If you asked most leaders whether they value collaboration, I doubt you would get many noes. Most want people to share ideas, help one another, and build relationships across the organization. The more revealing question is what happens when doing those things competes with something else on the to-do list.
An employee spends an hour helping a colleague solve a problem, then stays late to finish their own work. A manager keeps a development conversation on the calendar, knowing the reporting deadline hasn't moved. We may appreciate both decisions, but if working together consistently requires people to fall behind elsewhere, we have made collaboration hard to sustain.
A recent Gartner finding caught my attention for that reason: one in four employees identified lack of time and a focus on individual rather than team excellence as barriers to collaboration. That leaves me wondering how often we ask people to build stronger working relationships without examining what they have to work around.
Think about the person everyone goes to when they need help. They know the history, understand the process, and can usually point someone in the right direction. Their knowledge helps other people succeed. Yet when it is time to evaluate their performance, the conversation may focus entirely on their own assignments. We benefit from their willingness to help, then leave them to figure out how to absorb the time it takes.
Managers can find themselves in a similar position. We tell them that developing people is a leadership responsibility, then give them calendars and workloads that leave little room for it. When something has to move, the one-on-one is often easier to reschedule than the deadline. There may be a reasonable explanation each time it happens, but the employee still experiences a conversation that keeps getting postponed.
I think we have to be willing to look at our part in that. Before deciding that people need to collaborate more or managers need to be more intentional, we can ask whether our expectations are workable. Have we accounted for the time it takes to develop someone? Do our goals encourage departments to help one another? What happens when an employee's contribution to the team comes at the expense of a number we are measuring individually?
These are leadership decisions, even when they are buried in a performance form or a standing meeting invitation. They influence what people make time for and what they learn to let go. If helping a colleague is appreciated but falling behind is penalized, people face a difficult choice. We cannot keep leaving that choice to employees and then be surprised when they protect their own work.
This is where the conversation about connection needs to go further than planning another gathering. I enjoy a team lunch, and it has value to get to know people beyond their roles. But if everyone returns to competing priorities, rushed handoffs, and little access to their manager, the conditions of the work remain the same. The event may have been enjoyable, but it won't change what makes it hard to work together.
Some of the most useful opportunities for connection are already part of the work. A colleague explains why a process exists instead of simply sending over the instructions. A manager asks a follow-up question and gives the employee time to answer. Two departments talk through a recurring problem instead of continuing to work around each other. Those interactions help people understand who they can turn to, how others think, and whether their questions will be welcomed.
We lose something when every conversation has to justify itself against how quickly we could have moved on. Sometimes the question that takes a few extra minutes reveals a misunderstanding that would have cost us much more time later. Sometimes helping a colleague today means they can handle the next situation independently. We need enough judgment in how we manage work to recognize that value, even when it is less visible than a completed task.
That doesn’t mean adding more meetings or expecting everyone to build relationships the same way. It means looking at the work we already ask people to do and making deliberate choices. A manager may need fewer reporting demands to make time for coaching. A performance conversation may need to account for how someone contributes to other people's success. A team may need clearer priorities so employees can help one another without wondering which deadline they are putting at risk.
A useful place to begin is with one behavior you say you value. Look at what happens when someone follows through on it. Does it fit into their workload? Does it count when you discuss their contribution? If the answer is no, there is a leadership decision to make. Connection is part of the work, and the way we organize the work needs to reflect that.