How do you foster open communication among your team members and other collaborators?

Taking input from team members when deciding goals, expectations and objectives, improves their engagement. This increases trust in the team and collective ownership towards deliverables.

In my experience facilitating 50+ innovation teams in my career, THE KEY MOMENT building trust to foster collaboration in a new team is at the START of the project. Especially when the team members are new to each other, a strong starting technique is explaining your personal WHY this project is personally relevant, and what is the personal take-away is that you are striving for. The empathy of being heard, the openess of the discussion and the passion of all participants felt are a great base for trust and fruitful collaboration. Tip: As a final exercise is facilitate drafting together ‘THE TEAM VALUES’ for the disruptive innovation journey which everyone shares.

- Be a live example of the behavior/ attitude you expect from others. - Do not gossip/ talk negative or make fun of someone in his/her absence. - Create space for informal interactions. Encourage team members to have buddies/ friends in office. Typically colleagues who join at same time or speak a particular language tend to be closer. - Reward/ Award team members who communicate effectively

Communicate every day discuss discover and direct all individually. Set of formats should be there to follow the practice and practicle implication should must be monitored regularly.

Communication is key in all aspects of life in general. Your team needs to know that you have an open door policy, that they can be heard. Their contributions can help make key decisions as they are the ones actually doing the work. As a former lead it was refreshing to know that I had members of my team who were willing to bring ideas to the table and want to make a difference. Leaders are obligated to give direction and invite feedback for good outcomes also to avoid misconceptions of what is expected in their roles and responsibilities.

The best way to show that you value feedback is to ACT ON IT! Sometimes that means you try new things, make changes, or readjust priorities based on feedback. Sometimes that just means you listen to the feedback, look into the suggestions, and then explain why the suggestions don’t make sense. Either way, it is important to close the loop and show that feedback doesn’t just disappear into a black hole.

In my experience as a ‘ facilitator of innovation teams’, Understanding ‘A COMMON WHY’ is crucial in team building for 5 reasons: 1. It unifies team nembers and creates a shared sense of purpose. 2. It helps team members see the bigger picture, align their efforts, and move in the same direction. 3. When everyone understands and agrees on why change is necessary, it enhances communication. 4. it boosts motivation of all team members . involved, and 5. due to all these positive effects ‘understanding a common why’ increases the chances of successful team collaboration.

In my experience helping people engage in conversation which is based on facts, data and not opinion matters a lot. Once everyone begins to get transparently aligned to the same set of facts a lot of communication landmines get avoided. This builds trust, openness and transparency. Eventually people begin to share and learn more from each other. The leader should walk the talk with transparent and authentic communication which is based on facts and data rather than opinion or judgements.

Many remote trans forget the value and importance of video calls. Even if your employees aren't comfortable always being on video, make sure you are. You are their face of guidance and growth. By sharing video, you are making yourself available to your employee to foster the open door policy.

EMPOWERMENT! Empower your team to continually grow and find the spot that best fits them. For example, when I first started out, I began in a position that was heavily customer facing and I regularly struggled with customer escalations. During a 1:1 with my manager (She never wanted to be perceived as a "boss" because that fosters close mindedness.), I asked for guidance. The resolution was for me to locate some courses and write up a proposal of why I feel these would benefit my growth within the company. This taught me a few valuable lessons, such as, being my own advocate, writing business proposals, and delivery to executive teams. The course I took changed my entire career trajectory and helped me grow into a management position.