Improving Teams Collaboration through changing our thinking

Virtual collaboration tools, such as Sharepoint, have been around for nearly 20 years now. There are so many collaboration tools, for any activity you can think of. So why are we all still addicted to email, with 293.6 billion emails sent every day[1]? Why haven’t collaboration tools taken off and replaced email use, particularly within large enterprises?

Let’s take Microsoft Teams. Any business in the UK which uses Microsoft Office will have migrated, or will soon be migrating, onto Office365. This is a new cost base to contend with; going from a one-off capital payment to a monthly subscription charge for all users means the company needs to see added value. And that’s where Teams comes in, as an additional tool within the Office365 suite. The problem is people aren’t using it, with around 20-30% user adoption at best. 

Why?

Firstly, new technologies always take years to achieve mass take-up. The first email was sent in 1971, but only became ubiquitous in the late 1990s. Also, we are all generally set in our ways, and are used to the world of face-to-face meetings and linear email communication – we accept the poor efficiencies and the necessary workarounds as these are familiar frustrations, built into the way we see the world of work.

The third key reason for poor use of Microsoft Teams is very simple – we just don’t know how to use it well, and watching dozens of American YouTube tutorials on which button to push won’t change that (trust me, I’ve tried)!

One way to solve this is to train your people in how to think and feel about using collaboration tools. Get under the skin of the psychological barriers they’re facing, and give them the tools, coping strategies and emotional intelligence to constructively engage with the world of Artificial Intelligence. The opportunities for creating huge value through virtual collaboration are endless. We are on the verge of a new world of work, but Collaborative Intelligence will only evolve as our ability to engage rationally and emotionally with AI increases.

Emailogic offer a course designed to empower staff to use Teams and Office 365 – if you want to find out more please email or call.

[1] Source: Statistica, https://techjury.net/stats-about/how-many-emails-are-sent-per-day/