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Encourage Stronger Cooperation In Your Workplace

Encourage Stronger Cooperation In Your Workplace
by Lisa Mulcahy

As a manager, you understand the critical importance of each member of your team working harmoniously toward a common goal. Yet sometimes, an individual staff member's personal agenda can interfere with your group working together seamlessly — and your projects can suffer.

Here’s what you need to do: identify foolproof ways to foster cooperation, and get your group dynamic in sync. Follow this clear, research-proven advice to ensure excellent team collaboration, day after day.

Create an environment of fair benefit.

Recent Harvard research found that the atmosphere of a workplace determines whether employees act as "partners" or "rivals." If your staff feels it's appropriate to act as partners, they'll each accept the fact that sometimes one employee will get more praise or benefit from his/her role in helping a project succeed, but that in the end, cooperating as a team helps everyone win.

If your staff feels it's appropriate to act as rivals, however, competition and self-interest will sabotage any kind of group accomplishment.

To avoid these issues, let your employees know that your workplace runs on fairness: Employees who encourage their co-workers to succeed through cooperation will be rewarded with praise and incentives as well when a project succeeds. Those who pursue a selfish agenda and don't cooperate with their coworkers will also be noticed, but they'll get no payoff as an end result.

Read full article on MultiBriefs.