Defining your boundaries ultimately makes life easier. Nowhere does this hold more power than in the workplace.

A successful business is one where you are able to see and feel progress. An environment where efforts are collaborative and goals are achieved regularly. In today’s startup culture, many companies exert maximum effort to simply stay afloat. If performance has taken a downward turn, perhaps profound change is necessary.

Company culture is a hot topic these days, with every office starting to understand that workplace happiness boosts engagement. But many work environments often separate their ideas of culture with their strategy missives. What would happen if the two were combined?

Employee performance optimization – the practice of analyzing and improving individual workers, has long been the norm when it comes to improving productivity. However, more and more companies are electing for team-based operations these days. The Harvard Business Review reports that the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50 percent or more.

Bad managers are the absolute worse.

They upend company culture, interrupt operational strategy and can create an untenable atmosphere in the workplace.

The worst of it is, a large percentage of companies fail to notice when management is affecting productivity, blaming high turnover on everything else under the sun.

Accountability. We all want others to show it but may not always understand how to engage in it ourselves. It has been shown to be a prime factor in creating an environment of trust and well being among peers.

The results are in and it’s not good. A recent LinkedIn survey shows that most employees can only envision themselves at their current company for less than 2 years. This means that you will spend resources to hire, train and nurture a potential staff member, only to have them quit just as they are getting the hang of things.

There is an age-old battle between what we think needs to be done and how we think we should do it. 

An efficient person can do things quickly and well, but how effective are they ultimately? 

Do they retain the original goal when they have finished? 

An effective person will ultimately hit their targets, though it may take longer and be more arduous than their predecessor.  

So which way is correct?  And is it possible to have both?  

Micromanaging.  Every office workers death stroke.  I have never met anyone who likes to be micromanaged, going about having his or her every action scrutinized.  It is one of the least effective management techniques. Yet is practiced widely by leaders everywhere.

So what is the polar opposite of micromanaging? It can be encompassed in one word: delegation.  Giving your employees opportunities to learn and grow can drastically alter both productivity and workplace well being.

Here are 4 benefits of delegation that you may not have considered:

What this tells us is that we no longer have to work at the same time or work from the same spot, to work together.

So what does it take to keep everyone connected and create a sense of shared purpose?