Your ability to understand and work with others will be a critical factor in your career development. Partnering with professionals of different personalities and skill sets is an opportunity to achieve something worthwhile.
Providing value to others and maximizing their talents is the key to successful teamwork. However, what is the skills to achieve project goals and team objectives? This article explains all the capabilities you must develop to collaborate with others successfully.
Emotional Intelligence and Team Collaboration
To successfully achieve team collaboration, you must be able to understand your team. You will communicate with professionals of all personality types, which is why you must develop emotional intelligence.
Knowing someone’s mental and emotional state is critical in conveying information.
Before you insert your opinion, try your best to find out the goals and aspirations of your other team members. When people feel like you understand them, they are more likely to engage with you positively.
Emotional intelligence also applies to how you read yourself and your emotions. Before you can reap the benefits of collaboration, you must understand your current state and how you best work.
When you feel like your emotions are running high or out of control, it might be best to take a step back, breathe deep, and return to the project when you calm down.
Verbal and Written Communication
Written and verbal communication is two separate skills, but they intertwine when it comes to team collaboration and projects.
Verbal communication with your team members is critical when you work face-to-face and discuss strategy via phone calls. Written communication applies when you send emails regarding project updates and follow-up information.
Verbal communication goes together with how you convey the message through your nonverbal cues. Not only should your words be clear and concise, but your nonverbal cues should support what you say. Your eyes, facial expression, hands, arms, and general stance can convey positive or negative. When your words and body language do not do much, people may not think you are sincere.
Written communication is a skill we can all improve. It is more important because a lot of a message’s meaning is lost through written communication.
We can comprehend much of a verbal message because of body language and nonverbal cues. However, an email or written message can be interpreted differently, making it essential to be clear and concise with your words to ensure team collaboration.
Strategic Planning
If a project does not adhere to its timelines and deliverable goals, it is an unsuccessful project. It takes an adept professional to outline the “roadmap” for the project. If you try to tackle a project all at once, it will be challenging to finish.
However, breaking the project into mini milestones will make it much more manageable. Strategic planning is the basis for this goal formation.
Every member of the team should have input into the strategic planning process. The first step is to outline the ideal result or end goal. What does a successful project culminate into? Depending on the length of the project, your team should then break up the goal into 5-10 milestones.
Adaptability
A strong long-term plan will help a team navigate through the project. However, there will be unforeseen obstacles the team must address.
Adaptability is a characteristic that all successful teams have. Attacking new challenges will require a positive attitude, which is contagious for the rest of the team.
What are some of the things to prepare for? Anything can happen throughout the project, including deadline extensions, resource issues, and feedback from internal and external stakeholders.
You should always have an open mind when things do not go according to plan. Assess the problem, collaborate with your team members on an effective new strategy, and then everyone should execute.
Negotiation Skills
There will be times when you need to convince someone of your point of view. Whether it is a big or small adjustment, you will need to win the hearts and minds of your team members. Your negotiation skills will be the defining factor in gaining buy-in to your vision.
The heart of your negotiation should be to provide value for all parties. To win someone to your point of view, you must understand their goals and motivations.
Once you know what they care about, you can tailor your message to satisfy these needs. Before you want your vision to be understood, your team members should feel understood.
Organizational Skills
There are many moving parts for any short- or long-term project. Whether it is computer files, meeting information, or project updates, everything must be streamlined. Keeping these pieces of data organized is critical to accomplishing the project on time and under budget.
Organization starts with the individual team members. You can set the tone by always preparing for meetings, following through with what you say, and creating avenues for insightful idea sharing.
There are tools like Jira and Microsoft Sharepoint where you can keep the team on the same page with files and other data transfers.
Creative Problem Solving
Your ability to address unforeseen issues is critical for the health of the project. Understanding your resources is the key to solving problems quickly.
What are the strengths of your team members? Once you know what everyone specializes in, you can leverage that to tackle future obstacles.
Leadership
Every team needs a strong collection of leaders. Leadership does not always mean the person overseeing the project. Leaders can come in many forms, but all leaders have one thing in common: they bring out the best in everyone around them.
You can also lead by example. Doing what you say and keeping your promises are effective ways to build your bank of trust with the team members. When people see you give 100% effort, it will inspire them to be the best version of themselves.
Final Thoughts
Every collaboration works toward a higher goal that is bigger than the team. Each team member has unique strengths and motivations. When you unlock these passions and skills from your team members, you will establish yourself as a trusted leader.
