Collaboration has become a standard mantra, ‘do it or die’.
I see all sorts of collaboration being put in place, most of it leads to wasted time, energy, lost opportunity, and suboptimal outcomes.
Why
The collaboration teams are thrown together from a pool in an enterprise where everyone thinks in a similar manner. There is little diversity of thought, and often those co-opted are the ones who appear to have the time to do a bit more, or alternatively they are really effective, so they get given more to do.
You know the old saying, ‘to get something done, give it to a busy person‘.
Utter nonsense.
We are collaborating too much, but rather than real collaboration, we have groups of people in close proximity who are not adding value.
What we need is ‘Disciplined Collaboration’.
Collaborating teams that are constructed for diversity in skills and thinking styles, such they can all add value, and the scope of the collaboration is set by a planned outcome of some sort.
To get a useful result from a collaboration, you need people who have the capability to contribute to that outcome, not just someone who happens to be walking past at the time a seat needs to be filled.
You need a focus of activity, a problem to be solved, and intent, not a series of meetings of individuals who are not really sure why they are there.
