5 Ways to Help a Team Collaborate

1. Prioritize communication

Collaboration requires communication. Build a culture that focuses on communication, from weekly leadership team meetings to written status updates. If the team is remote, encourage people to frequently talk on the phone or do video chats.

2. Use a tool

Consider a simple, lightweight tool like Weekly Update. It lets everyone share quick written status updates at the end of every week to better collaborate together.

For example: suppose the VP of Customer Success shares an update about some upcoming customer initiatives in the next month. The VP Marketing reads that weekly update and realizes, “oh, here’s an area where I can help the VP Customer Success with additional design resources.”

3. Avoid competitive cultures

A team culture that is competitive against external competitors is great. However, I’ve never found it valuable for executives to be competing amongst each other in the same company. This kills collaboration.

4. Have shared goals and incentives

When the entire team gets variable compensation based on the same measurable results, everyone is incentivized to support each other, rather than sales just being the VP Sales problem.

5. Hire great people

Lastly, always get the right people in the room. Some leaders are naturally collaborative, while others are not. A top performing leadership team has no room for people that don’t work well with others.