Big Ideas:

• Collaboration and creativity are big buzz words now but most businesses don’t really know how to collaborate or be creative.
• Collaborative efforts often produce mediocre results because ego gets in the way.
• A great team can produce amazing results, but finding those team members is not an easy task.

There is no question that the Internet has changed the way we work and connect with others. From a few people working on a shared Google document to thousands contributing to projects like Wikipedia or Linux, we are collaborating in unprecedented ways. When it works, collaboration is synergistic and amazing. The problem is that too often, real, meaningful collaboration is thwarted by an ugly thing called people.

As much as we talk about creativity and collaboration, most people don’t really know what those things mean. We are all human, so egos get in the way. We want to own, control and dominate. It happens with children playing together, in office politics and in volunteer or non-profit settings. Too often, it is more important to be right than to do the right thing. That is where collaboration fails.

Intuitively, we understand the benefits of  co-working, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding or a great business team on our collaborative efforts, but most of us also have many negative experiences where team efforts get mired in bureaucracy and territorial silo building. It is pretty hard to create something amazing when team members are jockeying for control and recognition.

At least from my experiences, I believe that most businesses don’t understand collaboration. How many of your colleagues or customers are still emailing Word and Excel documents as attachments? If you are over 30 years old, chances are your business processes are still heavily influenced from the Microsoft dominated days of installed software more than two decades ago. The world is a different place now. There are plenty of examples of dynamic, young companies are prospering even when the partners are global dispersed, but they are still the exception.

For real collaboration to work, many elements need to be in place:

1. Trust. Great relationships take time to build. With the exception of old schoolmates or childhood friends, most of us don’t have those deep social connections anymore.
2. Talent. Each person has to bring some unique skill to the team. Partnerships quickly fall apart when there is even the appearance of a less than equal contribution.
3. Personality. There are some people you just can’t work with regardless of their skills. Finding people that you like AND are good is not easy.
4. Shared vision. All members of the team have to be pulling in the same direction for the collaboration to be successful.
5. Technological savvy. Everyone needs to buy into the tools to work together. There are talented geniuses who can seclude themselves from the rest of the world, but you need to embrace technology if you expect to really collaborate with a good team, regardless of where they are located.
6. Communicate. Information hoarding is a remnant of the industrial age. Remove all bottlenecks to effective and direct communication. Social capital is more valuable than financial capital.

Collaboration is Still King

Amazing things can happen if you build the right team. The problem is that you have to sort through many less than optimal candidates on your way. It is all a numbers game, work with as many people as you can to find the right talent. Results will be mediocre most of the time, but every once in a while you will find that diamond in the rough. Do everything you can to work with the diamonds and throw the coal back in the ground for someone else to deal with.

Action Items

• If you haven’t already, move your business to the cloud. Everything from shared documents, online workspaces, project management and customer relationship management software can be done much better online where everyone has access to the same information in real time.
• Deliberately start and join new projects with new team members. The only way to find great people to work with is to work with a lot of people.
• Get really good at something. Talented people are not going to want to work with you if you don’t bring anything to the table.
• Personality counts. You need to play nice with others if you want them to stick around.
• Great businesses are built on great processes. Get organized and anal about how you do business, communicate and serve your employees and customers. Creative breakthroughs do not come from some unorganized eureaka moment. Real innovation is systematic and deliberate, and almost always the result of hard work, rich collaborative efforts and insights from outside sources.

Related posts:

1. Do Businesses Understand Collaboration?
2. Share Office Space to Lower Costs and Increase Collaboration
3. Collaboration Through Social Media

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With easier to use technology and detailed instructions on any difficult task just a YouTube video away, knowledge and experience are no longer the key skills for success. We are drowning in information, endless distractions and unlimited opportunities. For the first time in history, it really is possible to do anything you want in life, you just can’t do everything you want. The ability to focus has become the ultimate skill.

Are you a Wolf or a Rabbit?

Related posts:

1. Focus is More Important Than Knowledge
2. Unproductivity Animation: A Short Parody of our Productivity Obsession
3. Great Animated Explanation of Dan Pink’s Book Drive

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Big Ideas: Finding the right idea can be more important than the popular notion that taking any action is better than nothing towards your goals.

Meetings, discussion and brainstorming are a key component of selecting great ideas.

Personal development and success writers talk about the importance of action and just getting down to work. Most will agree that action towards a mediocre idea is far better than no action while waiting for the perfect concept to come your way. While this logic is likely true for time intensive activities like exercise, learning a musical instrument or mastering a foreign language, quantity of effort may not be the primary determinate of success.

Ramit Sethi of Iwillteachyoutoberich.com has a great guest post from MIT post-doctoral associate Cal Newport. Newport counters the popular idea that “you need to just get started” with the fact that in some situations finding the great idea first is more productive than working towards a mediocre idea.

While many people now consider corporate meetings a waste of time, Newport states:

discussion and brainstorming are a core component of our research process. It’s understood that only the best ideas can survive the submission process of top conferences like SIGCOMM, therefore a huge effort is invested in identifying the best possible projects before getting started. As seen on my calendar above, it’s not unusual to dedicate 6 or more hours a week in formal brainstorming meetings, with at least another 6 – 12 spent exploring on your own time.

Notice that MIT’s idea-centric process (e.g., finding the right ideas is key) contrasts with the progress-centric process (e.g., getting started is key) that dominates popular discussion on getting things done.

For example:

• Proponents of the progress-centric process says “getting started” is the most important step. To paraphrase a commentator on a past article I wrote on this subject: “You will fail at 100% of the opportunities you never try!”
• Proponents of the idea-centric process, by contrast, note that the vast majority of ideas are mediocre. If you jump at every concept that seems viable, you’ll probably end up accomplishing little of consequence.

Newport concludes with;

when you’re talking about lasting accomplishment – the type you’ll be remembered for — it’s hard to avoid the reality that great ideas require a great investment of time to uncover. The sooner you make peace with this mindset — even if it means waiting longer before quitting your job to become an entrepreneur or diving into your brilliant book idea — the sooner you can start making important things happen.

Cal Newport’s  original guest post on Iwillteachyoutoberich.com has many more important points that I didn’t summarize here. It is definitely worth a read.

Related posts:

1. The Quality of Idea is More Important than Followers to Spread It
2. Forget Job2.0 – Cut your Work Hours and Start Life2.0
3. Business Plans are Dead: Unplan Your Business

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Here is short animation poking fun at our excessive preoccupation with productivity. Some of us spend so much time reading books and blog posts to try to be more productive; isn’t that defeating the purpose?

While it is important to be efficient I also think that real creative breakthroughs can’t be time optimized. So much of our lives are spent in front of screens that we can sometimes lose focus on what is important.

Please take a look.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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