find your team of committed people for your Fab City Hub
Why does it matter ?
Define a core team of committed people that take on charge the mission of setting up, run and manage your innovative spaces ecosystem such as FCH is a fundamental step to take. Understanding who is on board, what are their knowledge, skills and needs is vital to assign clear and relevant roles and responsibilities to your team member. This will help you avoid miscommunication and identify expertise you might lack within your team.
However, if from one side a multi-disciplinary and diversified operational team is a key piece to build in order to run Fab City Hubs, on the other collaboration with diversified individuals could be challenging.
For examples values, interests and needs of an individual could clash with each others or with project goals and difficulties may arise (Smits and van Marrewijk 2012, page 1). Establishing a collaborative environment is fundamental since it could influence positively the success of your project.
Collaborative environments are fostered by taking care of multiple aspects, some of them :
specific space arrangements could be key to foster collaborative practices
implementing clear management practices within your team could also foster collaboration in your team
See next chapter to learn more about management practices for collaborative environments;
Key aspects
find here 8 aspects you should consider as a hub manager to build a collaborative environment Team. This session report 7 key aspects taken from this article to consider when you are willing to build a collaborative team:
Invest in relationship practices
As the manager of your FCH you should encourage collaborative behavior by investing significantly in building and maintaining social relationships throughout the organization. You can for example think about organising original and memorable team building events, or more recurrent, informal and convivial practices among team members and yourself to foster convivial relationship such as early morning breakfast among collaborators.
Modeling collaborative behavior
When the hub manager and other associates exhibit cooperative behavior towards each other, it fosters an environment of collaboration among team members. The Ambition Ranking tool could be of great help to facilitate collaboration
Crating a gift culture
Mentoring and coaching, especially on an informal basis, help people build the networks they need to work across role and responsibilities boundaries. This will contribute to create a workplace where employees perceive their interactions with leaders and colleagues as valuable and generously given, like a gift.
Ensuring the requisite skills
A human resources dedicated person that transfer to employees how to build relationships, communicate well, and resolve conflicts creatively can have a major impact on team collaboration. A useful exercise that could be done is a group knowledge activity that helps your team understanding knowledge and abilities, as well as the intentions and actions towards increasing it.
Supporting a strong sense of community
When people feel part of a community, they are more comfortable reaching out to others and more likely to share knowledge.
Assigning team leaders
Effective leadership involves balancing both task-oriented and relationship-oriented approaches. While the debate has typically centered around which approach is better, it's important to recognize that both are necessary for successful team leadership. Generally, emphasizing a task-oriented approach during the initial stages of a project and gradually transitioning to a relationship-oriented approach as the work progresses tends to yield the best results. Have a look to this lego challenge tool that makes evident how collaborative process are challenging if roles are not clearly defined and how they depend on communication, leadership dynamics, patience, conflict and problem solving strategy.
Building on heritage relationships
If team members are unfamiliar with each other, there is a risk that they may be hesitant to share knowledge. To prevent this, it is recommended to include at least a few individuals who are already acquainted with each other on the team.
Understanding role clarity and task ambiguity
Clearly defined roles for team members, coupled with flexibility in how to accomplish the task, can enhance cooperation within the team.
Find here a list of other resources collected to know more about building collaborative team for Fab City Hub.
→ if you are looking for more inspiring example about collaborative management practices it could be helpful for you to have a look to these three Stories about Governance models :