Christine Faulhaber, Founder & CEO, Faulhaber Communications PR powered by Digital Marketing. Promoting lifestyle brands since 2001.
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Productivity and getting better results with less is on everyone’s mind. Clients are cutting budgets, interest rates are cutting into everyone’s disposable income and life is expensive. Return on investment is paramount, and there is no better place to look than in-house. How can you get your team to work smarter?
Let’s talk about how you can create cross-pollination opportunities within your work environments.
What Is Cross-Pollination At Work?
Cross-pollination at work involves exposing your team members to new ways of thinking and sharing knowledge to create a shift in thought patterns. When you combine their intellectual capital with new ideas, you can often see innovative solutions come to life.
At my agency, we use tiger teams (tight groups that can ideate and solve problems quickly). We make sure to match varied thinking inside those teams. Add a creative beauty expert with an analytical thinker who normally works with retail clients, and you are sure to get new ideas.
For us, cross-pollination is achieved when we blend different types of thinkers, which can result in an exciting mix of fresh ideas.
How You Can Cross-Pollinate In Your Work Environment
• Try meeting as a full team at a weekly huddle or scrum-style meeting and share learnings and collaborate. Let everyone know that they’re welcome to create a slide in advance; this creates diversity in the content and allows everyone to have a fair voice. This can work well for hybrid teams.
• Share client news and information to those not working on the account or project. You never know who may have a great idea. We use Microsoft Teams so our hybrid workforce is always connected to the ideas.
• Invite all team members to participate in brainstorms—including interns or trainees if you have them. Welcome any and all ideas and keep a list and pull them up for future projects. One unused idea might be perfect in the future. Online tools are smart and fun. Check out sticky note apps for real-time brainstorms with a traditional pen-and-paper feel.
• Create tiger teams to deliver new perspectives on your key performance indicators. Ask senior and junior employees what they think of the process and get them all to ideate the solutions. You will have a more engaged team and ideas you hadn’t thought of before. Be sure to set expectations and explain what good looks like to get the best results. We integrate this thinking into all of our training and internal moments of collaboration. The team is always thinking about new and exciting ways to create success for our clients. We generate smart KPIs and then give them bonuses for it.
• Take advantage of your external connections, too. Other organizations you’re involved with can be great opportunities to cross-pollinate. In our case, we share services with registered partners, we offer pro bono support to like-minded brands, and we also have our team engage in community activities that create collaboration and boost team spirit. A recent visit to a food bank that aims to redirect surplus food to thousands of charities was a great way to get in some team bonding while supporting a great cause. We even snagged some evergreen content we can use in future posts. The team is excited and has already set a date for this spring to return and lend a hand again. Team building, relationship development, charitable commitment and content—I’ll say it was a success on many levels.
Wherever you look in your own business, there are opportunities for cross-pollination. Explore and see what you can uncover.
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