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Every organization knows the value of collaboration. Collaboration is seen as the key to unlocking the full potential of teams and, it is well documented that organizations that collaborate well, are greater than the sum of their individual parts.
It is therefore very common to hear managers constantly extolling the virtues of collaboration and encouraging their employees to collaborate. Unfortunately, while everyone knows the value of collaboration, and everyone is encouraged to collaborate, few organizations collaborate well.
The reason for this is simple, people don’t know how to collaborate as they have not been trained. And if they don’t know how, no amount of cajoling by management will increase the level of collaboration.
There are three myths that hinder successful collaboration and I will dispel them in this article.
Myth One — Everybody knows how to collaborate
To be honest, we all do know, and we all don’t know. If I asked you to tell me how we can collaborate, many of you will tell me things like working together, having a common goal, participating in discussions, thinking win-win, and so on. These are not wrong, but these are actions. To me, while collaboration encompasses all of these actions, it is more than that. Collaboration is a process and…
