Overcome Top 5 Barriers to Collaboration and Unlock Innovation

For a business to grow and evolve, the ability to collaborate within and across teams or business units is crucial as collaboration urges people to work together to achieve the business’s vision and ultimate goal by bringing their individual, unique strengths and brainstorming new ideas together. It drives innovation and creativity.

However, team collaboration is oftentimes easier said than done. Since it is a process of individuals interacting with each other, conflicts arise naturally. So do barriers to collaboration in various aspects, from inaccessibility to people and information to technology and simply varying types of distractions.

But fear not, there are strategies you can use to tackle these barriers to collaboration in the workplace and increase work efficiency. In this blog post, we are going over the most common barriers and how you can overcome them.

Collaboration Barrier #1: People Issues

First and foremost, one of the predominant issues of effective collaboration is inevitably people. Individuals all have different views, ideas and habits. This is what makes collaboration great, but it can also bring forth obstacles. Some of the most common barriers to collaboration involving people include lack of trust and respect, personal conflicts, silo mentality, and internal competition.

Trust and respect are essential for smooth and open communication. The absence of trust and respect has a negative impact on information sharing, which then makes collaboration difficult. Personal conflicts can also arise from doubts about each other’s ability and judgment. Secondly, the silo mentality describes the tendency of working in isolation and keeping information to oneself. Although not necessarily stemming from distrust, the silo mentality poses similar threats to collaboration. Lastly, when team members compete with each other, they can easily lose sight of the big picture, focusing too much on their individual goals and outperforming their peers.

Distrust and lack of respect are often a result of an opaque work culture, little or no shared experience and misunderstanding. Silo mentality can be shaped by similar organizational environments, whereas internal competition is likely linked to misalignment of incentives and miscommunication of the shared goals.

Solution to People Issues in the Workplace

All these can be addressed by developing a more open and transparent culture. For instance, introduce team building activities that encourage team members to learn more about their peers and their strengths and that offer a chance to engage in shared experiences. A bond can be thus built.

Additionally, a business can openly acknowledge not only individual success but also stress the contribution each team member makes to its overarching objective. Understanding one another lays the foundations for mutual appreciation and trust. It also helps de-escalate conflicts as people are put into others' shoes and recognize others’ difficulties before lashing out their own anger and frustration. Finally, a clear corporate vision and objective serve the purpose of reminding teams of the big picture.

Collaboration Barrier #2: Ineffective Leadership

As it turns out, people issues in the workplace are often interlocked with ineffective leadership. This is not surprising considering leaders are also people and they are likely to have more influence over others at work. Poor leadership is, hence, one of the most detrimental barriers to collaboration. It ranges from inadequate decision-making, limited conflict resolution skills,failure to establish accountability to giving out contradictory messages and even showing favoritism.

Poor decision-making, unclear rewarding and penalty systems, and contradicting messages are all recipes for ineffective collaboration, as teams are clueless about the final, desired outcome as well as the general guidelines they should follow. On the other hand, limited conflict resolution skills and favoritism are harmful to interpersonal bonds, on which distrust and disrespect feed.

Solution to Ineffective Leadership

To solve the problem of inadequate leadership, a business must first recognise it. There are ways to encourage employee feedback to help identify leadership issues, such as conducting anonymous surveys and holding 1:1 meetings.

Most importantly, companies need to create a work culture where employees are comfortable and empowered to speak their minds without the fear of retaliation.

Once the underlying cause of collaboration barriers have been identified, you can devise specific strategies for them. For example, clearly-defined overall goals can effectively reduce the chances of poor decision-making and giving out contradictory instructions by providing a unified direction.

They ensure that all actions and strategies align with a shared purpose, minimizing confusion about priorities. This clarity helps leaders evaluate options more effectively and prevents misalignment in instructions.

As for failure to establish accountability, a number of factors can be behind it. For instance, it is naturally more difficult to track progress when the team is too large or suitable progress tracking tools are not utilized.

First, limiting the team to 5-8 people generally promotes effective collaboration. Moreover, leaders should select suitable tools for keeping an eye on the overall performance. Collaborative tools and to-do list apps are some good options.

While conflict resolution skills are not innate, they can be cultivated through workshops and mentoring. Companies can hold workshops for managers and assign mentors to leaders to help them work on their interpersonal skills.

Finally, to avoid showing favoritism, leaders need to regularly take steps back and examine who they spend time with and become friendly with as well as enforcing rules fairly.

Collaboration Barrier #3: Information Gaps

One obvious barrier to effective collaboration is inaccessibility to information. Information gaps are not always caused by interpersonal issues or inadequate leadership. A poorly designed system or over complicated hierarchy can give rise to them.

