Collaboration As Antidote To Loneliness: 4 Steps For Building Exceptional Teams

When Sven received his new assignment, relocating from Copenhagen to South Florida to join a global business unit focused on customer engagement, he was beyond thrilled. However, he soon discovered that he would be taking over a team that had experienced challenges under their former leader, who had a rather autocratic style and wasn’t well-liked. Unexpectedly, this leader quit his job without warning, leaving the team in a state of both relief and uncertainty.

Despite being composed of highly qualified and talented individuals, Sven's team was plagued by dysfunction. Their priorities and project schedules were misaligned, resulting in extended work hours. High-stress levels frequently led to heated arguments among team members. To add push to shove, the department heads didn’t provide constructive feedback and delegated poorly, taking over complex tasks due to pushback from employees.

Rather than focusing on customer engagement and innovation, Sven dedicated the next 12 months to improving team morale, cohesion, and performance. He prioritized tasks such as assigning individuals to suitable roles, fostering trust within the team, developing an inspiring shared vision, aligning team members on priorities and subsequent actions, and creating an environment of learning and knowledge sharing among team members.

Through this experience, Sven realized that human connection in the workplace was not merely optional but essential for performance. He recognized that fostering a culture of collaboration and mutual support was crucial for achieving success.

This transformation brought Sven profound satisfaction, leading him to become a coach for other leaders and teams. He is now helping his clients to elevate their performance to new heights.

In his years as an executive coach, Sven observed alarming levels of loneliness at work. A recent EY survey of 5,000 adults employed in companies across the U.S., the UK, mainland China, Germany, and Brazil revealed that over 80% of employee respondents worldwide have experienced or currently feel loneliness in the workplace.

We don’t need to be alone to feel lonely. Employees feel lonely when the levels of closeness, security, and support they seek in their interpersonal relationships at work are not met. As a result, they feel less committed to their organizations and are less approachable.

Teams as an Antidote for Loneliness

Teams serve as a powerful antidote to these challenges when they create a positive and productive environment that attracts and engages individuals, thereby fostering a culture of collaboration. We all hold fond memories of being part of a remarkable team, whether it was in a work, school, sports, music, or theater setting. We are intimately familiar with the uplifting feelings and abundant energy that come from being a member of an amazing team. It’s like magic!

The big question remains: how can we effectively create a highly collaborative and engaged team or successfully transform a dysfunctional team into an exceptional one?

Every team has the potential to achieve peak performance. However, it requires the team members to acknowledge and confront their issues collectively, while committing themselves to a path of continuous improvement.

In his team coaching approach, Sven suggests 4 steps to make it happen:

1. Create a team charter – a short list of agreed-upon behaviors and principles to adhere to. These may include statements such as “We start meetings on time” or “Mistakes are human. We look for the learning”. It is not about the ‘What needs to be done?’ but rather ‘How can it be done together?”
2. Deploy a team assessment to create a picture of how the team members collectively see themselves. The assessment is anonymous and includes the team’s perceptions about productivity factors such as decision-making and accountability as well as positive aspects like trust and communication. This is not a rating of the team by the leader nor an evaluation of individual personalities or contributions.
3. Discuss openly and creatively 'How can we work better together?’ – the team addresses critical topics that have been missed or avoided so far. The assessment gives the team a starting point of areas where they scored lower. It can be shocking at first to see the outcomes. But with a good facilitator/coach, the team should confront its reality and move the discussion naturally into a list of actions for improvement.
4. Change over time – By diligently executing their own action plan, the team members will witness the emergence of more productive behaviors. Gradually, they will develop a mindset of togetherness, a set of attitudes and beliefs that emphasize collaboration and mutual assistance. This positively influences team members who experience feelings of loneliness in the workplace. They likely remain silent about it and hesitate to seek support from others when facing work-related challenges. However, a request for help or advice from their teammates can become a comfortable avenue for them to raise their level of human connection at work.

Putting the Idea in Practice

In a recent engagement with a fast-growing startup, the CEO extended an invitation to Sven to join him and his team for a two-and-a-half-day offsite meeting. The newly formed team was experiencing fatigue and recognized the need to strengthen their relationships and leverage their diverse experiences to enhance their effectiveness.

During the workshop, team members had the chance to connect at a deer level through authentic introductions. Actively listening and investing time in getting to know one another better significantly enhanced the level of trust within the team.

Following an intense discussion, the team members assembled and signed their charter on a flip chart, committed to holding each other accountable to these newly established standards. The charter helped to manage a subsequent heated discussion when opposing opinions about the company’s strategy were expressed.

The team successfully kept the conflicts healthy and the discussion productive by referring to one of the charter's agreements, "We assume positive intent." The team’s self-assessment revealed the competence of “Common Mission and Purpose” as a notable strength. Being aware of it and leveraging it enabled the team to develop improvement plans for other competencies that were rated relatively low, such as ‘’Goals & Strategies”.

Another team identified “Constructive Interaction” as an underdeveloped competence. During a workshop, team members engaged in an open feedback session in which everyone provided two comments to each of their fellow team members, describing that individual’s actions that made the team better and others that held the team back.

This workshop helped the team develop important new habits and behaviors. Collaboration significantly improved upon returning to work. Members began cross-training and helping each other, resulting in a reduction in overtime. Additionally, the leader's time previously spent on drama and arguments decreased by almost 20%. Although the team members did not explicitly discuss loneliness at work, their shift in attitude undoubtedly played a role in preventing or overcoming it.

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When Sven is not coaching executive teams, he indulges in the pleasures of Florida life, embracing nature and outdoor sports. Additionally, he embarks on annual five-day bicycle tours with a friend to explore foreign territories and experience different cultures. Sven enjoys these adventures and cherishes the magical moments gathered over almost 8,000 miles across 19 countries. At the same, he couldn’t imagine himself going on such tours without a trustworthy partner by his side – because otherwise, he would feel lonely. Learn more about his work here.

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