Effective communication, collaboration, and feedback are essential for creating a thriving culture.

The other side of this is siloes, bureaucracy, and a lack of cooperation.

What Microsoft found in a recent survey was that employees who were thriving and not thriving were both talking about culture but in vastly different ways.

Thriving employees talked about a collaborative environment and teamwork with colleagues, an inclusive culture with autonomy and flexibility, and well-being support. These comments reference examples such as being able to have honest, non-judgmental conversations on difficult topics, with a focus on finding solutions.

Employees who weren’t thriving talked about experiencing siloes, bureaucracy, and a lack of collaboration. In these comments, they found ‘lack of agency’ and ‘sense of being a cog in a machine.’ In other words, the opposite of being empowered and energised to do meaningful work.

So considering that, here are a few strategies for improving communication, collaboration, and feedback within teams, and how to create an environment that not only encourages but values employee input and ideas.

Communicate Effectively

How would I communicate this idea if I were tweeting and facing a character limit?

Use whatever forms of communication are at your disposal to help organise your thoughts. You’ll then communicate well-thought-out concepts when you do share.

Create Accountability

What does it look like when we are at our best?

Have a reciprocal agreement with a trusted teammate or colleague, make sure to notice each others’ patterns, and then meet once a month to share your perspectives.

Encourage Innovation

So how do you get over the discomfort associated with exploration?

This three-step process is a quick and effective way to get the ball rolling and accelerate bottom-up innovation:

• First, ask, “Why?” Why do we do it this way?

• Second, ask, “What if?” What if we tried this instead?

• Third, ask, “How?” How might we do it differently?

Start with the fundamentals and uild an inclusive culture with autonomy, flexibility and support to ensure your employees are able to have honest, non-judgmental conversations on difficult topics, with a focus on finding solutions.