Below is a guest post from Nicola Reid:

One of the biggest challenges for any growing business is improving the efficiency of the team and helping people work together more effectively. Collaboration software can help with this, but only if a culture of cooperation and sharing is already in place. These tips, tools, and techniques can help establish a bedrock of collaboration to help your business work more effectively.

Creating a Culture of Collaboration

In some large businesses, especially those that put the focus on individual performance, employees commonly feel they need to be seen as high performers and therefore feel pressure to avoid asking for help with certain jobs. This kind of culture stifles collaboration and can be harmful to the business in the long term. Encourage people to work with others in their department and communicate with other departments. Good leadership means promoting collaboration from the top down. Sharing jobs and soliciting constructive feedback help everyone work more efficiently and effectively.

Develop a Standard Workflow

Having a standard way of doing things, including storing documents and sharing files, makes sense. Train your team members to follow a procedure. For instance, if you’re working with promotional images that are too large, take advantage of this easy to use image resizer online. Another example of this might be using PDF files for sharing important documents because everyone should have access to a PDF viewer. If people need to make edits to a PDF file, they can use an online conversion tool to convert the PDF to a Word document and make the edits, then export the file as a PDF using Word.

Make Time for Communication

Rather than wasting time on long meetings where much of the content being discussed isn't relevant to all the attendees, try to facilitate shorter catch-ups between the people directly working together. Get your team members accustomed to checking in with each other on a less formal level. When the people working with each other have strong relationships and a foundation of mutual trust, this leads to improved productivity.

Reward New Ideas

Collaboration means sharing skills and being open to learning new ways of doing things. Reward people for coming up with sensible new ideas, even if those ideas don't work out in practice. Praise people for their strengths rather than punishing weaknesses. Encouraging people to give feedback and share "the reality of the job" versus the way things are supposed to be done on paper drives innovation. As an employer, you should welcome feedback. Don't assume your employees see things the way you do, and don't take criticism negatively.

Invest in Collaboration Tools

Use groupware tools, kanban boards and document templates to encourage efficient communication and collaboration. Small teams can function with a simple calendar and message board, but bigger teams may need a product roadmap template to help everyone stay on track when working toward the launch of a new product or service. Break things down so every member of the team knows what they need to do, the deadlines they're working toward, and the tasks others need to perform to get them where they need to be.

Collaboration Takes Your Business to the Next Level

Successful business leaders promote a culture of collaboration and encourage people to communicate. Through open communication, proper scheduling, and use of templates and collaboration tools, it becomes possible to have a dynamic, growing business that performs at its best even on complex projects.

Nicola Reid is an entrepreneur and small business owner. She created Business4Today to provide access to the resources members of marginalized groups need to turn their entrepreneurial dreams into reality. Through her site, she hopes to support the growing number of people of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community who are taking the leap into small business ownership.