Collaboration is the backbone of any great team, company, or management style. So what do you do when you have a problem to solve, but feel like you’re being held back by an inability to have a decent conversation? The answer is intentional collaboration.

Intentional collaboration means that you have one goal for every conversation: to finish somewhere different than where you started. That could mean you’re building a relationship, planning a task, solving a problem, or working through a conflict. Every collaboration is implicitly or explicitly intentional, and whether you realize it or not, every conversation creates something – even if it’s a feeling of being stuck, helpless, or caught in a repetitive cycle. Ideally, by making intentional collaboration a conscious process, you can bring to light these eventualities and have a little more autonomy over where conversations go and what becomes of them.

Whatever your end goal may be, you have to approach the conversation knowing that you’ll get there – which is why you’ll need these tools to get the job done.

1. Mind your unconscious communication

The first and most important feature of intentional collaboration is thinking about what might be behind it all. Ultimately, unconscious communication is the driver of all exchanges – whether you want to or not, you’re telling others how you feel without even explicitly saying it. Whether you think you have a problem with something or you believe that you’re totally emotionally removed from a situation, you should be open to the fact that unconscious communication is occurring. The solution to tackling this before these moments become a problem is to really get to the bottom of what you feel and why about any given situation because a bit of insight is never a bad thing.

2. Be digitally literate

Tone over text is challenging to parse out, which is why communicating intentionally over digital platforms is one of the most important tools you can have in the hybrid work era. In moments of stress or frustration, don’t just shoot off emails or messages without thinking twice. Read, re-read, and check to make sure that your message isn’t being muddled by your potential anger.

3. Don’t be too daring

When it comes to intentional collaboration, there’s no need to give a TED Talk every time you have the floor. It doesn’t need to be flashy, exciting, or Academy Award-winning – sometimes, the most boring questions, comments, or statements will let people in on your perspective. So rather than making a point to steal the show with astounding insight, scale back and stop trying to impress.

4. Name your feelings

It might seem like an activity your child would do in kindergarten, but let’s be real: naming feelings can help anyone at any age and any stage. By directly telling someone what you feel, you aren’t expecting them to read your mind or be your therapist. By saying what you’re feeling, the other party can hear what’s hindering your decision-making abilities and help you progress. And ideally, they’ll do the same, so you can have a partnership where feelings are accepted and processed together in the service of achieving your common objective.

5. Create a “trust” fund

According to Loft Consulting, a “trust fund” is a metaphorical bank of trust representing how much employees feel they can depend on their company. Small interactions eventually are fed into the trust fund, and the more transparency and respect there is, the more the trust fund will grow. Before you make a snide comment or say something out of anger, just remind yourself: does this put something into the trust fund or take it out?

6. Study communication strategies

Looking at the fundamentals of communication can also help inform how classically intentional collaboration can look. Traditionally, communication can be top-down (from leadership to entry-level), bottom-up (from entry-level to leadership), or horizontal (from peer to peer). Different topics require different types of communication, and some find it helpful to label certain interactions to examine if they could be improved.

7. Keep your mind open

To communicate intentionally, you have to try to keep every avenue of conversation open. Be curious, not categorical – especially if you’re trying to plan for the future and are looking at different avenues of investigation. By foreclosing on others’ opinions before you even hear them out, you’re not following through with doing anything possible to achieve whatever the end goal of a conversation is at that moment.

8. Take some space

If you’re getting overwhelmed by a conversation and you’re not sure how to move forward, don’t be afraid to take some time for yourself. Sometimes, intentional collaboration can be inhibited by not knowing what you’re working towards in the first place or imagining that your goal is different from what the other party does. By regrouping and refocusing, you can answer all those questions and come back with a clearer head.

9. Find value

It might be that intentional collaboration is hindered by imagining that the other party has opinions that contradict yours. But sometimes, those discussions can be the most interesting and the most fruitful. Even if you don’t agree with someone, you can still find points of value in their arguments – and intentional collaboration means listening with determination as much as it means talking about your ideas.