We can achieve things that we think and talk about all day long.
There is so much synergy that can be enjoyed from collaboration. We can push ideas along the path of refinement. We can make awaken dormant ideas. We can raise them to awareness and then be acted upon but it many ideas remain dormant since there is no collaborative chatter. The is no voice to these ideas and they fade into the recesses of time.
“We do not collaborate because we see each other as competitors. We compete for budget, we compete for promotions, we compete for prestige and ego.”
Collaboration really creates mutual respect and friendship which is perhaps the best by product of the collaborative culture. People like to work with others that they like and trust and all things being equal they will work with those they like and trust. All things not so equal they will work with people the like and trust
Many organizations are designed to be internally competitive. In our silo-based reality we do not trust the competition and it is hard to really collaborate in that environment whether we consciously acknowledge this or not.
Powerful leaders also would rather stunt a would be rival that grow that leader to be better than the current leader. The reason being is the firm will displace the older experienced person for the newly trained version 2.0 at a cost savings. We see it all the time.
How many metrics and scorecards does your organization have that rewards teamwork and collaboration?
When last did you pay out and incentive and ask the team leader to share it as he thought it was fit?
What is the best way to award teams?
4 Practices to Encourage Collaboration
DO:
- Show you CARE: have face to face contact as much as possible, be sincere.
- Share the Battle Ground, roll up your sleeve and get dirty. Have deep domain knowledge sharing session as much as possible.
- Ask Thinking Questions: invite as many key players as needed to meetings for best stack of ideas. Ask many questions, not accusatory questions but ones to make everyone think on the edge of the box.
- Cadence of Meetings: meet regularly, meet ritually, meet to clarify thoughts. Genius shows up in spurts and you never know when the genius will decide to come to your team.
Stephen Choo Quan
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