The 5 Principles of Collaboration

There are quite a few fundamental truths about collaboration. Those that I have identified here represent universal principles that remain constant no matter the situation. There are many beliefs and opinions that will affect how well people collaborate together, I suggest however that the principles of knowledge, communication, practice, mission, and encouragement are among the most important.

Knowledge – the more we know and understand about each other the safer we feel and the more excited we become in collaborating. This principle suggests that the more aware we are about using the required resources and techniques, the better our associations will be. When the team is familiar with the basic requirements needed to win, they can just confidently go to work and practice what they know. They can bring more value to the partnership, more opportunities back to the team. Give me a skilled partner that understands what we are up against over a newbie any day!

Practicing the principle of knowledge means that everyone on the team is involved with continuous learning, and then sharing those lessons with everyone else. It’s important for leaders to provide resources for this to happen well. Everyone should be allowed to bring new ideas and innovation to the table at appropriate times. Leaders should encourage and motivate this behavior and all continuous learning.

Communication – always provides the kind of clarity that helps create a strategy and meaningful activity. It helps us to connect with one another and share opportunities and resources. The reason we communicate is to exchange meaningful information from one person to another. As leaders, when we can’t or don’t communicate properly, we are guilty of literally leaving people in the dark. If that is your intention fine but just know that they will remain in the dark or uninformed until someone comes along and sheds some light on things, for them.  If that someone isn’t you, then your team might have to suffer the consequences that always follow ignorant action, probably sooner than you’d prefer. Because, no one wants to feel as if they are wasting their time, or that their activity isn’t relevant, adequate communication is more than a luxury, it’s an imperative.

Taking the time to reflect upon how others can perceive messages before they are released takes both patience and wisdom. As you might imagine, this one fact kills tons of leaders around the world. It would seem that leaders today simply don’t have the wisdom to be patient and they certainly don’t have the time! The fact is, the more you know about your team the more tempted you’ll be to take short cuts so be careful to show respect and take the time to listen and respond appropriately always. A good practice is to take a breath before responding and to repeat back what you heard in your own words for clarity before you offer up a solution. Even better, you might want to double down on the engagement with a question like “and what’s important about that to you…?” Not “why?” Remember, “why” is confrontational!

Practice – is an event wherein the actual real-time application or use of an idea, belief, or method happens. Practice creates expertise and the quality of experience needed to boost self-confidence. It also helps us to canonize and support the body of knowledge that might have already been captured on a subject or topic. There is no skill development, no habit formed, no tradition adhered to or maintained, without meaningful practice.

Clearly, we get better, by doing better, regularly and with increasing intensity. Collaboration is no different. The more you work together with others successfully the more efficiencies you discover, the bolder the team becomes, and the more you enjoy working together. Leaders have to create an environment where fun engaged practice and rehearsal becomes normative. No one resents good training when the moment to use it arises. It feels like they were born to do it.

Mission – a specific task with which a person is charged or a pre-established and often self-imposed objective or purpose. It can often be a calling (a strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action especially when accompanied by the conviction of divine or spiritual influence.), or vocation (a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation). A sense of mission supports motivation before during and after any project. When you feel as if it’s your destiny to work on something or to be with someone, your motivation remains high at all times. 

It’s important to remain mindful of the moments that you and your team seem to click. You’ll find magic lessons that can be duplicated from the past and with future engagements. Therefore, documenting the techniques and processes that work are important to the method of duplication. Plus, when you can give voice to your greatest cares and motives, it’s easier for everyone to know how to play well with you. When you have a strong sense of mission, you can always answer questions like, “why do we do it this” and more importantly with do we do this, this way?”

Encouragement – is literally the act of giving someone support, confidence, or hope. Encouragement always helps people to feel inspired, reassured and sustained. As a leader, if you do not give encouragement, you’d be better to assume that your partners or team members simply don’t have it. When you give encouragement successfully great things always happen. Their extraordinary qualities will have room to shine and spread. Their doubts and fears will be removed or dramatically reduced giving them the faith to keep moving forward in pursuit of their goals. They won’t have to worry about running out of energy or replenishing resources because your encouragement becomes a tower of strength for them. They can work on offense because the defense is taken care of.

Encouragement answers the question “From whence cometh my help?” There is no greater feeling than knowing that you’ve got help and that help is more than adequate to the task at hand. This kind of confidence allows you to make bolder moves without fear or doubt. When you’ve got a strong big brother cheering you on and/or showing you how to make the best moves on the field, you feel unstoppable and are most likely to sustain a level effort and resilience to the task at hand. It’s when you don’t have any backup, that you are likely to be overly cautious and so conservative in your efforts that your gains may be inadequate if there are any gains at all. 

The Wrap Up

The principles of collaboration that we’ve highlighted above are NOT negotiable. Like all principles, you must embrace them or suffer the penalties associated with a failed partnership. I for one do not want to be bitter about the time or resources that I spent with someone else but still, I recognized that greatness is never achieved alone. It behooves us all to collaborate and be sure that we do everything possible to govern ourselves and our work together well. A great start is to answer the following questions:

1.    Do we need to systematically set aside time to really get to know and connect with each other? When was the last time we did that?

2.    When we communicate, are we using the reflective listen technique above or are we too quick to get to resolution, and therefore forcing a misaligned assumption?

3.    Is there a purpose that drives our need to work together that might be larger than us both? Do our actions reflect that purpose and sustain or increase our willingness to grow together? And finally,

4.    Are we giving each other the support, hope, and confidence required to make us feel as if the task at hand is a little or a lot easier than it would be without one another?

Do this well and I promise that all of your collaborative efforts will run smoothly.