Some Thoughts on "Collaboration"

To be collaborative means that you embrace a certain way of life and work ... an openness to the ideas of other people, and in particular to how their ideas and perspectives may mold, change and transform your ideas. The heart of collaboration is openness to the ideas to others, and a stated and acted upon willingness to explore those ideas, rather than assuming that everything you think is right and correct from the get-go. To be collaborative then, is in essence a human process, that plays out over whatever modality of interaction you use with other people, be that face-to-face, email, a wiki or any other "collaborative technology".

The fundamental precursor to collaboration is the recognition that another person has something to add, or something that they can withhold, that will contribute to the success or facilitate the failure of an initiative. If they do add their support, they can contribute to success. If they withhold their support, they can facilitate failure.

Sometimes collaboration is so amorphous, or people don't recognize that there are contributions that others can give or withhold, that a "collaboration" is a collaboration in name and not in fact, adding time and confusion to the process ... without adding any value.

Comments

[Debbie]

Totally agree with your description and analysis of what collaboration is. Outside of IQ and EQ there is also CQ--the measure of how collaborative a person or group is. Beyond seeing that someone has something of value to add, a person also needs to see that hoarding information does not benefit anyone- including themselves. "Old school" way of thinking is that to hoard information meant that you were irreplaceable, so silos of information were formed. Unfortunatly that is still happenning many times over. To get people to see that in the sharing of information and collaborating together makes the ideas even better and it makes a person viewed as an expert and as the "go to" person is better for the individual, their carerr, their company and their relationships. Human collaboration comes from the "inside"--then you can put technology with it. Thanks for your blog!

[Mike Riversdale]

"an openness to the ideas of other people" - a great line and totally agree.

I would also add that there has to be a subjegation of the ego (to a degree) which is quite difficult for a lot of people :-) (in certain times I have been guilty of pushing a particular line because I thought if I gave up I would somehow "lose")

See ya Thu/Fri

[Debbie]

Don't we all like at times to "push" our ideas because of the win/lose mentality? As a Certified Facilitator I deal in this space ALOT! When I facilitate a group, I am in a neutral position, but those attending the work session certainly are not! I spend a lot of time at the beginning of the meeting dealing with the definition of Consensus (I can live with that and I can support it!). I share that the decisions made at the session are not about win/lose but about consensus. Sharing our own ideas, listening to other's ideas and then mixing them together always comes to a much better solution or idea than anything we could have come up with via a vote or via one person! Consensus-- I love this and it is win/win!