The 7 secrets of highly collaborative teams
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of doing meaningful, challenging, absorbing work together with others. Achieving bigger things than you ever could alone, in an atmosphere of camaraderie and support. So what does it take to build that kind of team?
The teams that consistently accomplish the extraordinary are intentional about designing their environment and behaviors. They put the right routines and practices in place for productive and enjoyable teamwork, week-in, week-out. They take psychological safety seriously, and create the conditions for authenticity to thrive. In this article, we’ll show you what that looks like.
Below, you’ll find seven of the most transformative things teams can do to reach the peak of their collaborative powers. They’re clear, actionable, and work for teams of all shapes and sizes. By the end of the article, you’ll be ready to kickstart your team’s most collaborative year yet.
1. Clarify roles and responsibilities
There’s an incredible sense of ownership that emerges when people know exactly what’s expected of them. Instead of territorial confusion, you get an ecosystem where everyone’s strengths can shine. And it becomes obvious when another team member’s knowledge and skills are needed, or when it might be helpful to involve someone from another team.
You can start by having everyone write down what they think they’re responsible for, then comparing lists. You’ll immediately see the overlaps and gaps. Sometimes you’ll discover that a responsibility doesn’t clearly belong to anyone, or that someone’s overloaded while another person has capacity to help. Team members can ask each other “What do you need from me to be successful?” and “Where do my responsibilities end and yours begin?”
Once agreements are made, they need to be captured. Consider creating a role map that lives centrally (pinned in a team messaging system or on a project whiteboard, for instance). Treat this as a living asset, revisiting it regularly.
2. Define expectations
Before starting a project, sit down and agree on how you’ll work together. Think about three key areas:
Responsibilities: who owns what, how progress is tracked, how decisions are made.
Team norms: how you meet, contribute and communicate.
Behavioral standards: what’s acceptable, what’s not and how issues are raised or resolved.
Here are a few examples:
Responsibility: “No task is “assigned” until the person’s name is tagged in the project tool.”
Team norm: “If someone prefaces an idea with Here’s my initial thinking, we suspend judgment and only ask clarifying questions. We save critique for later.”
Behavioral standard: “If a message thread goes back and forth more than 3 times with rising tension or confusion, we stop typing and jump on a call to resolve it.”
3. Share communication and feedback preferences
Research by the Project Management Institute found that one-third (33%) of all project failures are caused by ineffective communication above all else. Effective communication starts with people being clear about their communication preferences, and taking note of others’. This can be as lightweight as a one‑page card that every team member fills in and shares. Useful prompts include:
- Preferred channels for quick questions, complex topics, and urgent issues
- Typical response times for email, chat, and calls
- Working hours, focus times, and “do not disturb” windows
- Accessibility or neurodiversity considerations that influence how we communicate
These can live in a shared folder, on a team wiki, or pinned in the main chat channel so they’re easy to find.
How people give and receive feedback is equally important. Gallup’s extensive meta-analysis on employee engagement reveals that feedback is the primary driver of “psychological commitment,” where people have a proactive sense of ownership over the outcomes they’re working towards, and the resilience to pursue them.
So how do you maximize the chances of feedback landing well? In highly collaborative teams, people ask each other “How do you like to receive feedback?” Some want it immediately; others want it in writing first. Honoring this replaces the anxiety of correction with the safety of a process, allowing feedback to land as data rather than danger. On specific projects, you can also ask colleagues “What would you like feedback on?” — this focuses the conversation on what feels most useful, and stops feedback feeling overwhelming or threatening.
4. Swap judgment for curiosity
When a colleague says something challenging or unexpected, the immediate reflex of a collaborative team is not “That’s wrong” but “Tell me more about how you got there”. Instead of asking “why did you…?”, they ask “What factors influenced your decision to…”. This shifts the energy from defensive to exploratory.
In the highest-performing teams, no moments are labelled as ‘failure’; all outcomes are treated as valuable information. Rather than asking “Why did we fail?” the conversation becomes “What did this reveal about our systems, our assumptions, or the way we’re working — and how do we want to respond next time?”.