Information unavailability puts collaboration at risk in multifold aspects. First, it obscures the big picture. Teams are in danger of focusing on tasks that bear little influence on the overall outcome.

It creates confusion about individuals and their responsibilities. It also fuels misunderstanding, mistrust, and, worse, resentment, dismantling healthy bonds between team members. Members then become unwilling to cooperate for the greater good. Interpersonal distress can hinder work productivity and further increase the barriers to collaboration in the workplace.

Solution to Information Gaps

To reduce information gaps, companies need to create a centralized information-sharing platform accessible to all relevant team members as well as clear guidelines about when and where to use the platform. One way to ensure that everyone knows where to find information and thus minimizing misunderstandings is to offer regular training on using it.

Additionally, designating specific team members as information "owners" for certain aspects of the project can provide clear points of contact for inquiries. Encouraging a culture of transparency where updates are shared openly during team meetings or in project tracking tools also ensures everyone is on the same page, reducing mistrust and promoting a more collaborative atmosphere.

Collaboration Barrier #4: Workflow Mismanagement

Oftentimes even when the ultimate goal and other relevant information are communicated clearly, team members can still be at loss while collaborating with each other. They struggle with understanding how their individual roles play a part in achieving the business objective.

A workflow outlines a series of steps necessary for the task to be completed. So an unrealistic SOP or mismanagement of the workflow can result in an individual’s failure in meeting the expectations and ultimately impede collaboration.

Solution to Workflow Mismanagement

It is crucial that each team member has a clear understanding of the workflow and their role within it. There should also be regular workflow reviews to help identify underlying workflow mishaps and unrealistic expectations, such as overwork, unclear deadlines, lack of resources, underestimating task complexity and unnecessarily complicated approval process. Take actions to adjust the workflow that diminish collaboration barriers accordingly.

Moreover, setting up check-in points within the workflow enables team members to gauge their progress, seek assistance if needed, and ensure alignment with the overall objectives. Providing visibility into each other’s roles and deadlines can also help foster a more cohesive team effort.

Collaboration Barrier #5: Physical Separation

With the popularity of remote or hybrid work models, sometimes it is difficult to have all the individuals involved in a single project around and have a quick discussion over pressing issues, especially when they can be working across different locations and time zones. This can create a barrier to effective collaboration because it delays the progress and produces information gaps.

Solution to Physical Separation

To bridge the challenges of physical separation, teams can implement a combination of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools that allow members to connect regardless of location or time zone.

Synchronous ones help teams communicate in real-time and are best for urgent matters, whereas asynchronous ones are ideal when immediate response is not needed. However, to be able to determine when to use which, team members also need to be equipped with the information about their overall goals and priorities of individual tasks.

On the other hand, video calls for regular check-ins and quick updates combined with tools like shared documents or project management platforms help ensure seamless collaboration.

Setting up overlapping working hours when possible allows for real-time discussion of issues, while clear protocols for communication in off-hours can help address urgent matters.

Finally, team-building activities, even virtual ones, can be helpful to collaborative teams as well, as they offer members a chance to develop bonds and connect with others. Mutual respect and appreciation, as mentioned earlier, plays a vital role in breaking down barriers to effective collaboration.

Tips for Driving Collaboration

Above we have listed 5 most common barriers to collaboration in the workplace but sometimes, teams in different industries encounter different types of collaboration barriers. But don’t over fuss yourself with it as there are general tips that allow collaboration to thrive.

• Enhance team member engagement: This helps identify any issue that might arise in a collaborative context, which is arguably the first step to solving any problem.
• Promote diversity: This invites team members with different backgrounds and perspectives to open up and share their unique insights, which boosts the team creativity as a whole.
• Encourage autonomy: Once a clear goal and workflows are established, trust your teams or members to do good work and be able to ask for support immediately when it’s needed. This takes away the stress and frustration of micromanagement.

Tackle Collaboration Barriers with Quire

Quire is a multi-function project management tool that can tackle many barriers to collaboration for you. With features like a calendar, task bundles and multiple assignees, Quire takes care of the hassle of tracking project progress for leaders to avoid failure to establish accountability.

It streamlines the workflow and helps teams identify potential barriers that threaten the collaboration with its built-in report system. It offers insights on how the team spent their time.

Whether your team is working remotely or not, Quire can also serve as the information platform for collaborative teams. It allows members to add attachments and share files to keep everyone on the same page.

The task bundle and multiple assignee features are also ideal asynchronous communication tools, making individual responsibilities clear and leaving no room for misunderstanding. Quire not only helps bridge information gaps, but also promotes transparency to prevent ineffective leadership and  interpersonal conflicts.

When your team needs to collaborate, let Quire be there for you, tackling barriers one at a time.