Everyone seems to be collaborating with everyone these days. Or at least they say they are.
Just ask a colleague who they’re collaborating with and they’ll rattle off a list of who is or isn’t making their life easier or harder.
But hang on a minute. Doesn’t that sound more like they’re looking for cooperation rather than collaboration?
Cooperation is doing things that help others to achieve their aims. It’s sharing resources, helping to get obstacles out of the way and not rocking the boat. We tend to like people who cooperate with us because they make things easier. Cooperation is great, at the right time and in the right place.
Collaboration is creating something meaningful together. It isn’t smooth sailing or just making it easy for someone else. True collaboration is co-creation. It is skin in the game, it’s creative conflict and it can be particularly hard work in the early stages.
Great teams learn to collaborate; Mediocre teams crave cooperation. You don’t cooperate to win Olympic medals or to build a successful business. You collaborate.
Great teams hold the tension while they find that superordinate goal, they challenge each other’s thinking, they expect and even seed creative tension, and above all they get in and solve the real problems that enable them to create something special together.
The businesses that are really building momentum around collaboration are moving products to market faster, they’re breaking through bottlenecks and they’re testing and finding that breakthrough business model. It certainly isn’t easy but it isn’t boring either!
Are you planning to collaborate with someone this week? I hope so, although would life be a little easier if they were just a little more cooperative?
It’s your choice of course, but if you can hold the tension and both learn to collaborate, imagine the possibilities of what you could create together.
