How can you create innovative collaboration capabilities?

I’m often asked how we can get best results out of our team’s efforts.  When working with a number of professionals who all are experts in their field, it’s critical that every team member approach their projects with an open mind. How can you help build a more innovative team?

These guidelines also help you find new ideas to share during an innovative product development process. The rules help you keep everything positive during the stressful times that happen in innovative business cultures.

Most innovative organizations can be highly competitive cultures, but they can overcome many of the problems by changing how they look at their roles as they support their fellow team members.  We not only provide ideas to the innovation process, but can also help by providing people the encouragement required to openly talk about new ideas in a supportive environment.

I hope to provide you with a leadership strategy that helps you multiply you and your team’s effectiveness. I adopted these ideas from Liz Wiseman’s book Multipliers – How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter.  Now here are the questions I’d ask you to consider ask you work on your teams:

• Do you look outside your organization regularly for new ideas and fresh approaches?
• Are you recognizing new possibilities to develop and support team members?
• Are you open-minded and humble enough to accept ideas from others in a group setting?
• Are you able to help a group of people work collaboratively to accomplish more than they would as individuals?
• Do the people working with you say you help them develop and feel like they’re accomplishing something meaningful?
• Have you demonstrated through your leadership you have the capacity to take your people and multiply their success?

If you are doing this well, you are creating a stronger, innovative, and  more cohesive team.   If your team is struggling, it may be because people are not supporting each other to get great results.  Either way, this is a great quick assessment to help determine how you can get higher performance out of your team.

If you’re interested in learning more about the role communications has in an innovative organization, you might want to consider attending The Delivering High Performance Collaboration Conference held over the next two weeks, online.  I hope to see you there.   I will be sharing additional ideas on team building next Thursday.