Mohammad Ali
I love to break my fast on the balcony. It lends me a unique sense of pleasure that I am unable to acquire through the hectic monotony of my life otherwise.When I got down to introspecting why that was so, I realized that it’s the charm of the serene morning sun coupled with the blissful chirping of the birds and the waves of positivity exuded in the wee hours of the morning that combine to instill in me such bouts of tranquility, and not the taste of my humble fare of bacon and eggs.
As the holiday season finally encroached upon my life, I was happy to dive right into that time of the year that rejoices me the most.So on the very first day of the season, I woke up a tad early, microwaved my hot English muffin and a cup of black coffee (a rare luxury given my morning bouts of lethargy) and settled down in the balcony, wrapped up in a long coat to prevent the tendrils of winter chill from reaching deep into my bones. Right when I was about to unravel the crisp morning paper, I witnessed something unusual.
I saw a pair of nesting sparrows. Since the need to have a safe home to keep out the worst of the weatherbecomes morecrucial in winters than any other time of the year, I saw both of them working together. One was flyingin straws and pieces of cotton, cloth and other construction paraphernalia, while the other quickly weavedthem together. Within a few hours, I could see that they hadmanaged to put together a cozy nest that is going to be their shelter for the tough season. Their working together reminded me of what most of us forget doing in the digitally influenced world of today; Collaborative working.
Collaborative working is not a new concept for the working class.However, it’s one that is not widely practiced, unfortunately. In this era, remaining connected is probably the most important factor for anyone and thanks to the marvels of the internet, we are now in a better position to effectively get in touch with people we know and care for or the ones we work with.
The rising waves of digital influence have rendered means of collaboration clearer to us. Businesses who capitalize on collaborative working,not only enjoy increased benefits in terms of productivity and effective conflict management but also when it comes to creating a viable workplace that respects the needs of individuals and conforms to the requirements of the team. This in turn fosters productivity.
As it dawned on me that collaborative learning is the dire need of responsible business corporations of today, here are the benefits that I believe are going to become the byproducts of the aforementioned action:
Recognize individual talents – Individual talents are not recognized well until they are assessed within a team environment. Collaborative working challenges each member working within a team and distills their core talents by assessing what they are great at and what they do poorly. Once you are sure about the core competencies of your employees, you will be able to assign tasks to them according to their strengths, which is bound to reap better outcomes.
Scalability – “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller. The phrase effortlessly sums up the benefit that collaborative working can introduce to organizations. Problem-solving becomes easier and more effective, when multiple heads are put together, and the results that are achieved by sharing resources and leveraging their core competencies become more transparent and scalable. It gets easier to tap into unexplored markets and helps you in strengthening the connections that you have fostered with your customers.
Creative catalyst – collaborative working ignites friction among team members. When more brains work together, more ideas are pooled in, hence the approval or rejection of some ideas takes place. Normally, this is termed as team friction and is perceived as a negative. Alternatively, we could also summon this disagreement into something positive and create something that complements each of them. This creativity is more applicable to companies working in the design category. Online website design agencies are the ones that are going to get the maximum benefit from it.
Collaboration propels learning – collaborative working promotes learning within organizations. As more resources work together to create a probable solution for an issue, each of them optimizes the working capacity of their teammates beyond their comfort zone. This helps to increase the overall productivity and maximizes the learning and development curve of the individuals.
Thankfully, we have multiple tools available that can be used to leverage collaborative working within organizations in the fast-paced digital age of today. Some of the most effective collaborative working tools are:
- Online workspaces
- Forums
- Blogs
- Social media &
- Company wiki
The benefits of using each of these collaborative working tools are pretty obvious and I didn’t find it of much important to include them here. However, their usage provides comprehensive and easily accessible resources to everyone within the organization. Alternatively, there are digital branding agencies that can help online brands put their best foot forward within their specific industries and can also instill in budding businesses the benefits of collaborative working.
Ashad Rehman
Adam McGriffin