Collaborative Teamwork

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:01][Music] hey everyone my name is james peterson today i'm going to be giving an introduction to teamwork specifically communication for team-based collaboration now teamwork is a part of almost every profession it doesn't matter if you're manufacturing or sales and marketing computing rit health construction education in every industry there are projects to complete their tests to be done some of the projects are large and complex requiring a diverse range of skills expertise and ideas some projects are small and would be just better with the second or third person in different viewpoints other projects take place over time and have many stages as the project passes on from one team to the next in short teamwork is often a requirement of the job but if you truly embrace the benefits of good teamwork and good collaboration the quality of the work can be dramatically enhanced you'll sometimes hear the word interprofessionalism especially in healthcare interprofessionalism refers to collaboration between professionals with a different discipline or different area of expertise in healthcare the idea is to improve collaboration between the doctor nurse medical radiation technologist sonographer rehabilitation therapist occupational therapists administration workers social workers and so on all with the goal of improving health outcomes for the patient and for providing seamless care most team projects involve interprofessionalism projects such as this one are very complex and require a lot of collaboration between people with different professions engineers construction workers government employees and so on let's look at this project the objective is quite clear they're building a bridge over a small creek but think of the collaboration that is involved first the obvious there's the design all of the specifications height width length of the bridge you can also see these pipes i think for water gas and sewage they have to be able to connect the pipes to each side of the street so that's the design and then there's the construction getting the people the equipment and the materials to the job site at the right moment and building the bridge to design specifications however this project is much more complex than just design and construction other critically important issues include safety ensuring no incidents or injury environment building the bridge without polluting the creek budget and time constraints also think about the residents in the neighborhood you need to build the bridge while avoiding noise not causing damage to residential properties and so on traffic ensuring that the traffic is diverted and alternative routes are sufficient facilities for workers parking restrooms break rooms obviously everything here is important the real advantage of having teams is to have different people thinking about each of these issues and take notice of different things that may be important well the objective of this project is to build a bridge there are many important issues that have to be addressed these issues are addressed by teams often multiple teams with collaboration between each of those teams so let's talk about how to be effective in teams i think a good place to start is the dimensional model of leadership behavior which comes from this book leadership through people skills a good book and a worthwhile read first let me talk about leadership this is not to be confused with management a manager is a position in a company if you're a manager you may have authority to make certain decisions or you may have a team of direct reports however leadership as defined here is about being objective focused or being proactive seeing a problem and speaking up or seeing what needs to be done and doing it the book describes 360 degree leadership and you can use these ideas if you're a manager leading direct reports but also you can use if you're collaborating with peers or when working with your boss so let's take a look at the dimensional model of leadership behavior there are two dimensions the horizontal dimension is your people skills on this end is hostility and on this end is warmth hostility means a lack of regard for others this is a negative or pessimistic view of other people other people have bad motives or they're not competent on the other end of this dimension is warmth warmth is a concern and regard for other people it's based on a positive or optimistic view that other people have good motives and valuable information and valuable skills the vertical dimension is related to proactiveness on the bottom is submission and on the top is dominance dominance is about making things happen it's about assertiveness putting ideas forward guiding leading persuading getting things done if you're dominant and you see a problem you take action submission on the other hand is about letting things happen following passive easy to give in if you're submissive and you see a problem you ignore it or look the other way so based on this model there are four leadership types q1 q2 q3 and q4 these leadership styles can be used to describe an individual you or a team member they can also be used to describe the general atmosphere of the team let's take a closer look so q1 is an autocratic leadership style hostile which means not much regard for people has a negative view about the competence or motives of other people and dominant proactive sees problem that needs to be solved and takes action quite assertively imagine this style of leadership if you have a negative view of other people you're not going to listen to them but you're going to assertively insist on your ideas so this leadership style is characterized by we are going to do it my way q2 is an unassertive leadership style hostile so like q1 has a negative view of people however q2 is submissive reluctant to speak out easy to give in doesn't push ideas forward ignores problems focuses on own work so this leadership style is characterized by whatever do whatever you like just don't bother me q3 is an easy going leadership style has regard for other people sensitive about other people's needs and feelings optimistic about their motives and abilities however q3 is submissive doesn't want to rock the boat reluctant to discuss obvious problems so this leadership style is characterized by come on everyone let's just get along the goal of this team is harmony the objective of the project is not a priority and serious problems are often not addressed q4 is a collaborative leadership style and this is a goal a q4 leader is dominant proactive very objective focused seeks the best solution to the problems at hand at the same time a q4 leader has regard for people a positive view of their competence and motives just think what that means if you have a positive view of people and if you are seeking the best solution you will listen to people you won't just tolerate their opinions you will actually accept the opinions as valid maybe your team members know something or see something that you don't so q4 leadership is characterized by let's work together and figure out the best way to do this if you look at all the four leadership styles each type has consequences however q4 leadership tends to get the best results so let's turn now to communication which is really the objective of this video communication for team-based collaboration well with q1 leadership communication is one way and disagreement is suppressed if you have a negative view of others there's no point in listening to them or discussing differing opinions with q2 there's little to no communication disagreement is just avoided clearly this team is not going to achieve the objective with q3 there's partial communication you're free to talk about positive things but you're not free to talk about problems problems are taboo disagreements are smoothed over serious problems are neglected and the quality of the project will likely fall short with q4 there's two-way communication or on a team multi-way communication everyone speaks everyone's focused on the problem disagreements are discussed and resolved if you have a positive view of other people you will seek out their opinions i think it's important here to recognize that we sometimes switch between different leadership styles on different teams and at different times the purpose here isn't to add a label to people negative or positive rather to understand the idea of collaborative leadership collaborative leadership is an attitude and it's an attitude that gets better results at the core of collaborative leadership is this idea be warm with people be tough with problems if you're warm with people you'll value their contribution if you're tough with problems you will truly care about the outcome of the project the results so a collaborative team is objective focused on your team the idea is to create an environment where team members can speak freely and together seek out the best solutions a collaborative team also has mutual respect for each other an environment where you value the contributions that other team members bring so let me conclude when you have to complete a team project such as this one when you join meetings start with an i don't know attitude don't pretend that you know more than you know yes you have an area of expertise but don't pretend that you see what other people see your colleagues may see something that you don't see something that's critically important if you have an i don't know attitude then the team meeting becomes a learning conversation learning what other people know what other people see is important however this isn't a one-way conversation the objective is to reach mutual understanding you have valuable information to share with the team and these ideas need to be shared in the end the idea is for all team members to truly understand the issues surrounding the project and find some sort of win-win solution and what i'm explaining here is the essence of collaborative teamwork create an environment where you can truly understand all of the issues that are faced and use that understanding to make the best decisions [Music] you