Collaboration Anyone?

I recently listened to a couple of very interesting and thought provoking interviews. One between Tobias Sturesson and Ron Carucci and the other between Danny Langloss and Luis Gonzáles. 

Although neither interview focused specifically on the topic of collaboration, they got me thinking about how their insights and suggestions could significantly improve the collaborative process - a topic of great importance to us at Nimbulis.

As you can imagine, we can develop the most amazing software to simplify and facilitate collaboration, yet it’s still up to those using it to ensure that their own dynamics make collaboration possible. What do I mean? Well, let’s take a look at the collaborative process itself.

What does collaboration mean to you?

According to the Cambridge dictionary, collaboration is ‘two or more people working together to create or achieve the same thing.’ According to Merriam-Webster, it’s ‘to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.’ Isn’t that interesting? What stands out to me are the phrases ‘working together’ and ‘to create or achieve the same thing’ and ‘especially in an intellectual endeavor.’

It sounds fairly straightforward, but, in reality, it’s a very complex thing, fraught with all kinds of influencing factors that have to be dealt with before we can truly collaborate. Most of the factors have to do with our mindset and emotions. How we perceive our team mates and leaders. Do we see them as ‘them’, or as ‘us’? Are we ‘in this together’, or are we ‘looking out for #1’?

Factors such as honesty, integrity and trust are key influencers in how we perceive the people we work with - and these directly impact our ability to collaborate effectively. If any of these elements is missing, there really is no way to have effective, or reliable collaboration, no matter how hard we try. If we feel that our team members aren’t honest, or don’t have integrity, how can we trust them? Or feel comfortable entering into an open collaboration while simultaneously feeling a need to protect our ideas or other intellectual or creative output? 

The collaborative process has to be founded on mutual trust and willing, open co-operation. When this happens, team members aren’t just ‘working together’ - they’re a cohesive unit. They have each other’s backs. They can both agree and disagree without loss of community. Their goal is ‘their’ goal and it’s the dedicated focus of their joint efforts.

In this kind of environment, we see innovation happening. Creativity happens. Culture happens. It’s not a ‘top down’ dictated policy defining company values, mission or vision - something written in a corporate document or press release. It’s a grass-roots honest-to-goodness working foundation embraced by both team members and leadership alike.

As I’ve discussed in previous articles, this is one of the most important reasons it’s vital for leaders to create an environment of open, honest feedback and dialogue. To borrow Ron Carucci’s term, to not ‘wallpaper over the cracks’ but to chip away whatever hinders, uncovering foundational flaws, then work together to repair the cracks and rebuild a better environment.

True collaboration is a beautiful thing and well worth the soul-searching, ’difficult conversations’ necessary to build an environment where teams can wholeheartedly ‘work together to create or achieve the same thing.’ I would highly recommend both the interviews I mentioned and linked to, at the beginning, for practical insights as to how to achieve this in your organization. As for me, I will be doing my best to put those concepts into practice in an even more proactive way than before.

#Inclusivity #Diversity #Collaboration #Leadership #Nimbulis #CWM #business #technology #innovation