Leaders can embed this mindset by openly sharing their own reflections, insights, and learning in real time. This signals that growth — not perfection — is expected. And it’s precisely this mindset that makes continuous improvement possible. Regular team reflection is also hugely valuable. Get together for a ‘Curiosity Session’ once or twice a month, and discuss questions like:
- What has worked well recently?
- What hasn’t worked?
- What can we learn from this?
- How can we improve the work – individually and as a team?
- How have we worked together as a team?
- How might we work together better?
- Is anything blocking us from achieving our goals?
- What can we do to remove any obstacles?
5. Celebrate little wins
Highly collaborative teams don’t wait until project completion to celebrate. They have a habit of noticing and calling out small milestones daily, which builds momentum and morale. This shifts the team’s dopamine reward system from one big payoff at the end to regular micro-doses of progress, which is crucial for sustaining energy during long projects.
This habit is also a powerful way to signal that it’s safe to be your Authentic Self. When you only celebrate perfect outcomes, people feel pressured to hide their struggles. But when you celebrate the process, including things like someone asking for help early, or running their first team meeting, you reinforce that the person is just as important as the output.
Consider creating a ‘Daily wins’ channel on your team messaging system. Each morning, ask “What went well yesterday?” At the end of the week, ask people to share their proudest moments, or when they felt truly supported by the team. Giving people public recognition for their work so the wider organization can appreciate their value is also a powerful way to nurture the sense of investment and togetherness that drives collaboration.
6. Be generous with gratitude
The healthiest, highest-performing teams are vocal and specific with their expressions of thanks to one another. This might sound like “I appreciate you stepping in on that client call; it gave me space to focus on the report” or “I noticed you cleaned up the meeting notes after we logged off — that made my follow-up email so much easier to write.” This reinforces helpful behaviors and ensures people feel recognized.
Generous expressions of gratitude can also help make invisible (but vital) work visible. In many teams, things like organizing files, smoothing over client friction, or checking in on morale go unnoticed. By specifically calling these things out, the team shows it values the tasks that keep everything running smoothly.
This kind of appreciation also helps fight off imposter syndrome during high-stakes work. A comment like “I really appreciated how you simplified that complex data for the board; it completely changed the energy in the room,” confirms competence in real-time, boosting people’s confidence and willingness to lead in the future.
Receiving feedback with gratitude is powerful too. When a leader says, “Thank you for disagreeing with me on that timeline; you saved us from overpromising to the client,” they’re doing more than being polite — they’re actively shaping the team’s culture, signaling that challenge is welcome and valued.
7. Burst the bubble
Teams that do outstanding work together develop their own language, rituals, and lore. There’s a sense of group identity and belonging, which should be nurtured and protected. But teams can also become echo chambers, and organizations dominated by cliques should expect to see innovation stagnate.
The strongest teams understand that collaboration is most powerful when it’s organization-wide. They actively seek input from outside the immediate group to refresh their thinking. This cross-pollination of perspectives helps drive creativity and sets the scene for smoother cross-team communication in future.
Bringing a designer into an engineering sprint review, or a sales rep into a product brainstorming session helps teams see what they might otherwise miss, and generate more well-rounded ideas. And it breaks down the us/them silos that so often slow down large organizations.
Better collaboration: where to start
Pick one practice from this article that resonates most with your team’s challenges right now. Start there, get comfortable with it, then add more practices to your toolkit over time. The teams that accomplish the extraordinary don’t wait for perfect conditions; they nurture them from within.
Inspire change in your organization
New ways of thinking and working take off fastest when there are passionate people there to champion the change. Our CPD-accredited Champions Program equips you with deep understanding of psychological safety, so you can create environments where people do their best work.
It’s ideal for:
- Leaders and managers
- People and culture directors
- HR and EDI professionals
- Training and development pros
- Independent consultants
- Aspiring trainers or facilitators
Curious to see what’s involved?
View the Champions Program