Is collaboration a new idea?
Michael Allen C.
Trusted Consultant | Driving Operational Excellence | Transforming Processes for Maximum Efficiency and Profitability | Expert in Lean Methodologies and Agile Strategies to Enhance Performance!
Why is collaboration in business important?
Today collaboration is as much of a buzzword as it is an advanced business idea. Why do businesses encourage - even push their employees to collaborate? They create open-plan offices, they developed teams to encourage serendipitous interactions, they promote environments to help other members of the team. Why? Why spend millions of dollars each year on creating a team environment? It makes sense, after all as the adage says, two heads are better than one. And if two are better why not five or even ten heads? A collaborative environment promotes idea sharing, open dialogue, thoughtful or even inspired conception of thinking. As business leaders, we know, embrace, and even promote a type of mind-share.
How far down the ladder does it go down? In an average office, many of the ideas are generated by a homogenized mode of thinking. They choose leaders in businesses because they share the vision of their superiors. They may not agree all the time, but they also share many of the same view points, that is after all why they were hired. How does that help your business? How does that help us see things in a way that our own limited thinking has held us from? I have been very fortunate in my life to associate with business leaders from every different type of profession. Some of my best marketing ideas have come while talking to CEO's and Partners in accounting firms. Some of my most inspired growth in new product development has been through discussions with attorneys and dentists at the same time. We have come to believe that the more we surround ourselves with like minded individuals, the better we will become in our profession. And in most respects that is true. Business today requires a more "open-plan" concept. Reaching out to others outside of our normal group of leaders provides insight into ideas that we may never hear from the hegemony of our current corporate leadership.
My group of corporate leaders are some of the most inspired and inspiring in business today. It is their thoughts and conceptual thinking that are the ideas that break them free from the mindsets of their profession to see a whole new realm of possibilities. Have you ever thought about joining a group like this? We meet monthly and spots fill up fast!
Cheers,
Mike Calhoun