Cooperation and coordination are two essential and influential arms for the success of any collection. These words look similar but have different meanings and involve another working system. In this article, we’ll explore the differences between collaboration and coordination and explain each to help you understand when to use each.
Definition of coordination and cooperation
Coordination means teams can use predetermined frameworks and work methods and work independently. For example, sending a design request is considered a form of coordination, and employees use a predetermined process to do the work more efficiently.
Collaboration is much more time-consuming than coordination and involves creating an entirely new process that often requires the like-mindedness of key team members to discuss potential solutions and decide on a path forward. For example, determining the optimal strategy for handling design requests in your company is a form of collaboration.
Collaboration takes a lot of time and energy and isn’t always necessary, and by relying on coordination, you can free up a lot of time for employees to focus on their work.
The difference between coordination and cooperation
Cooperation: Two or more people work together to achieve a common goal.
These concepts may seem similar, but coordination and cooperation have different meanings. Collaboration does not happen without coordination, but coordination can be created without cooperation.
Coordination is specific to the work planning phase, and cooperation occurs in the work execution phase. When collaboration is not required, doing so may slow down progress and hinder decision-making. A lack of coordination may also cause team members to work twice as hard to complete their tasks or their work may be delayed while waiting for decisions or handovers from colleagues. In both cases, time is wasted, resources are not appropriately used, and financial resources are wasted, affecting the bottom line and customers.
When should we think about coordination, and when should we cooperate?
According to research by The Work Innovation Lab, high-performing companies have specific strategies for leveraging coordination and collaboration. This prevents troublesome collaborative overload when teams engage in back-and-forth communication, such as status updates, attending meetings, and responding to emails and messages.
Time to use coordination
The Labor Innovation Lab found that high-performing companies tend to use coordination for activities that are primarily predetermined and performed independently using existing processes, including:
- data transfer;
- project planning;
- decision making
Although it may seem strange to use coordination for decision-making, the Labor Innovation Lab assumes high-performing companies rely on decision-making models such as RACI and RAPID that coordinate and define decision-making roles in advance.
Time to use collaboration
According to the research, highly productive companies collaborate for two critical activities: brainstorming and problem-solving.
Brainstorming: The purpose of brainstorming is to produce something new. When brainstorming is done right, it has ideas that one person could not develop independently. For brainstorming to achieve the desired result, a great deal of communication and cooperation between the participants is needed.
Problem-solving: According to research, when team members are diverse in cognitive ability, they solve problems faster and better. To take advantage of the diversity of cognitive ability, employees must feel psychologically safe and able to express ideas without fear of punishment or humiliation. Creating such an environment as brainstorming requires a lot of communication and collaboration.
The Innovation Lab sees collaboration as costly because it requires a lot of communication and back-and-forth between employees. This means carefully choosing when to cooperate, saving resources, and using coordination instead of partnership is very important.
Five tips for successful coordination at work
1. teach
Employee training is a surefire way to improve coordination in the workplace. It may include introductory courses related to the tasks you want people to perform or equipping your team with the latest project management skills. By improving your organization’s ability to handle and organize tasks, you are more likely to find new work methods and increase efficiency.
2. Define roles
According to one of the researchers, 53% of the employees were intensely aware of their duties and roles, and 86% declared that their work productivity was excellent. Therefore, the clarity of roles and responsibilities of people makes coordination very easy. Of course, this is not the only advantage of the transparency of parts, and according to the mentioned research, 84% of these people had a great desire to stay with their employer.
3. Determine the goals
Ann Latham, the queen of transparency, wrote in Forbes that about 80% of employees’ time is wasted due to unproductive activities and confusion. Taking simple steps like establishing a common work language, minimizing priority tasks, and creating a sense of tangible progress makes it easier for people to understand what their goals are.
4. give feedback
Project coordination is an ongoing process. Even the most planned tasks require attention and review during and after completion. Proper and continuous assessment and feedback make you pay more attention to resources, potential, backlogs, and any other problems and formulate more efficient plans for the future.
5. Monitor costs
This is an essential part of any project, but it may not be easy to continue monitoring as the project progresses. You can estimate required resources and create timelines by breaking tasks into smaller chunks. Not budgeting and not sticking to it may lead to incomplete tasks and hurt the project’s final result.
Five tips for successful collaboration at work
1. Choose your teams carefully
Forming a team is not an easy task. You must consider people’s strengths, knowledge, and behavior and how someone with these characteristics might fit or conflict with other team members. By asking everyone to learn how their teammates work, your organization will be better positioned to collaborate.
2. Provide communication channels
Employees spend an average of 20 hours a week using digital communication tools. Finding the right communication platform for your organization is essential to make the most of your knowledge, skills, and perspectives. Channels that allow for the constant sharing and questioning of ideas increase the likelihood of excellent results.
3. Be clear about the goal
Set up a meeting to instill a strong sense of purpose. Take the time to define everyone’s role clearly. Try to keep the forum conversational so team members feel comfortable asking questions and giving each other feedback. Also, give your team members a tool to measure the value of their work toward the overall goal. All successful associates do this.
4. Build trust
The foundation of cooperation is people’s trust in each other in the workplace. Leaders must trust their team members to do quality work, and team members must trust their leaders to make the right decisions for the organization. Perhaps most importantly, colleagues (especially those from different departments) must trust that everyone is doing their best. When only 41% of employees believe that “trust” is a top priority in their organization, building trust can give you a significant competitive advantage.
5. Celebrate your successes
When you reach your goal, you should celebrate your success. Showing your employees that you value their work output and collaboration skills reflects your organization’s culture. Incorporating collaboration-related goals into employee goals fosters a work culture that will lead to future success.
A few questions to choose cooperation or coordination
1. What kind of activity is intended?
Collaboration is likely necessary if you need new ideas or processes. But it’s better for more straightforward tasks like transferring and verifying coordination.
2. Are the main work components aligned with existing teams or functions?
If there is alignment, move on to coordination; if not, collaboration is probably needed to ensure teams agree on expectations, processes, and responsibilities before starting.
3. Do you need new goals or criteria to achieve the desired result?
If new goals and performance measures are necessary, you should use collaboration. However, you should focus on coordination if you can achieve the desired results using existing teams, goals, and metrics.
It’s your turn.
Have you ever noticed the difference between cooperation and coordination? In your organization, which of these two is used more? Please write us your opinion in the comments section.
