What Happens to Collaboration?
If only we could cooperate together better at work, it just might be a better place to have fun and be more productive. But as we all know collaboration doesn’t come easy anywhere, anytime. Do you understand why?
To understand we have to look at corporate culture. Some workplaces encourage cooperation but perhaps many more promote a spirit of competition. A classic example of this was the two cultures at Sony and Apple, when the iPod was being developed. At Apple there was a clear goal in mind with each division devotedly focused on that single goal. Information sharing was high and there was clarity of purpose as each group went about their business. At Apple collaboration pre-existed their products and in fact flourished as they went about their work. By contrast each of Sony’s divisions had its own ideas about what to do on its product Connect It was as if they were contraindicated (to borrow a medical term) to each other; they were so conflicted in how to develop the product they seemed to work against each other. Sony’s mess turned into a market disaster whereas the iPod became one of the success stories of the decade. The iPod’s progression transformed Apple from an average company to an amazing story. The fruit of their collaboration became a world changing product that has become an ordinary part of everyday life for so many around the globe. Sony’s people worked against each other; Apple’s people energized each other and have been producing amazing products ever since then.
The first lesson about collaboration is that it occurs in a corporate culture that is by design operated in a spirit of cooperation – - an environment where people want to work together, take pride in what they do together and celebrate in big and small ways at each progressive inch of their successes.