The Motives and Mindset of Collaboration

One of our core company values at Naimuri is collaboration, and so to encourage this, during the month of May, we made collaboration our ‘Value of the Month’.

Most of us know what collaboration is – a definition such as: ‘working together with others to achieve a goal’.

At Naimuri, we think the behaviours that embody collaboration are:

• We build relationships with customers, partners, and colleagues.
• We are open to and value contribution, discussion, and input to problem solving.
• We work together in pursuit of our goals.

We examined collaboration within the company and attempted to discover the restrictions and problems which may prevent us from working as well as we could. Hopefully, through our actions, we can start to break down our identified barriers to make the collaboration within Naimuri stronger. Alongside this, we highlighted the good things – the things we do well.

An interesting book on the topic is “Radical Collaboration” by James W. Tamm and Ronald J. Luyet. (There is a summary on Blinkist and some summary videos on YouTube.) The subtitle is “Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships”. There are some key messages from the book and one that stands out is what the authors call “collaborative intent“.

Collaborative intent is the basis for collaboration. Before anybody can collaborate, they need the right motives and mindset. You need to be motivated to achieve the goal or move forward towards it as a team.

We can split our mindset into the ‘red zone’ and ‘green zone’.

The red zone is a mindset where you as an individual want to be the hero and the star. It often manifests as a closed culture and what people might call ’empire building’. It’s not the best place to be, but we are all imperfect humans with ego and instinct. I’m pretty sure if they’re honest, most people can admit they’ve been in that space at some point. The biggest thing is to be aware of it.

The green zone is the place to aim for. This is the other side of the coin. Instead of a closed, empire building mindset where you want to be a hero, you default to open and put the goal and team above yourself and your own ego. It can really be thought of as self vs. team.

If we all reflect on our own performance, there will likely be examples of where we’ve been in either zone. There will also be examples where we’ve observed others being in either zone.

The best thing to do is be aware. Remember, the task or project being a success should be more important than you being the architect of that success, or being recognised as such. At the same time, we should be observant of other people’s contributions and when appropriate, remember to say ‘well done’ or ‘good work.’