The key to unlocking growth is collaboration, but in a virtual working world that’s not always easy.
Most large global businesses have started to create opportunities for their employees to fulfil their basic need for human connection, but few have taken this as far as they need to.
Existing employee journeys are ill-suited to this new way of working. We’ve shifted ways of working and operating models overnight, without changing the employee journey to ensure key touch points exist to encourage connection and allow diverse perspectives to come together in the pursuit of growth. These moments of connection are not going to happen organically in a virtual or hybrid environment.
There are some good examples of businesses trying to find opportunities for people to connect beyond their immediate working teams, from the coffee and chatter sessions at Biffa, which bring people together for 30-minutes to connect and catch up, to the social networking sessions being set-up around hobbies or topics of interest in other companies.
But we have to do more.
We need to spark a revolution around collaboration for innovation and growth. And build regular opportunities for different voices and perspectives to come together to solve real business challenges in this new world of work.
There are three fundamental shifts that have accelerated the need for collaboration and disruption:
How do you bake opportunities for collaboration that could drive innovation into your BAU activity? And what skills do you need to identify and nurture to build a culture where the right type of collaboration happens, and an innovation mindset starts to thrive?
According to The Innovator’s DNA there are certain behavioural skills you need in play within your business to spark brilliant ideas for innovation: questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting.
So, when we are thinking about our opportunities for collaboration, we need to create the conditions for these behaviours to surface.
One good way to foster collaboration is to involve your people in the recovery and rebuilding process. Here are some simple things you can do to create moments of collaboration and start an innovation revolution in your business:
Getting people involved in collaborating over real work, helps to drive deeper engagement and ownership, and importantly will foster a culture where bringing together different perspectives to innovate becomes the norm. And ultimately sets the foundation for driving growth. If you need help finding ways to collaborate for growth contact us at hello@unitedcultureco.com.