I've recently concluded an extensive team-building program with a team diagnosis. We played a specific game with multiple teams, where the team was divided into two smaller groups, and one blindfolded person had to cross from one corner of a square to the opposite corner diagonally, guided by their teammate. The path was filled with obstacles, making guidance challenging at times.
During this game, I didn't mention competition for a single second. On the contrary, I emphasized that the two teams could assist each other when the blindfolded individuals met in the middle of the field.
However, it was extraordinary to see how the teams automatically shifted towards competition focusing on who could complete the course faster by knocking down as few obstacles as possible. No one had asked them to do this.
That's what I want to discuss this week: competition.
We have a history of over 5,000 years in which humanity has been geared towards competition, where the primary thought was that resources are insufficient, and if someone else has that resource, I'll be the one left without it. Hence, our first instinct is to dăm din coate elbow our way through to be the first to acquire that resource and take it all. It doesn't matter if the other person ends up with nothing.
Companies increasingly demand teamwork and collaboration, but people don't know how to do it because we haven't had such a model until now. Just as if you don't have a subconscious image of a Ferrari, you can't recognize one on the street. The same applies to the concept of collaboration. If you don't have a concrete image in mind, you don't know where you're heading.
What does it mean to collaborate? How do you allocate your resources in this context? What does it mean to allocate your time to others while still getting your work done?
It requires a complete redefinition of teamwork, not necessarily based on helping others, but on the idea that I do my job so well thatothers can rest assured they can rely on the piece I've contributed.
But the main point I want to come back to is that we're not yet trained to think in terms of collaboration. That's why managers in companies need to treat learning collaboration as an objective: a mindset objective, followed by an action objective, and finally, a result-oriented objective.
We can only achieve collaboration by first training ourselves and recognizing the habits we bring into this process. As the ones training these individuals, we are responsible for providing models because nobody knows where to start otherwise.
What does collaboration look like to you?
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