Working in teams can be a challenge right? And this word, “collaboration” is synonymous with teams. We need to make a decision, so we collaborate. We need to produce a document – we collaborate.
Quite often, collaboration starts like this…
” xxxx, can you come into this meeting. I think we could use your thoughts” – i.e. a last minute meeting for someone to attend!, or;
“Lets get xxx involved in this…”, or
“How about you run this by xxxx, to get their input…”
Before you know it, something that you thought was a simple decision, has now involved an additional three people (or more!), and the decision making slows down, as more and more ideas are generated. Collaboration can of course be a wonderful thing, where you do need ideas, and people’s collective brainpower. But often, over-collaboration leads to over-processing – too much detail or amendments that are not required. We lose sight very quickly of who our customers are, and what they require.
We can certainly identify where collaboration is helpful. But don’t collaborate just because it sounds like a good idea!
What does collaboration look like for you? Can you do it too much?
Lets hear your thoughts and explore this in more detail.