Collaboration
Posted on April 7th, 2010
What does collaboration mean to you? Does it mean doing what you’re told? How about finding someone else to do the work? Telling someone else what to do?
I hope none of those are your definitions of collaboration, and I hope that your definition of collaboration looks nothing like any of those.
Wikipedia defines collaboration the following way:
“Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group.” or at least it did the day I wrote this, April 5, 2010 at 9:14am EDT.
I like this definition of collaboration, but it does not always mirror my experience of collaboration. I like this definition because it talks about working together for common goals; sharing, which is a big part of Knowledge Management; building consensus; and that leadership comes through a decentralized and egalitarian group. I really, really, like this last part.
Leadership can come from anywhere and when I am working on a team that is collaborating effectively leadership does come from anywhere and everywhere, it is not hierarchical or command and control style. Everyone contributes, and everyone reaps the benefits. Everyone gets a chance to have a voice and contribute to the end product, diversity of opinion is valued and the end product is better than any one of us could have done on our own.
Unfortunately, I have also worked with groups/people that do not collaborate effectively. They wait for someone else to do the work, make things happen. Wonder why deadlines are missed, why communication is a challenge, or why the team doesn’t function effectively.
Things happen too quickly now, in this information age, with instant or near instant access to information. No one can know it all, if we don’t work together towards our goals, breaking down hierarchies, which only slow things down, we will be left behind, and no one wants that.
Canada 3.0, continuing the theme
Posted on June 11th, 2009
I spent Monday and Tuesday of this week (June 8-9) at Canada 3.0 www.canada30.uwaterloo.ca, which was an amazing experience. Sitting in a room with 1000 people who want to see Canada move forward and be a leader in the digital media space was energizing and motivating and if you’ve spoken to me in the last few days you know that I can’t say enough good things about my experience there and that I want to get involved and help move this forward.
Can you manage knowledge? (part 2)
Posted on June 5th, 2009
I was at two more presentations/discussions this week, one talked about creating space in organizations for knowledge, the other was on followership, and really had nothing directly to do with knowledge at all, however both have made me think that I need to continue my writing on managing knowledge, not to mention the wonderful replies that I got to my original post. At the “Followership” event the other night we were given a copy of Barbara Kellerman’s book, “Followership” and were treated to her speaking about it, so I may have another post once I have actually finished the book. In the meantime, some more thoughts on managing knowledge. (more…)