The last few years have changed the way we work and collaborate, and it doesn’t look like we’re going back to our old ways any time soon. As of December 2022, office occupancy rates are still hovering around 50% in most major cities, and the upward trend looks slow and uncertain.
To be effective, teams need to learn how to collaborate in remote and hybrid environments. Thankfully, we’ve learned a lot over the past few years, and in this article, we’ll highlight 6 effective ways to supercharge collaboration in these settings.
6 Ways to Supercharge Collaboration
1. Be a Collaborative Leader
The first thing that teams will need for effective collaboration is someone to lead them. This is not necessarily a managerial role.
“Management is a job, it’s a role. It can be given to you and it can be taken away. Whereas leadership is a quality that you’ve got to earn.” Julie Zhuo, author of The Making of a Manager, on the Design Better Podcast
The first step in learning to lead is acting like an owner. Business owners accept responsibility and do what’s required to push an organization forward—even when the work isn’t glamorous. They step in when and where help is needed most. It doesn’t matter if a given task isn’t within their job description. Leaders ask themselves: “Who will carry this forward if not me?”
As author Dan Pink says, another part of being a good leader is having fewer how conversations, and more why conversations: