Knowing how to collaborate effectively is essential for building high-performance, committed teams. Good collaboration makes full use of individual and collective skills to achieve common goals. In this article, we give you the keys to improving your collaboration and optimizing your teamwork on a daily basis.

The challenges and benefits of collaboration

Collaboration is more than just working together, it's based on practices and skills that are essential for collective success. Collaborating well together involves :

• Effective communication: communicating clearly, listening to others, sharing ideas respectfully and constructively.
• Managing tension and stress: knowing how to handle conflicts, find solutions and maintain a calm working climate.
• Lasting team cohesion: fostering mutual support, recognition and trust to reinforce commitment.

By cultivating these skills, teams improve their efficiency and create a motivating, harmonious working environment.

Synchronous and asynchronous collaboration

With the evolution of remote and hybrid working, working well together means mastering both synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous (deferred) modes of communication.

Synchronous communication

In any efficient and caring work environment, synchronous communication is essential. It is through this form of real-time communication that teams coordinate their actions, exchange ideas and make decisions. Here are a few key principles to ensure effective communication:

• Practice active listening: focus on the speakers, avoid interruptions and rephrase to validate understanding.
• Be clear and concise: express yourself simply to limit misunderstandings.
• Respect differing opinions: encourage a climate of goodwill to foster exchange and creativity.
• Master the tools: Zoom, Teams, Slack... Make sure you're using the right tools to streamline your exchanges.
• Plan and monitor discussions: set agendas and formalize decisions.

Asynchronous communication

The use of other communication tools, such as recorded team meetings and audio messages, can considerably enrich remote professional interactions and the collaborative work that ensues.

• Use video recordings (Loom, Teams) to document meetings and brainstorms.
• Use audio messages to convey information in a more fluid and nuanced way.
• Centralize information with shared documents and organized discussion threads.

When teams adopt these new forms of communication and exchange information continuously, they overcome distance more easily and strengthen their collaboration.

Working remotely

In the context of remote collaboration, the balance between transparency and trust is of paramount importance. Establishing open and frank communication between team members is central to ensuring that everyone is in harmony with each other.

Sharing priorities and concerns ensures that collaborators forge a strong bond, without the constant fear of over-supervision. This practice not only encourages self-expression, it also helps to align efforts towards common goals, thus stimulating innovation and collaborative resolution of the challenges specific to remote collaboration.

Focus on transparency

Sharing priorities and questions as a team facilitates communication without giving the impression of being watched. Everyone can express themselves freely and better coordinate their actions with those of others.

By creating a climate of trust, this approach encourages collaboration and adaptability, strengthening commitment and motivation. Rather than controlling, it relies on mutual support and teamwork to create a calmer, more efficient environment.

Share your calendar

The adoption of a transparent agenda within a team is more than just a coordination tool, it's a real facilitator that makes it possible to :

• Streamline communication and organization: by sharing their availability, teams can optimize meeting planning and avoid scheduling conflicts, which improves priority management and task allocation.
• Reinforcing mutual respect: Taking everyone's constraints into account fosters a climate of trust and a better balance between work and personal life, thus reducing stress.
• Embodying corporate culture: agenda transparency reflects essential values such as collaboration and respect, especially in a hybrid context.

Training for better collaboration

To meet this growing demand, a multitude of training methods are now available, ranging from online platforms to practical in-company workshops. These resources offer unique opportunities to strengthen teamwork skills and foster open, transparent communication.

• Online training (Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy) on collaboration and team communication.
• Workshops and seminars for group practice.
• Mentoring and coaching for personalized support.
• Field experience: actively participate in team projects to reinforce your skills.

‍

The NUMA Hybrid Collaboration course offers a practical, real-world approach to improving your managers' collaborative skills. By focusing on the effective use of communication tools, transparency and agenda coordination, this course aims to strengthen collaboration within teams.

Ultimately, knowing how to work together is essential to developing high-performance, committed teams. By working together, team members can combine their skills and ideas, overcome obstacles and innovate creatively. This fosters a positive work environment, reinforces a sense of belonging, and improves job satisfaction, leading to greater involvement and overall productivity. In short, collaboration is key to the long-term success of teams in all fields.

To find out more about our approach and how we structure our training courses, click here.