A recent global collaboration study of 476 organisations found that nearly 70% have used collaboration apps. Reliance on collaboration tools continues to increase as more companies use apps to support their business. With that shift in workplace practice, or rather, scaling up of an existing practice, comes an […]
The most influential photographers in the history of the medium (almost 200 years) created pictures, iconic pictures in fact, with cameras and technology that were well below the standard of cameras one can buy today. Nowadays, everyone can access cameras that are superior to, for example, that used […]
While not a new idea, competitor collaboration has become one of the central tenets of business strategy. The thinking behind this is twofold; businesses must consider expanding their circle of potential collaborating partners by joining forces with their biggest competitors, and, even if a business remains committed to […]
There is an abundance of excellent advice about the way collaboration can work, both internally and externally, and which can genuinely make a noticeable difference to any enterprise that appreciates the positive impact of collaboration. For the past couple of decades, collaboration has been researched and applied with […]
Can a business be serious and ignore collaboration? That is a question I have in mind often when dealing with virtually any enterprise, regardless of circumstances. It is not so much about a right or wrong answer, as much as it is about the way it is answered […]
Unhappy staff leave their employers. The more talented your employee is, the more likely they will migrate to your competition if they are not fully engaged at work. Talent loss is a serious risk to business. Now, there are many strategies that can mitigate that risk. Sometimes they […]
Start any conversation on business collaboration and pretty soon it will generate a common question; can competitors collaborate. My own consultancy is based on a firm conviction rooted in firsthand experience that the answer is affirmative. Going a step further, competitors soon realise their competitive edge gets blunt […]
Dr Britt Andreatta, former Chief Learning Officer for LinkedIn Learning (previously Lynda.com) and consultant to Fortune 500 companies considers collaboration to be an essential skill. In her book Wired To Connect, Dr Andreatta argues that “Collaboration is a vital necessity for the success of today’s organisation and yet […]
Collaboration, like virtually every aspect of business strategy and performance, has elements that are deceptively simple. In the case of everyday collaboration, what often remains completely unobserved is the fact that simple, transactional engagement and information sharing between parties does not lead to the best that collaboration offers […]
A collaborative culture in any enterprise allows for the mediated design of a trusted environment (or at the very least, trust-building environment). Collaboration in any organisation allows for creation of a culture which offers employees the ability to create new meaning which is an essential form of motivation […]
Listen to this article (5 mins) “I think the next century will be the century of complexity.” That was the response Stephen Hawking gave to a journalist at the dawn of this century in January 2000. One fifth of the century in and we have seen plenty of […]
2020’s mega disruption is already posing a major question to the business community – what is the best way to recover? As far as business recovery goes, there is no off-the-shelf formula, no silver bullet, no magic forecast. Strategy will be the key. One of the serious contenders […]
The fallout from this year’s pandemic is yet to be fully ascertained. The long trail of damage it has caused will provide lessons that will invariably be critical for all forms of organised life, whether that be a local community or a city or a business or government. […]
A recent business survey found that businesses which merely manage to survive tend to be stuck in going it alone, while those that are highly collaborative are more likely to see revenue growth. Increasingly, businesses are clear on the role of collaboration as a strategy of growth through […]
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last 3 months you would have noticed that the word ‘collaboration’ has been buzzing around at record highs. We have seen the largest, rapid, workforce shift in recent times, which has resulted in an unprecedented growth in demand […]
[5 minute read] Technology that enables people to work together is essential. And the more intuitively it is designed, the more effective it is. There is seemingly an exponential proliferation of tools that are branded ‘collaboration’ which promise a world of benefits. COVID-19 has also played an additional […]
COVID 19 has disrupted everything. And, interestingly, one specific thing that has been disturbed is the corrosive cynicism of collaboration as a valuable business strategy. The crisis brought by the global pandemic has led us to rethink the capacity of collaboration as a response to the pervasive nature […]
Collaboration has a challenging problem: it’s appealing for simple tasks but not for strategic long-term goals. The net result is that we have a market for apps and digital tools that ‘facilitate’ collaboration and implicitly lead to all the good things that collaboration produces, including increased productivity, innovation […]
One of the biggest clichés in business is that ‘collaboration is a buzzword’. What lies behind this almost mantra-like statement is an uncomfortable truth about collaboration: it is not something that comes with a simple set of rules and it can fail miserably when done half-heartedly. However, we […]
Business strategists have been advising businesses to take collaboration seriously for years. Early doubts, based on old school ideas that competition and collaboration do not mix, have been proven to be of limited use in an era where innovation and business growth is not easy without the exchange […]
The notion of collaboration as a competitive business strategy has been around for some time. In some sectors it works better than others, but the overall impact on high performing enterprises that look for every bit of advantage they can add to their competitiveness has been demonstrated many […]
Businesses can’t really function without collaboration. To do it well and avoid the pitfalls of costly mistakes that happen with too much enthusiasm and not enough planning, collaborating teams need a lot of help. Sometimes knowing which tools to use is all that is needed for successful collaboration. […]
“Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.” This is a famous insight by legendary American biologist E.O. Wilson which may likewise form the baseline of a good collaboration […]
People in the contemporary workplace (read: high performing, highly motivated, competitive and resilient) expect to be given three things: meaningful work, appropriate reward and ample opportunities to collaborate. That last bit often gets neglected by executive decision makers, who in many instances ascended to those positions via old […]
Every now and then collaboration can be frustrating. Invariably it gets people wondering if it is worth the effort and in particular if collaboration is really possible given that humans are prone to both competition and collaboration. How to reconcile the drivers? In my first book (The Collaboration […]
