For collaboration to count it needs to produce the desired outcome. And the real measure of any serious outcome is how much of an impact it creates. This inevitably puts pressure on managers to ensure that the impact they produce holds water and thus the need to consider […]
Every collaboration starts as an idea. Simples, as the beloved meerkat says (apologies to readers beyond Australia, but this is an Australian reference to a popular ad for an insurance company). Those who have come up with ideas in the past know that excitement for the originator of […]
One of the most ‘normal’ things to do in any kind of business is to reduce risk. A whole industry has been developed around risk management, which by the way is now one of the sacred cows of business. No surprises there. Poor risk management is a big […]
Only a few days to go before we farewell 2014. As much as it is good to reflect on great things and accomplishments on which 2015 can be built, there is always that feeling that a just a bit more could have been achieved in the year past. […]
Several months ago I wrote about a new model of collaboration which I developed as a strategy to help a small not for profit organisation move towards an independent stream of revenue. Independent of limited government funding that is. This model is best described as the ‘enterprising collaborative’ […]
There have been reports recently indicating that collaboration in the workforce has been steadily on the rise. The potential for it to continue to grow has been also identified and the word on the street is that employees want more of it. Now, new studies are continuing to […]
A recent study by Deloitte Access Economics on behalf of Google, paints an amazing picture about collaboration. The report is another in a string of research findings that raises a really interesting question: Which businesses are going to maintain relevance in five years’ time? This period, Deloitte says, […]
A recent survey by Forrester Consulting focused on an attempt to quantify the value of creativity in business. As an intangible, creativity is notoriously hard to measure in economic terms. However, the results of the survey showed that the six out of ten companies that foster creativity achieved […]
No doubt the biggest collaboration news this week was the ending of one of the longest corporate collaborations between LEGO and Shell. I for one am not too surprised given the range of factors involved. It seems the sentiment of the collaboration has not kept up with […]
Writing about collaboration is always exciting. The ever expanding topic is full of angles to which I can dedicate time and energy. Inspiration comes from constant observation and study of the environment in which I find myself. This time I was inspired by an inflight magazine of Air […]
I’m fond of repeating that one does not really collaborate unless the process of collaboration changes the person a bit. This change-inducing quality of collaboration is at the same time a positive and a negative; and the attractive features of change are commonly challenged by a long list […]
Today, the amount of information an average person needs to process is far larger than only a couple of decades ago. This is generally not an important piece of information for most to reflect on before they assume a yoga pose and practice mindfulness in the morning. But […]
In the 1960s, Stan Lee, a real superhero of the comic’s world, and his artist friends created a popular universe inhabited by characters that are world famous today. One of these was the Incredible Hulk; a green monster, a product of radiation. The character himself was largely a […]
I recently came across the term ‘collaborative capitalist’, which was in reference to Margaret Heffernan, the author of A Bigger Prize. I have not read the book and so can’t really comment much. But judging by what information is available, it seems that Ms Heffernan makes a critical […]
The adoption of new ideas is not a precise science. Certainly it is not always about logic and rationality, as much as we hope these would be part of the argument. Embracing collaboration is one of those ideas whose seemingly simple construction leads to a blind spot: we […]
In a culture of ‘winner takes all’, collaboration may be for wimps; until competition becomes the dominant practice, that is. However with dominance also comes rot, which manifests in many areas of an enterprise. Of course, this is not case with all organisations, but history tells us it is […]
The first decade of the new millennium has brought a level of social, economic, environmental, technological and political changes in an aggregated degree and to a whole new level previously not witnessed. With the Y2K bug fever, societies across the globe became explicitly aware of the fact that […]
Leadership literature has delved deeply into all forms of behavioural factors that make and distinguish better leaders. The role of leadership in any form of business activity is acknowledged but not necessarily always best applied. Some complexities of leadership are at times at the mercy of our obsession […]
You can’t innovate on a whim. The first time I read that (the author eludes me for the moment) it resonated with a point I am at pains to repeat; the ability for innovation to occur is directly proportional to the investment we make in systems that at […]
I often wonder to what extent workers in the 21st century associate the ideas of collaboration and work as being inseparable. Perhaps the self-evident truth doesn’t need much reflection. But only just, as I am inclined to think that the changing context presents a challenge to better understand […]
The forerunner in this week’s selected recommendations is a brilliant piece co-authored by several thinkers who dig deep into collaboration and published in the April issue of Harvard Business Review. As a strategist I am somewhat reluctant to single out one point they make over another, but in […]
Harvard Business Review’s Spring Edition of ‘OnPoint’ is all about collaboration. For the collaboration–minded, this is like a perfect slice of heaven. Let me share. Philip Evans and Bob Wolf wrote an extensive piece on the rules of collaboration. The piece itself was originally published back in 2005 […]
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) […]
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