I must admit that I have grown to dislike the phrase “collaborative workplaces” (even more so after getting through putting these thoughts together!). I was on the bandwagon for most of 2022 and 2023, but it has ended up on the same list for me as hoteling and hot desking. Looking back, the office has always been collaborative. Forcing the issue ended up pushing other activities out of the workplace spotlight, often not to the benefit of office effectiveness.
Thinking about this topic brought forward the realization that collaboration is best when it is multi-channel. We get the best out of ourselves and our teams when we engage on multiple levels. Putting all the pressure on in-person collaboration to be effective can often be self-defeating because so much of collaboration starts well before the times we are together.
Let me breakdown my communication styles:
- Team meetings. A lot of people hate them because so many of them are run poorly. But a good team meeting takes the guesswork out of the day-to-day stuff that is going on. When we all understand the baseline of where everyone is right now, we can more readily look to the future. These should be protected meetings that are focused, fun, and engaging. Going around the circle for rote updates is easy, but usually ineffective.
- One-on-one meetings. This one comes down to how the two people work best together. If one person loves them and the other hates them, you cannot do them every week. If both people love them, go heavy and stay flexible. However, having one-on-ones establishes a personal working relationship between the two people that can be leaned on later in projects.
- Emails. This is a big one that too many people forget lives in the world of communication and collaboration. It is always there on our screen with the never-ending stream of what is going on from informative, to spam, to questions, to requests. Email should always, always, always be intentional. There is nothing more demoralizing to someone on the other end than an email that either does not spell out why it exists or a response that does not give a clear outcome. Taking an extra 60 seconds to read the original one more time or to proofread the response may save others hours and a ton of frustration later.
- Ad hoc calls. Never forget the ad hoc call. It holds real power. There is no better way to build trust than two people simply talking off-script about a topic they are both working through. In the office, this was the conversation that happened over the cubicle wall or the five-minute coffee chat in the morning. Digitally, it is the “gotta sec” message that leads to the quick chat.
- Project meetings. Now we get to the nitty-gritty of getting things done. The first rule is to always have the right people on. It is sometimes better to delay the discussion to ensure the right people are there otherwise you can end up in the repeated meeting syndrome where someone new shows up each week and needs to be caught up wasting half the call. The corollary to this rule is to not include the wrong people. It is a fine line, but an important one. Make these meetings focused. Having agendas, goals, and deliverables. Only minute or record them if you are absolutely required to because otherwise, people may not share what they are really thinking. Many think that these need to be in-person but I find that virtual is often better.
- In-person meetings. In-person meetings should have power and gravitas. There should be a list of things that need to get done that simply cannot be done virtually. Whiteboarding sessions fall into this camp. Meetings that need to take more than 2 hours to work through a subject do too. All the pre-work above has led to this time in the room together where there is shared knowledge, coordinated roles, and a degree of trust. These should either happen spur of the moment because a topic is too big to delay on or be well planned so that everyone has the time blocked and free together.
Real collaboration is hard. It takes groundwork, teamwork, planning, coordination, trust, and shared information.
Fake collaboration is easy. Simply throw people into a space together and make sure they say some words at the other.
This is why I will not be pushing for collaborative workplaces going forward. It is not a real thing. It is an idea that has great intention but struggles when the rubber meets the road.