Starting a collaboration can sometime be similar to starting a diet. You reach a point where you acknowledge that collaboration is a strategy your business should really engage in, but for whatever reason you are still drawn to urgent but less critical things. Procrastination or not, it is […]
There is a scene in the Toy Story animated film (by the way, I strongly recommend all three of the movies) when Buzz Lightyear, the supremely self-confident toy space ranger, believes he is really flying while in fact he is being carried upwards by an elevator. However the […]
Let’s face it; if you play with fire you may well get burnt. Collaboration is a little bit like fire, but like the camp fire; we really do love it. Nevertheless, there is an inevitable (and directly proportionate to one’s experience) time when things will not go the […]
To borrow a term from political spin doctors: ‘optics’ may matter a lot, but in collaboration they can actually be a major cost to your enterprise. The attraction of ‘looking good’ (I’m sure a communication guru would come up with a number of better ways to express it) […]
Collaboration is not a discretionary strategy: it is primarily an emergent business sustainability driver. A common habit of many managers is to aim for ‘low hanging fruit’ rather than taking a long term view. Meeting monthly sales budgets is a prerogative that leaves little room for risky and […]
Writing about collaboration, educating people through workshops, strategic planning sessions and so on inevitably creates opportunities for learning new things and, perhaps more importantly, thinking about new challenges and questions posed by clients and audiences. One of the interesting questions I am often asked is how collaboration differs […]
One thing that I’ve noticed recently is the increased chatter about collaboration from various corners of governments when they talk about delivering services in partnership with the NFP sector. I am not alone. This is something many notice and discuss discreetly. A proper, open conversation has not fully […]
Sometimes collaboration feels right despite the lack of evidence at hand. At other times, the data available suggests a great story of collaboration but the satisfaction, outcome and impacts we aim for are muted. In either case, it is possible to fall into drawing fast conclusions and even […]
“Politeness is the poison of collaboration.” – Edwin Land Is collaboration reducible to leadership? For some, this is a question with an obvious answer. For me, it is not the pursuit of the perfect answer, but rather the question itself that deserves some discussion. This is necessary for […]
In an era of ever-expanding virtual teamwork, some companies (Yahoo, Best Buy, Bank of America and others) seem to have taken a Luddite’s view of the digitally-connected world. They’re smart people, so why are they bucking the future? First, some equate ‘virtual worker’ with ‘non-contributor’. Not so! The […]
Late last year I wrote about skills that are the mainstay of any collaboration practitioner; an entrepreneurial approach and a good grasp of strategy. Now I would like to expand and focus on another essential factor; the importance of resilience. Resilience has become a somewhat trendy concept, a […]
[An algorithm is a sequence of computational steps that transform input into output.] * For some time now I have been convinced that the future of sustainable social and economic enterprise will be in small entities that are better connected, rather than large entities who are rich in […]
‘Political Collaboration’ could be described as an oxymoron. Political parties usually pride themselves on the point of difference they have with their political competitors. It’s seen as their competitive advantage in their appeal to the voting public, despite the fact that often the public is actually sick of […]
Collaboration Killers: 5 Personality Types to Keep Off Interagency Teams Sometimes it pays to learn more about an individual’s approach to collaboration as a way to better strategy and execution. It is also vital to remember that while many may claim to be good at collaborating, in reality […]
My conviction is shared with many colleagues globally who understand that the collaboration culture will be one, if not the defining, feature of work and sustainability by the end of this decade. Many will make a last ditch effort to join in, hoping that quick fix strategies will […]
It is May 2014. I just sat down to have my first coffee and check the news of the day. I am keen to see what the 2014/15 Federal Government budget announcement will reveal. I find that an Office for Collaboration has been established and that it will […]
I have had a long, meaningful and warm, but oftentimes troublesome relationship with the word ‘co-operation’. Having been a professional working in the ‘Co-operative Sector’ (housing co-ops precisely) for many years, one of my major tasks was to educate new (and old) co-op members about the literal and […]
Collaboration, as I argue continuously, provides a competitive advantage to enterprises across industries and sectors. The key to unlocking that competitive advantage is to better understand both the collaboration practice and your own enterprise’s position in the market. Effectively, this necessitates approaching collaboration as a strategy that can […]
Identifying the right opportunities for collaboration is often the most exciting part as it tends to be an area where everyone has an idea. Creative juices start to flow and excitement swells at the prospect of working on projects we have long dreamt of, and within a short space […]
The obsession, well I can’t find a better word, with capacity building as a way to fix social problems has become a political dogma. We fear any attempt to innovate our approaches so much that it could almost be career suicide to attempt to explore, let alone argue […]
More often than not, questions I am asked from people whose jobs require them to be collaborative and/or to implement collaborative approaches are related to how they can influence people around them to think more collaboratively. It is very common for collaboration practitioners to experience frustration when colleagues […]
Last week, with the sponsorship of the Macquarie Group, ROADMENDER delivered a micro-workshop as part of the national Changemakers Festival which featured over 150 events across Australia. ROADMENDER delivered its signature style workshop which focused on exploring a range of collaboration concepts such as the “collaboration premium”, “collaboration […]
First of all, many thanks to Jelenko for sharing this space for conversations and perspectives on collaboration. Collaboration has been central to many aspects of my life – it’s useful to be able to reflect on processes that work well and those that are more challenging My recent […]
A ROADMENDER regular, guest blogger Keith Bancroft, returns with more insight into collaboration as a means to better ready enterprises. Keith and I have collaborated on the development of what we believe to be an innovative way of gaining a degree of business readiness that focuses on a […]
Collaboration key to job creation At the risk of extolling too much that collaboration is the answer to all problems, I have to say I like hearing that there are more and more simple and direct arguments for collaboration. When we mention jobs now I am sure that […]
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