Collaboration Skills: 7 Tips From MasterClass Instructors

Collaboration skills are soft skills that assist in cultivating a collaborative work environment. Knowing how to work effectively with other people is a de facto part of nearly anyone’s job description, except for those who perform truly solitary work. In any group or work environment, from onboarding onward, learning how to collaborate by giving your best and bringing the best out of your teammates goes a long way.

Task management, problem-solving, and communication skills are all relevant to furthering collective team goals—all these sets of skills serve as key collaboration strengths, too. If certain organizational or interpersonal skills help you share information and work more effectively with a group of people, odds are you can also consider them collaboration skills.

Collaboration skills help you set clear goals for group projects, cooperate with all sorts of learners and workers, and streamline your own personal workflow. By using appropriate communication strategies, project management tools, and basic emotional intelligence, you can build relationships that will lead to greater job satisfaction and productivity.

This important skill set is especially essential given the advent of new technologies and communication capabilities. For instance, in remote team collaboration, video conferencing across entire time zones is becoming more common. Remote team collaboration like this requires even more ingenuity and openness than ever before.

Good collaboration tools and skills facilitate teamwork and increase innovation and productivity. Keep these seven tips from MasterClass instructors in mind as you seek to improve your own collaboration skills:

1. 1. Be open to constructive feedback. As a team leader, adaptability and open-mindedness are essential skills. Be open to feedback from your entire team. Allow multiple stakeholders to be a part of both the brainstorming and decision-making process. Seek out different perspectives to clarify your common vision. In relation to his own filmmaking process, acclaimed director Ron Howard says, “If someone comes up with a suggestion … if that choice still achieves the objective, the super objective of the scene or the moment in the story—then it's much better to let that person use their choice.”
2. 2. Build trust. Do your part to build trust between yourself and other teammates. Prominent stage designer Es Devlin says, “As you start to build trust, you will both allow one another to bring more into the collaboration. And what will happen is there'll end up being a kind of dance between your mind and the mind of your collaborator.” Try out team-building exercises to increase your faith in your coworkers while they learn to believe in you, too.
3. 3. Know what makes your collaborators tick. Gaining a better understanding of your teammates’ individual strengths, communication styles, body language, and competencies will help you collaborate with them more effectively. In the more direct words of Metallica rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist James Hetfield, “You should know what makes them happy [and] what pisses them off.”
4. 4. Make sacrifices. Sometimes you have to let someone else get what they want to be a team player or leader in a collaborative environment. Know how to pick your battles and when to cut your teammates some slack. If you’re part of a team that respects your input, relinquishing control occasionally becomes easier. “I just truly wouldn’t want to put something on the runway if she is that clear about it not representing her aesthetic,” Fernando Garcia says of his fashion partnership with fellow designer Laura Kim. “And that’s just the level of respect we have with each other.”
5. 5. Practice empathy. “If it's a partnership or it's a deal or it's a collaboration, I think when you use empathy, it's like the number one tool,” says music producer, singer, and songwriter Pharrell. “It helps other people who are involved in the process, whatever it is, feel included, helps them feel heard.” Use active listening and other people skills to develop empathy for your teammates’ viewpoints. This helps with both facilitating conflict resolution and building camaraderie.
6. 6. Patiently explain your views. “When I have a vision that Fernando doesn’t understand or agree on or doesn’t like,” says fashion designer Laura Kim of her partnership with Fernando Garcia, “I try to gather images and stories that will paint for him what I’m thinking.” Use effective communication tools and interpersonal skills to illustrate how your personal viewpoint will help your team achieve a common goal. Successful collaboration relies on these attempts at persuasion.
7. 7. Respect and enforce boundaries. To foster a positive company culture and collaborative workplace, encourage team members to develop self-awareness about their own boundaries and incentivize them to respect others’ as well. “There are times where you gotta call somebody out as a brother,” says Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. “You gotta say, ‘Hey man … you are really overstepping certain boundaries here.’” Do your best to pick up on both verbal and nonverbal communication cues from your team members to ensure they remain comfortable working with you.

All you need is a MasterClass Annual Membership and our exclusive video lessons from the likes of Elaine Welteroth (the former editor in chief of Teen Vogue and host of CBS’ The Talk), Issa Rae (the powerhouse multihyphenate behind HBO’s Insecure), Robin Arzón (the lawyer-turned-head instructor of Peloton), and other luminaries who have have embraced the twists and turns on the path to professional success. With their guidance, you’ll learn how to lean into your strengths, follow your heart, and build the career of your dreams.