Collaboration

It is highly appropriate that this posting is principally written by my friend, colleague, and collaborator Elad Levinson. If it weren't for Elad, I doubt I would have written Working for Good: Making a Difference, While Making a Living last year. Elad's insights, support, guidance, and encouragement brought out the best in me. And working with Elad and Julie (van Amerongen) made the process of writing the book an integrated one for me, as one of the essential elements and skills of Working for Good is collaboration.

Designing and facilitating the first Working for Good workshop (May 2nd in Mill Valley, CA) as with our previous collaborations on events and meetings, was a rich a enriching experience, deepening my understanding and practice of Working for Good. Without further ado... here is Elad on Collaboration.

Yours in Working for Good,

Jeff

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” ~ Charles Darwin

Once upon a time it was thought in the world of business and all things results-oriented that the way you got to your desired outcome was through hard work and will power. Or just simply power – the ability to impose your desires on others by force, skill, or guile.

Over the past twenty years that fantasy has been deflated by examples that demonstrate both the limits of power over and the limits of individual contributions to success of any endeavor. Today it is widely accepted that collaboration is the principle means by which good things come to fruition.

True collaboration is the process of co-creation, tapping into the knowledge, wisdom, experience, and skill of all of the participants to create a group mind – smarter and more capable than any individual. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

In collaboration, groups of people find the best ways to solve problems and to cause results via a robust process of dialogue and synthesis that leads to new insights and innovations. Dialogue is not debate – it is not the “I can prove that I am right to you by the force of my logic, will or loudness of voice.” Rather, dialogue is thoughtful assertion and careful listening with curiosity inspired by a sincere willingness to learn and synthesize with others’ conceptions.

The content of collaboration can be anything that we are out to explore or create together. The keys to collaboration are the factors of human performance, including communications, commitment, trust, and performance.

Collaboration begins with a sincere desire to establish a consensual understanding of the issue (i.e. goal, objective, or problem) to work upon together, the definition of success, an agreement on process, and a commitment to work together. Collaboration is fulfilled by following through to produce the results the group agrees upon, through the process defined.

Collaboration is at the heart of all new product and service innovations and for that reason it is imperative that collaboration be treated as a skill set that is learn-able and worthwhile taking the time to develop.

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” ~ Edith Wharton

LINKS

Interaction Associates

David Straus’s excellent book How to Make Collaboration Work: Powerful Ways to Build Consensus, Solve Problems, and Make Decisions