Collaboration is crucial for innovation. Here’s why. 

Many of the most well-known innovations — from the light bulb to the internet — weren’t solo efforts. They were a direct result of teamwork.

So, it should come as no surprise that our ongoing research on innovation has uncovered that collaboration is one of the four main building blocks of innovative company culture.

We’ve already covered why a strong sense of purpose and adaptability are important for innovation. In this post, we turn our attention to the power of collaboration and how it helps your team produce and pursue their biggest, boldest ideas. 

Collaboration is crucial — but it’s also a challenge

Bringing people with different perspectives, skills, and abilities together generates the most creative and groundbreaking ideas. Just look at the International Space Station or the Human Genome Project — both proof that true innovation is rarely a one-person undertaking.

However, that collaborative magic doesn’t happen by simply putting people in the same room. In reality, innovation requires more than proximity or a shared supervisor. It comes from doing meaningful work together, in the form of sharing ideas, challenging assumptions, and building on each other’s strengths.

This is where many teams fall short. Globally, our research shows that 34% of enterprise leaders and 30% of information workers agree that collaboration is a top challenge to innovation at their company. Additionally, 30% of workers cite weak collaboration as a top challenge to maintaining innovation velocity.

Yet employees aren’t seeing collaboration emphasized by leadership. Fewer than four in 10 global information workers say that collaboration is both a core value and behavior at their company, highlighting that organizations have work to do in both promoting the value of collaboration and modeling a true commitment to it.

The positive cycle of collaboration and innovation

It makes sense that collaboration fuels innovation. But here’s the even better news: the converse is also true, with 76% of global information workers reporting that innovation supports stronger cross-functional collaboration, too.

Why? It comes back to employee engagement, which is the level of commitment and enthusiasm employees have toward their jobs. Innovation is a key piece of engagement, with 78% of workers reporting that innovation fuels their engagement.

People want to feel like their work matters. When they’re able to actively contribute to innovative projects and see the fruits of their labor, they’re more motivated and committed to their roles. In fact, research shows that innovative work has a direct and positive impact on employee happiness.

When workers are happy, they’re more excited to continue working with their team members on big ideas and challenging projects. It’s a positive cycle: Collaboration improves innovation which improves engagement which increases collaboration which increases innovation.

This is why prioritizing collaboration isn’t a one-time effort or strategy. It’s a process that requires continuous commitment. When done well, it translates to major benefits for the company including greater productivity, lower turnover, and better financial performance.

The role of tools in fostering collaboration without chaos

There are plenty of interpersonal factors at play for successful collaboration, but you can’t overlook the importance of technology. To collaborate effectively and efficiently — particularly in the age of hybrid and distributed work — knowledge workers need access to the right tools.

But this is another area where our research shows significant room for improvement, with a minority of information workers agreeing that their current tools support their best work1:

  • Only 36% agree that their tools promote asynchronous collaboration, which is a must for today’s hybrid and distributed teams
  • Only 40% agree that their tools facilitate diverse team contributions
  • Only 35% say that their tools encourage psychological safety, which is a prerequisite for openly exchanging ideas and feedback

Collaboration aside, the majority of employees find their workplace tools to be more of a hurdle than a help. An alarming 96% of workers say they’re dissatisfied with the tools they’re given to manage their work, with app switching (the name for constantly toggling between platforms) among the biggest complaints.

It’s hard for collaboration to thrive in an environment of chaos, and that applies to your tools too. When people need to feverishly click between different solutions to find what they need, it’s not a calm or cohesive work experience. And, when people feel stressed, collaboration suffers.

3 steps to encourage meaningful collaboration 

If you want innovation, you need collaboration. But how exactly do you foster an environment where people can work together effectively?

1. Define your starting point

You can’t fix something if you don’t know it’s broken. That’s why your first step is to understand how your team feels about the current state of collaboration at different levels, including:

  • Within their team
  • Within their function
  • Within the organization as a whole

You can collect worker insights, uncover strengths, and identify improvement areas with a short, anonymous pulse survey focused specifically on collaboration.

2. Examine your ways of working

When you know where the problems are, you can better figure out where they’re coming from. In terms of collaboration, your ways of working will likely be at the root of many problems.

Whether you use surveys, focus groups, retrospectives, informal conversations with team members, or a combination of any of the above, aim to understand your existing norms and processes — as well as how they help or hinder collaboration on your team.

You might even uncover seemingly small changes that could have a big impact on your team’s ability to work well together. For example, perhaps remote team members will explain that constant screen sharing in meetings limits their ability to see their fellow meeting participants and engage effectively.

Need a real-world example? Here at Miro, we took a look at our own ways of working and, as a result, introduced project kickoffs across the company. Now all project stakeholders are clear on goals and responsibilities upfront, which cuts out ambiguity, distractions, and bottlenecks that stand in the way of smooth collaboration.

3. Take a close look at your tools

When more than 90% of business leaders say their workplace tech is important to the success of their organization, you don’t just need to evaluate your processes. You also need to evaluate your platforms. 

Are your current tools supporting collaboration or only adding to the chaos? Ask yourself (and relevant team members) if your tools are:

  • uncheckedEasy to use and widely understood across the organization
  • uncheckedAble to support asynchronous and distributed work
  • uncheckedThe right fit for the projects you’re focused on

If your existing tech doesn’t check all of those boxes, it’s time to look for tools that support your team instead of standing in their way.

Working (better) together

Many of the ideas and inventions we know and love today were born out of effective collaboration. When it comes to innovating and breaking new ground, the old adage holds true: two (or more) brains really are better than one.

Want to learn even more about fostering an innovative culture? Stay tuned for the final installment in our series, where we’ll take a close look at the role of customer-centricity.

Miro is your team's visual platform to connect, collaborate, and create — together.

Join millions of users that collaborate from all over the planet using Miro.

Try Miro
Share this post: