COLLABORATION

I've been exploring the beginnings of Greek Philosophy in relation to a Critical Thinking programme I'm developing and what has struck me most is how the people who were at the centre of the movement... Aristotle, Archimedes and all the others who hung out together down at the Acropolis....in Athens in the 3rd Century BC, they created a buzz which led to the discovery of over half of what we know about science today.

A key factor driving that explosion of discovery was that those philosophers got together regularly down at the Acropolis and gave presentations to each other about what they'd been doing.

This public sharing of knowledge in which anyone who was interested was encouraged to participate, must have been quite something to be part of and there would inevitably have been a huge crossover of information between different disciplines as medics saw the potential for something that, say, mathematics.

What does this have to do with us, now?

For years, we've been working in a silo formation. I'm not saying that it wasn't productive but now with the breaking down of formations and structures in the workplace topportunities are opening up to do things beyond the box and one of these, in my view is to be more open to collaboration.

It doesn't have to be a formal top-down activity but it could become an informal part of our routine which happens when we have something to share or ask...it's what they were doing at the Acropolis.

Corporate has gone, we're individual operators doing now. Let's access and be a part of the entire scope of experience that's available in the organisation and leverage its' value from a perspective that might not have been seen.

Collaboration...it worked for the Greeks! They discovered that the whole could be greater than it's parts.

It begins by connecting beyond boundaries.