Convoso, the leading contact center software for powering sales and lead generation As an adaptable and naturally curious Marketing Communications Manager, Cory channels years of content creation, marketing and sales experience into the world of SaaS communication. Here is her LinkedIn.