What makes a team uncollaborative?

There are many factors that can create a climate within a team that results in team members being uncollaborative. Teams are made up of individuals, therefore it is often useful to drill down and look at how individuals in the team are operating.

What makes an individual uncollaborative? Think of times when you have withheld information or resources, what was going on for you? Or you may have experienced this with others in your team. What factors were present? Taking time to understand this will help you to identify what needs to change in order to begin to influence the culture of your team.

Some of the factors that contribute to an uncollaborative culture include:

Fear
If you are working in an environment that fosters a fear-based culture this will create a lack of trust between individuals. People will have a tendency to keep information to themselves and to guard their own patch. This negatively impacts the environment and stifles open communication.

In a culture where fear is not a driving factor people are more open, honest and more willing to be vulnerable and tend to be more trusting. Be mindful to filter levels of vulnerability to fit with the situation and the professional environment.

Think back to the times when you have trusted a colleague and taken a risk to be more open and vulnerable – what were the results? You may have experienced both sides of the spectrum. How did this impact you and the project you were working on? What can you take from this experience?

Poor communication
Think about the arguments/misunderstandings you have had with people. There may have been times when you have gone down a path, only to realise much later on that a simple open conversation would have prevented the conflict. Poor communication results in poor relationships between individuals and teams. What is the flow of communication like between team members? Where and how can this be improved?

Culture
The culture of the company will impact the culture of the team. Does the company support or hinder collaboration?

Poor leadership
A lack of direction and strategy from a leader will leave people floundering and with no direction, often they will fall back into the comfort zone of what they know or they will hide. In these situations people have no common goals or objectives, making it harder to come together and collaborate. Do the leaders support a collaborative culture? What are they modelling and driving through the organisation?

Geographical distance
With more and more people working virtually and across different locations geographical distance can impact collaboration. In these situations it’s important to consciously make time to connect and collaborate with colleagues who are based elsewhere.

Collaboration is when people bring different perspectives, ideas and thought processes to a situation. It breathes life and possibility by generating new ideas and solutions that take us beyond our own limited ways of thinking.

For a team to be successful collaboration is vital; open up conversations with your team about what collaboration means to you as individuals and as a team and how you can foster this. As a leader of a team begin to develop strategies to support a collaborative culture. Collaborative teams look out for each other and support each other. They have shared goals, priorities and outcomes. As a team are you clear about what these are? What is the compelling purpose that you are all aligned with?

Who looks after ensuring that collaboration is fostered in the team? Have a dedicated ‘matchmaker’ – someone who can connect people and resources and who is across the whole project. In a smaller team/company this may be a shared role. The role of this person(s) is to look for opportunities where better collaboration would benefit and make a difference. They would be responsible for helping to connect people and to help people to share ideas and resources, resulting in creating a culture that supports individuals and teams to flourish.

For more information on collaboration have a look at this white paper written by Shawn Callahan, Mark Schenk and Nancy White.

Pollyanna Lenkic is the founder of Perspectives Coaching, an Australian based coaching and training company. In 1990 she co-founded a specialist IT recruitment consultancy in London, which grew to employ 18 people and turnover £11 million ($27 million). In this blog Pollyanna answers questions from our readers on issues they are experiencing leading or being part of a team.  She offers insights on teams and team dynamics. For support and information on team days run by Perspectives Coaching see here. Her previous Blog for SmartCompany, 2nd Time Around was about the mistakes she made and the lessons she learned building a business the first time round and how to do it better second time round.

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