12 Ways to Enhance Creativity and Collaboration in Teams

Why are creativity and collaboration so important?

“If the group is an art form of the future, then convening groups is the artistry we must cultivate to fully explore the promise of this form.” — Centered on the Edge, 2001, Fetzer Institute

We live in a global society that uses teams to create wealth, market share, customer service, competitive advantage, and other markers of organizational success. Teams provide the social “glue” in organizations that meld together people, processes, and technologies to produce services or products. Organizations cannot function without teams; however, teams must be designed properly to fit organizational cultures and vice-versa.¹

As Meg Wheatley remarked in an interview for Orchestrating Collaboration at Work:

In North American culture, we have so conditioned people to be competitive and to look out for themselves that teamwork has become a problem. Yet working together is a more natural state for humans than working in isolation, and teamwork is a natural tendency. The arts, and sports as well, provide people with the experience of what it’s like to work together.

Organizations need teams to produce creative products, just as artists need the tools of their work. There may be a science to orchestrating team collaboration, but there also is an art. Artists often cannot predict the outcomes of their creative endeavors any more than managers can predict outcomes for their team challenges. Management “science” is necessary and contributes practical theories for teams to work better together. A more balanced approach, however, might blend science with art and magnify team effectiveness. ²

Learn how to co-create and collaborate using art and design thinking

How to enhance creativity and collaboration in teams

Talent. It is crucial to have the right people on your team capable of adding their brilliance to the project. Collaboration works best when team members have complementary skill sets required to complete the project.
Healthy relationships are at the heart of collaboration. Appreciating others, engaging in purposeful conversations and resolving conflicts are essential ingredients for building collaboration. Find ways for the team to get to know each other not just as professionals but as human beings — to build trust and provide occasions for informal social interaction. The easiest way to do this is to share meals together but this may not be possible with virtual teams. Do allow for coffee and chitchat before virtual meetings, and schedule extra time for informal conversation
A guiding vision and clarity of purpose are key to collaboration. Warren Bennis said “Great Groups think they are on a mission from God… Their clear, collective purpose makes everything they do seem meaningful and valuable.” Use storytelling and imagery to engage the hearts and minds of your team, especially stories of impact from clients. People are motivated when they serve a purpose greater than themselves.
Provide a clear mission objective. Jointly prepare a written purpose statement with your team to define rules of engagement — including goals, roles, responsibilities, and deliverables. Provide clarity on how decisions are made to keep everyone focused and directed on your goals and aspirations.
Connect the project with big picture company objectives. Make sure everyone on your team understands the big picture, the role they play and the value they add to the project. This puts your project in context and creates alignment. Ensure people, strategy, and processes work in concert to serve the primary purpose of your organization.
Create an atmosphere of safety, trust and respect. Encourage multiple perspectives, diverse viewpoints, and creativity. Keep members energised through stimulating, quality discussions around cutting-edge issues.
Make your ideas visible and tangible by building prototypes, or drawing diagrams to create clarity and understanding.
Provide an infrastructure and resources that enable learning, communication and collaboration. Make your work visible and accessible. Popular collaboration tools for sharing ideas and managing projects in virtual space include Slack, Mural, Miro, Jamboard, Asana and Trello.
Provide great leadership. Nurture the brilliance of your people and do everything you can to remove barriers to high performance. Avoid being too autocratic and allow time for the team to weigh in on decisions. Address cultural issues that defeat collaboration. Give credit where credit is due and recognize team performance as well as individuals. Help build team connections across the organization. Look for ways to collaborate strategically with your customers, suppliers, and with experts within your organization, including tech, design, marketing, and finance. Collaborating with stakeholders will help you access collective intelligence, make informed decisions and create more value.
Use coaching to reinforce a collaborative culture. Coaching for improved teamwork, emotional intelligence, and navigating difficult conversations can produce dramatic improvements to the group. Ask open-ended questions like Why? What if? What else? and How might we? to open up dialogue and tap into creativity.
Make collaboration fun and celebrate completions in ways that are meaningful to team members before moving on.
Capture best practices and mistakes to learn from. Publish your findings to an internal blog (or whatever platform you use) to give everyone access to your wisdom.