Collaboration allows you to bring in more perspectives and ideas, making you better equipped to solve problems and take on bigger, more complex projects. Though the benefits are apparent, many teams and organizations need help with effective collaboration.
If you’re struggling with collaboration, these tips from New York University researchers Jenny Fernandez, Kathryn Landis and Julie Lee, shared in the Harvard Business Review, might help:
- A scarcity mindset — quite common among the local news industry, which has seen years of cuts — can be a significant blocker to collaboration. It forces us to think only about immediate problems and could prevent us from seeing the long-term value of collaboration. Instead, shift to a mindset of abundance and gratitude, which should help tamp down internal competitiveness and fear, and increase creativity.
- Collaborating also allows you to pursue more options as you’re bringing in more skillsets and knowledge. Having more options means you can be more strategic with what you ultimately decide.
- Think about innovation as “not a drain on resources, but a bet on a bigger return in the future.”
- As a leader, you can help your team develop a collaborative mindset. Help them think about the strengths the team and organization have and what opportunities those might bring. Identify past examples of successful collaboration.
All of the strategies discussed throughout the Digital Transformation Guide from the American Press Institute require collaboration — whether it be working across teams and silos within an organization, or partnering with another organization. The guide brings together successes from participants in the Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program, a group that comprises more than 200 for-profit and nonprofit local and community news organizations, including newspapers, digital start-ups, public media and commercial TV. You can read about five frameworks to improve collaboration taught in the Table Stakes program here.
Working across teams, silos and organizations
The most successful collaborators recognize one another’s strengths and establish practices to facilitate collaboration and teamwork.
Even within the same organization, each team and department has its own culture, communication style and goals, so it’s important to consider these differences and align expectations. Is there a communication tool or process to allow for an easy flow of ideas and approval? What behaviors and contributions will be rewarded in this group setting? How will feedback be given and acted upon?
KXLY-TV, an ASU Cronkite Table Stakes program alumnus based in Spokane, Washington, developed a mission statement to guide its cross-newsroom elections team. KXLY shared this mission statement with its audience, too, as a way to hold the team accountable for creating audience-focused election coverage. The team found the specificity outlined in the mission statement helped guide it to drive real change in its coverage.
External collaborations and partnerships are a great way to increase capacity, resources and expertise beyond your organization’s ability. Partnering with other organizations — news or not — can also be a way to reach additional audiences and better serve communities without duplicating efforts.
The Kansas City Media Collective, a Poynter Table Stakes alumnus, brings together six nonprofit media and media-adjacent organizations that rely on community support. This collective allows the organizations to produce more bigger-scale projects than they could do individually. Before the collective, some of the organizations had partnered on projects. The group worked hard to form a foundation of trust through regular meetings and shared goals. They also formed specialized committees that best leveraged the strengths of each organization. The collective has found success in content sharing; sharing staff resources, including knowledge and expertise as well as an internship program across three of the organizations; and producing a broader range of coverage. There were some missteps at the start, though, as members focused more on the “why” behind their collaboration than the “how.” Identifying these gaps and clear discussion helped iron out some of the details. Another key was hiring a project manager.
Try it out
Don’t let your collaborative efforts end when a project is completed. Retrospective meetings are a great way to gather successes and lessons to improve future collaborations.
Team members can offer their thoughts asynchronously in a shared document on a number of key areas:
- Expectations: When you were first introduced to the needs and goals of the project, what do you recall were your initial expectations? How did you feel?
- Communication: Throughout the project, how did you feel about how it was communicated? Where/when did you feel you did not have enough information or too much?
- Capacity: What times during the project did you feel challenged with your own work? How do you think we could have integrated or prioritized this project better?
- Culture: How do you think we can do our work better by changing behaviors in our routines, culture or priorities?
Each individual can then review what others shared in the document and determine what areas require deeper discussion in a meeting.
This template outlines the process above for retrospective meetings. It was created by API’s vice president of Product Strategy, Elite Truong. She shares more tips about successful retrospective meetings in this BetterNews.org piece.
Do you want to improve your collaboration skills? API offers customized training on frameworks and techniques for collaborating, remotely and in-person, among many other topics.
