What does collaboration mean to you?

Collaboration is a term no organisation is ignoring in today's hyper connected and globalised world.  But the word means different things to enterprises depending on their priorities.  For some - it could mean as simple as enabling employees to work together to break silos.  For some others - it could mean breaking boundaries and enabling partners, customers and even general public to work together for a common cause.  It could be a mixture of all of this or some of this depending on the confidentiality requirements of the project.

It takes time and energy - We live in a hyper connected and a world built on instant gratification.  We expect immediate results and want to know the results of our initiatives  immediately.  Unfortunately collaboration projects are more complicated than that and takes time to show results.  While it is possible for results to show immediately in small controlled groups (for example collaborating with a group of employees), collaboration with a larger set especially those based outside your organisation takes time before it yield results.  So keep the faith!

Trust is paramount - Reflect on this.  When was the last time you revealed details to an outsider on your first meeting in an enterprise setting?  Collaboration calls for exchange of ideas and some knowledge about your corporate environment.  Due to this, it flourishes fully only when trust in either parties is established.  Though you can help build trust by creating a conducive and transparent environment, it does take time.  So do define the rules and be consistent.

Feedback is important - Since campaigns take time to show results and building trust is important, how do you keep the collaborators engaged?  One of the best ways of doing it is through continuous and regular feedback.  You need to spend your time and energy giving feedback to your collaborators and motivate them to help you.  It also conveys a message to them that you care and are serious about this.  It is also a great way to build connections and understand the pulse of your collaborators.

However small you must celebrate successes - Collaboration needs to be treated like an investment or a plant that needs to be nurtured.  You need to treat collaborators as your extended employee team and work on encouraging and celebrating even their small successes initially.  It is equally important to think from the collaborator's perspective rather than only your own.  Remember true collaboration happens only when there are win-win equations created.  One-sided relationships don't last long and will never realise the true potential of collaboration.

Involve senior management - Collaboration is a strategic initiative.  There is only so much that middle or lower managers can achieve.  Hence it pays to involve senior management and get direction from them on your future collaboration initiatives.  Ideally collaboration projects are best driven top down to ensure that the message is driven throughout the organisation.  In some cases, it also helps to show some initial success starting small to convince the top management which then helps to build the business case.

What is fueling collaboration?

It’s an increasingly outdated debate whether one is doing “what one loves to do”, trash this thought. We do jobs, or may be jobs do us in, the bigger harm is done by the thought that we are not doing what we love to do.

Traditionally we were given a choice of “loving what we do” OR “to start doing what we love to do”, any other state of mind was considered bad, for you and for people around you!

Most of the people on this planet cannot afford to do what they love to do, for some it’s the daily bread, for others it’s equated monthly installments. And there are too many mundane things to be done to keep the world spinning.

Early on humans found the way out by introducing hobbies. It works fine, but it lacks variety in intellectual fulfillment. The connected world has started solving this problem bit by bit! Today one can choose the area of interest and contribute at will, start all over again at something else tomorrow.

The good things in life are always relative, there has to be some bad to call the good as good and some good to call yet another better.

People are slicing their time, and some slices are being used to do what one loves to do intellectually. People are increasingly becoming dual.

It’s this duality which is fueling collaboration in this age. An hour of intellectual fulfillment is giving a day long high and we love it. When we collaborate; a little contribution can make us feel part of bigger achievement. Collaboration facilitates the variety of part time intellectual fulfillment which otherwise was not available.

Erma Bombeck once said … “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me.”

I believe more and more people are feeling what Erma felt, and duality is the means for some people to “go get it”.