The Masters of Collaboration

I recently lead a Collaboration Leadership Lab and made a discovery....

After the Lab participants and I spent the whole day working on collaboration, we went to a dinner called "Cooking-up Collaboration" to complete the learning for the day.

The objective of the dinner was to experience collaboration while preparing the meal we were to eat for dinner. The "Cooking-up Collaboration" staff briefed us, shared the recipes and turned us loose in the kitchen.

Some people were tired, others had a long-drive home ahead of them and still others had work from their "day jobs" waiting for them that was due the next day.  

The Lab participants barely shared the recipes with each other, quickly split-up duties (including duties for the cooking-up collaboration staff helping-out with the cooking) and almost immediately they went into their silos preparing our individual parts of the dinner.

After five minutes or preparing, someone suggested comparing the recipes side-by-side and looking for common ingredients to prepare for each other. We started to collaborate while preparing dinner! The chatter increased and everyone lifted-up their head occasionally to see what was going-on around them. This increased communication and awareness lifted collaboration to an even higher level as people started cleaning-up after each other.

The Lab participants felt very satisfied with their collaborative effort until someone pointed-out we had not included the "Cooking-up Collaboration staff" in our collaborative effort. We left them alone in their silo....

Ouch.

Reflect on collaboration. How could I be better. Restart your awareness.