6 Keys to Collaborate Successfully

Are you collaborative??

It DOES take at least two to tango on this.

What comes to mind when you think of being collaborative?

Produced or conducted by two or more parties working together??

Sounds fair.

Easier said than done and don’t even get me started about when you have a third wheel. Or, even a spare tire that just sits there until you get a flat. Oy to the vey!

I was a long-time (IT and Management) consultant. I ran very large teams. Small teams too. I ran large meetings. Small ones too.?

Along those years, you learn a thing or a thousand about collaboration, facilitation, and motivation all in the name of generating and implementing new ideas.

This Friday, October 14th, I’m meeting with my leadership coaching members for a stellar session on becoming collaborative.

If you’re interested in joining, check out the program .

In short, I meet monthly with the members to teach my latest strategies, tactics, and tools on building a rewarding career and leading a fulfilled life.

All the sessions are recorded and saved for you in what is now a mega leadership library.

The easiest way for you to see what’s inside the library, learn the methodology I teach, and the topics I’ve already covered is to grab my FREE, valuable skill-building roadmap and leadership assessment .?

Inside this FREE 35-page booklet, there is a ton of value including my-defined leadership tiers, the 46 essential skills to build, how to create your development plan, track your progress, and much more.

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Today, good news, I’d like to share some key thoughts on becoming collaborative and what you need to do before, during, and after a collab sesh.

?Let’s roll…

1. Communication. One of the most vital success factors in getting people to contribute to any collaboration is for them to first understand how they fit into the overall strategy and goals of what you’re trying to accomplish. Without this context, it’s very difficult for anyone to generate ideas that help achieve the major corporate or team goals.

2. Inclusion (and exclusion). The easiest, and most-often missed way, to ensure a successful collaboration is by simply starting with the right group of people! Organizations often miss in multiple directions when it comes to optimizing the group. Oftentimes, for buy-in’s sake, there are unnecessary senior-level individuals or they include individuals who don’t have the know-how or experience in an attempt to educate. Either way, the collaboration is diluted with these extra individuals.

3. Set the table. Before you actually meet to perform the collaboration, it's best to get a running start by informing the individuals of the goal of the collaboration. Additionally, you want share the need for the solution or idea, what you want to happen as an outcome (versus how you want it to happen), the importance of thinking without limits, and specific questions to stimulate thinking for idea generation.

4. Brainstorm as an individual. Brainstorming, as most organizations perform it, is one of the worst techniques to generate ideas and collaborate. Typically, individuals are inclined to put in less effort because they think others will do the work, the group regresses to the mean (because of groupthink, and production blocking occurs because you can only listen or think at any moment in time. Instead, brainstorm individually as a prerequisite to the collaboration.

5. Running the collaboration. There are lots of ways to do this, but all techniques will, in one way or another, cover the collection of ideas, decide which ideas to work further, and enhance the best idea(s) based on the goals.

6. Managing conflict. Conflicts during collaboration are generally related to disagreements on best solutions, misaligned priorities, or personal agendas. The fastest and most effective way to handle disagreements is to refocus the individuals on the goal of what the collaboration exercise is intended to achieve. This, oftentimes, will help you eliminate the personal element (my idea vs. your idea) by realigning the group to the greater good.

Of course, no idea is worth anything without implementing it. I’ll leave the bringing it to life to you!

If you enjoyed these points and want to learn more about being collaborative, generating needle-moving ideas, communication, facilitation, and influencing, perhaps check out my leadership program and join me this Friday.

There are a couple of membership options to suit your needs.

Either way, I hope you enjoyed this digest and I’ll see you soon!

Andy

…put people first, results second.

88 words on me:?I’m a world-leading career and leadership coach and award-winning author of three books, including?Interview Intervention (grab free-ish) ?and?The Hiring Prophecies . During this most-recent act of my career, I’ve successfully helped more than 60,000?members of my programs ?across 100 countries thrive in their careers. I know there are millions more who’ve also benefited from my freemiums.

If you like the visual stuff, check out the swipes on Instagram and join me there !