8 ways to build collaborative teams

Executing complex initiatives like acquisitions or an IT overhaul requires a breadth of knowledge that can be provided only by teams that are large, diverse, virtual, and composed of highly educated specialists. The irony is, those same characteristics have an alarming tendency to decrease collaboration on a team. What's a company to do? Gratton, a London Business School professor, and Erickson, president of the Concours Institute, studied 55 large teams and identified those with strong collaboration despite their complexity. Examining the team dynamics and environment at firms ranging from Royal Bank of Scotland to Nokia to Marriott, the authors isolated eight success factors: (1) "Signature" relationship practices that build bonds among the staff, in memorable ways that are particularly suited to a company's business. (2) Role models of collaboration among executives, which help cooperation trickle down to the staff. (3) The establishment of a "gift culture," in which managers support employees by mentoring them daily, instead of a transactional "tit-for-tat culture", (4) Training in relationship skills, such as communication and conflict resolution. (5) A sense of community, which corporate HR can foster by sponsoring group activities. (6) Ambidextrous leadership, or leaders who are both task-oriented and relationship-oriented. (7) Good use of heritage relationships, by populating teams with members who know and trust one another. (8) Role clarity and task ambiguity, achieved by defining individual roles sharply but giving teams latitude on approach. As teams have grown from a standard of 20 members to comprise 100 or more, team practices that once worked well no longer apply. The new complexity of teams requires companies to increase their capacity for collaboration, by making long-term investments that build relationships and trust, and smart near-term decisions about how teams are formed and run.