Team collaboration concepts have been in existence for decades with goals of improving production and new processes that serve to benefit organizations. Vast amounts of time and resources are invested into teams with the hope of enhancing one area or another within an organization. Team members meet and collaborate on status, what is working, what is not working, how to best approach problems, and many other topics about the organization. While collaborating is foundational for a team’s purpose, collaboration alone will limit the potential for overall team success. Cementing innovation as a principal component for teams enriches the collaboration experience and can drive needed change. When teams collaborate with the goal of innovation, they produce new ideas, processes, and/or products in order to benefit the organization. So, how do organizations encourage and cultivate innovation for their teams? Coaching, professional development, and team building are common methods to drive innovation but can fall short of their goal if those leading the effort are unequipped, incapable, or incompetent.
Effective leadership is a catalyst for ensuring innovation is established in the team collaborative process. Leaders must embed a culture of innovation and engage in activities that foster free thinking, inspiration, and self-actualization for each of the team’s members. Leaders need to establish a culture of purpose, confidence, and freedom, guiding their teams to goals set by the organization. Empowering team members through coaching methods and behaviors can improve the abilities and skills of individuals to innovatively collaborate. Leaders that coach their teams through innovation enhance each member’s capabilities to achieve greater accomplishments, as opposed to being micromanaged. Effective team leadership and proper coaching allows team members to manage themselves and create their own solutions to organizational problems, allowing innovation to flow through their collaborative experiences.
Each member of the team has a responsibility for innovating to benefit the organization based on common goals. Fostering team collaboration to reach desired levels of innovation can be a tall task. For individual team members to reach high levels of thought, they must be free to dialogue and debate. This intellectual space must be nurtured and promoted by leadership so that it is embedded within the culture of the organization. Once this occurs, individual team members are better suited to self-assess, self-improve, and are more resourceful in times of crisis. Self-management is a necessary element within team dynamics and allows for teams to act independently. A successful team relies on all members, not one individual within the organization. As each member experiences an organizational culture of collaborative innovation, the team becomes stronger. Incorporating coaching concepts, combined with self-management techniques allows teams to operate at higher levels of cognition, fostering team growth and success for the organization. Leaders must utilize coaching in conjunction with relinquishing power and control to increase effectiveness of their teams.
*Engagement questions to start building innovative team collaboration*
What type of team are you a member of within your organization?
Does your team collaborate regularly?
Is innovation a focus when your team is collaborating?
Is freedom of thought and open dialogue embedded within your organization’s culture?
How can your team enhance or establish innovation when collaborating?
References:
Organization development and transformation: Managing effective change (French, Bell, & Zawacki, 2005).
An examination of the motivational and behavioral intervening mechanisms (Rousseau, Aube, & Tremblay, 2013).
A Theory of Human Motivation (Maslow, 1943)