Of course, businesses and sports teams are always on the lookout for new players to fill mission-critical roles, e.g., sell large accounts or hit more home runs. But that’s a risky move. You can make a few great-on-paper hires, but then experience the same poor team outcomes the following season.

Along with the technical skills required for the job, working effectively with others is an essential workplace competence. One study found that workers spend 42% of their time interacting with others to get things done. At the same time, a recent HR survey found that two-thirds of employees feel disconnected from their colleagues, and 75% say they feel excluded from important projects and decisions!

Key ingredients for team member performance

We call people our talent. We expect them to apply their talent to advance the organization’s mission and help achieve their team’s goal.

There are a few key ingredients to being an effective team member. They must understand their jobs. They must have the technical tools to do those jobs and to connect with others, e.g., digital access to team-related information and knowledge. They must have the will and readiness to share responsibility for results. They must possess the skills required to perform at a high level.

The leader’s job is to provide team members with the first two key ingredients: clear job expectations and the tools to do the job. The team member’s responsibilities are to turn on their motivation pilot light and hone the skills they require to perform at their best.

What about working with other people? The good news. Humans are social beings, and we’re born with the aptitude to collaborate. But it’s not an aptitude that most of us develop, kind of like not developing some (or many) of the muscles in our body.

What is collaborative intelligence?

Collaborative intelligence is the ability to learn and apply knowledge, skills, and attitudes for working with others to achieve positive outcomes for all stakeholders.

For millions of years, we depended on each other to survive in forests, valleys, and the savannah, using our brains to scan for threats. In our primal history, these were real and perceived threats to physical survival.

Today’s threats are mostly social and economic, often triggered by our perceptions of how others value us. This reactive tendency, to see social and work situations as "me or you” challenges, makes effective collaboration and authentic connection difficult.

The good news is that our brains have plasticity – the ability to change and adapt. Just as we can build physical muscles through exercise, we can develop our collaborative capabilities through practice. Instead of seeing others as adversaries, we can learn to appreciate their perspectives and value what they bring to the table.

How to work better together

Learning and applying knowledge, skills, and attitudes for working better together, i.e., collaborative intelligence, improves the outcomes teams achieve, including the way it feels to be part of a team effort.

As a team leader or HR professional, you can speed up the journey to better teamwork with the PACT Framework™ for successful collaboration. PACT stands for Purposeful, Adaptive, Considerate, and Trustworthy.

The four qualities of highly collaborative teams and team members are:

●     Purposeful: Team members understand the reason and goals of the collaborative effort and are keen on contributing to the effort.
●     Adaptive: Team members respond quickly to changing conditions or requirements, e.g., by rebalancing time and task priorities.
●     Considerate: Team members are attentive to each other’s needs and concerns.
●     Trustworthy: Team members are open, honest, reliable, and transparent in their communications.

A quick plus/delta conversation among team members about each quality can generate all sorts of useful suggestions for how we can work better together. Start by having everyone write down a number for each quality: 5= we’re champions in this area. 3= we’re OK, but we won’t make the playoffs, and 1= we’re in trouble, with 2 and 4 somewhere in between. Then ask yourselves: What makes us strong in this area (plus), and what weakens us? What can we improve (delta)?

Related: Creating strong team culture: A Q&A with Archer Chiang

Leader as role model and teacher

A leader who demonstrates interest in their own development inspires and helps guide their team’s journey to better performance. Here’s a success story:

A senior finance manager, let’s call him Lucas, was a rock star as an individual contributor. Lucas had moved up the management ranks because of his technical skills, his ability to influence customers, and his tremendous work ethic. But team members complained that he didn't listen to their input and took up most of the airtime in meetings.

Lucas’ saving grace was that he enjoyed learning new things. The idea of collaborative intelligence intrigued him. As a top-of-his-class accountant, Lucas also wanted to be a top-of-his-class leader.

With a few experiential coaching sessions on how to listen as an ally rather than as a critic or skeptic, Lucas learned techniques to engage his team in collaborative, problem-solving conversations.

The results were immediate and tangible. A few weeks after the coaching sessions, team members described a transformed manager – from one behaving like the smartest guy in the room to the most curious and engaging colleague. By shifting his orientation from critical listening to allied listening, Lucas demonstrated his collaborative intelligence and, in turn, his team's performance and his team members’ experience of wellbeing.

Teach collaboration skills to improve performance

Collaborative intelligence drives better meetings, facilitates more creative encounters, and helps teams work through distractions to achieve better outcomes. But it doesn’t happen by hopeful messaging alone. It requires intention and attention, training and regular exercise.

Like working your quad muscles, you can see results in a few weeks. Your team will get smarter and smarter, stronger and stronger, as the season unfolds.

Barry Rosen is the CEO of Interaction Associates, a training and consulting firm that helps leaders build and nurture their organization’s collaborative capability and culture.