In a recent leadership development workshop, our participants were contrasting how much time they spend these days collaborating across functions on complex issues vs. earlier in their careers. As the group worked to define what collaboration today really means, one of the participants blurted:
“For the first 25 years of my life, including getting my graduate engineering degree, if I did the things that you are calling “collaboration,” my teachers would refer to it as “cheating!”
As this comment illustrates, true collaboration sometimes runs counter to our mind-sets, habits, and even training. In our consulting partnership, we have been learning about, and teaching how to overcome the challenges of true collaboration for a long time.
It is in this spirit that we are committing to our new blog, the primary purpose of which is to collaborate with each other and with our readers to develop unique insights in several areas we work in and are passionate about: organizational, team and individual leadership development, to name a few.
We have been in partnership for 13 years and spend much of our time operating from individual offices, navigating lonely airports, and working independently. So the secondary purpose of this blog, the selfish purpose, is to enlarge our conversation with the ever-increasing number of professionals with whom we interact. What a great way to keep us energized!
David will contribute some blog entries, Rob others, and some will be crafted collaboratively. It won’t take long to differentiate Rob’s more edgy contemplations from David’s more homespun reflections.
We begin below by sharing insights inspired by a recent conference we facilitated that took six months to plan and three days to execute. It was one of many highlights of the past year.
We encourage you to become part of our community – by commenting, questioning and challenging our thinking, and being part of each others’ learning journeys. So sign up, and stay tuned… Best, Rob & David