Friday 12 April 2019

Collaboration - an essential skill for thriving in the 21st century

Material for today’s podcast is mainly drawn from the Collaboration sparkenation of my Remarkable Workplaces book.

Sparkenation: a spark that ignites passion that leads to action that changes what’s normal.

Listen directly to the podcast version of this post here.

In a nutshell

Every problem/challenge in our world today (and in your life) is a human one. Every solution has relationships with other humans at heart.

We’re hardwired for collaboration.

My friend and colleague Keith Abraham says:
“Achievement is never an individual activity.”

And it’s literally about matters of the heart.

“Most of us think about ourselves as thinking creatures who feel but we are feeling creatures who think, and we live in a society that values what we think over what we feel.”
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a leader in the world of neuroscience.

There’s a link to a great TEDx talk by Jill at the companion resources web page to my Remarkable Workplaces book.

Collaboration is the other side of the coin to competing with yourself.


At the heart of collaborating of course is relationships. To improve/sustain highly valuable and mutually rewarding relationships we must change or modify how we contact, connect, establish/sustain common ground or shared-view and demonstrate commitment with other people.

3 Recommended Actions

1) Write down your greatest collaboration or relationship story and one where you failed. Who will you become and what will you do next to better live the lessons from these experiences?

2) Review the seven special steps to successful collaboration on pages 99, 100 of Changing What’s Normal with your team/performance partners and explore changes/modifications you could make to your relationships. The seven steps are also available for your convenience at the companion resources web page to my Remarkable Workplaces book.

3 a) Review your diary for the past month. Are more than 75% of your actions some form of communication or conversations with family, friends, colleagues and stakeholders? How could you better invest your time and energy to build and grow high value mutually rewarding relationships?

b) Choose a theme song for collaboration and play it regularly to get into the state right for you.

And while we’re referencing diaries; How much of your time is not scheduled. The very best Sparkenators I know have only a maximum of 50% of their diaries with appointments scheduled (including meetings).

Recommended Deep Work

1) If you have not yet watched the compete/collaborate video and started to make the compete with your yourself and improve relationships exercises part of your routine then now is a good time to start You'll find this at the companion resources web page.

2) For your business/organisation staying in touch with customers/clients and continually adding value to the ways you delight them is fundamental to remaining relevant and successful. Explore with your team how you could better utilise the contact-connection-common-ground-commitment as a service-sales-experience and value adding cycle.

3) What is a major collaboration you have thought about however not yet acted on? Who will you become and what will you do next to better turn your thoughts into reality?

Do Your Work.

Be remarkable.
Ian

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