5 ways to facilitate better team collaboration

The way we meet, work, and collaborate has changed dramatically in recent years. With people working in distributed, remote, and hybrid capacities, teams are more reliant than ever on virtual meetings and workshops to help accelerate ideas and projects. However, I’ve noticed people have become increasingly skeptical of meetings (and rightfully so if they don’t feel like they’re worth their time).

In fact, I encourage people to be protective of their time — it’s our most valuable resource! That said, gone are the days of building consensus and sharing ideas at the water cooler, which means time together is critical to getting stuff done.

We have an opportunity to show our teams how satisfying collaborative work can be when the right tools, methods, and activities are employed. Through intentional planning, we can make the time we have with our teams count and feel like a good use of time. The facilitator-approved tips in this article will help you do just that!

Nobody Sets Out to Lead a Bad Meeting

That said, they do happen. Some common frustrations I hear from clients who can’t seem to activate their teams sound like:

• “We plan all these collaborative sessions, but we don’t see good results coming out of them — it never goes anywhere.”
• “Team members are disengaged when we come together as a group.”
• “I don’t feel confident that I’m activating my team to their fullest potential and, because of it, I fear we’re missing out on some major opportunities”

If you’ve heard these same frustrations from your own clients or among internal teams, it likely means that their collaborative sessions haven’t been designed or facilitated well. I don’t say this to point fingers; I say it to bring you some relief. Just because it hasn’t been done well in the past doesn’t mean it can’t be better in the future.

How to Facilitate Better Team Collaboration

As a leader or facilitator who is bringing the team together, it’s up to you to make sure that your workshops are filled with the right methods and activities to unlock the team’s potential. It’s the key to making your time together more productive, and to keep the momentum going once you adjourn.

After years of facilitating teams of many shapes and sizes at organizations of many shapes and sizes, I’ve discovered a few insights that are critical to helping people do their best work. My hope is that you can apply these five learnings to your facilitation work to ramp up the effectiveness of your collaborative sessions.

1. Always cater to different learning styles

This is an important consideration when it comes to leading groups, but it’s amazing how quickly it’s forgotten. Everyone retains information differently — from auditory, visual, and conversational learning styles — and what works for one person might not work for another. Acknowledging this truth and adjusting how you run sessions is a major first step toward better collaboration and productivity.

For instance, always send the meeting agenda beforehand via email for those who prefer to digest information at their own pace. Then, when you start your session, write the agenda visibly in the workshop space or on a virtual whiteboard to cater to visual learners. Next, verbally read aloud the agenda when participants are settled to accommodate auditory learners. You might even invite a discussion about the agenda to support verbal processors.

Repetition of this process, especially at the beginning of each day for multi-day sessions, might seem basic or redundant, but it’s an effective way to help individuals absorb and retain information. This goes for other collaborative moments where you’ll need to access visual, verbal, and auditory methods to reach everyone.

2. Balance time for reflection and conversation

In collaborative workshops, it’s key to strike a balance between reflection and conversation. Rather than defaulting to open conversation right away, provide moments for reflection before group sharing. This is important because it gives everyone a fair chance to articulate their ideas and also prevents the loudest voices in the room from monopolizing the conversation.

Some people are confident and comfortable processing their thoughts live while others need time to think alone first. Support both by allowing time for reflection, then sharing. Here are some activities you can try:

• Ask participants to jot down an answer to a question silently (before sharing/submitting)
• Give teams time to sketch their ideas individually
• Ask people to read something then note their questions independently

3. Let people team up…or not

It’s a collaborative session, so people should constantly work together, right? Not necessarily. Remember, your team is likely made up of introverts and extroverts, and internal processors and external processors, so paired work may not be the most productive method for everyone.

Rather than defaulting to group work every time, provide opportunities for both independent work and moments to share and collaborate in a group. Provide clear structure and guidance but be flexible on how people spend their energy. This might mean giving people space to step outside of the room for a bit of reflection and quiet time if that better suits their processing style.

I’ve also had people ask to pair up with a specific partner to brainstorm on an idea. Generally my answer is “yes” when someone has a request like this, but you should always be mindful of old habits or power dynamics at play that may actually be a disservice to the group. You’ll need to stay attuned to the people and the culture of the group to help navigate that dimension.

4. Democratize sharing and decision making

This is another important method to safeguard against voices that monopolize conversations, or power dynamics that might sway a group. First, to encourage everyone to share their ideas, I like to embrace my inner Kindergarten teacher and call on individuals to ask them to contribute. This is especially important if someone has been quiet or isn’t likely to speak up unless called on (you’ll need to keep tabs on that as you’re leading, but do so gently so you aren’t forcing anyone into discomfort).

Another neutralizing activity I love is anonymous voting. There’s more than one way to run anonymous voting exercises, but the key point is that you’re giving folks space to vote on an idea or concept individually first before sharing that information more broadly.

For example, let’s say we’re in a Design Sprint and the team is voting on their favorite prototype. Rather than ask everyone to simultaneously go up and vote with sticky dots, I’ll give each concept a number and have participants write the number they are voting for on sticky notes or sticky dots before posting, or have them cast their vote anonymously using virtual voting tools.

This keeps the process unbiased, avoiding a situation where one person with power or influence may sway the group. It also protects against the strategic vote, a behavior I often witness where people hold back their answer, then cast their vote after others have been placed in an attempt to sway things a certain way.

5. Never skip wrap-up activities

As the facilitator, it’s your job to help the team align on priorities, like which idea they’ll pursue, or which set of options they’ll vet further, or how they’ll refine the prototype. Ideally, you’ll also take them through an action-planning exercise to define some initial next steps.

When I work with teams, we spend a lot of time intentionally approaching the transition from the workshop/collaborative session to the execution of the work, and planning steps to take. This makes all the difference between seeing things come to life or drop off, especially if you’re a third-party facilitator who won’t be with the team for the long haul.

Whatever you do, don’t cross the finish line without wrap-up activities — they’re an essential moment to look ahead, establish accountability, and keep your momentum. Bake extra time into your agenda for this critical piece.

If you want a closer look at the wrap-up activities I like to use, check out my detailed guide that you can lift and land for your own purposes.

Go forth and facilitate!

The first step toward improving productivity, alignment, and creativity starts with how we meet, and your facilitation superpowers are key to maximizing the collaborative potential of the teams you support.

My hope is that the suggestions I’ve shared here will help you create more engaging and productive sessions so that both you and your participants will walk away feeling like it was a great use of everyone’s time.

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