Collaborating for Success

Something called collaboration!

As we sit at the edges of our seats and hold our breaths waiting for the announcement… it’s Movie Award Time! Who will it be? Yesssss! And the winner is… my most favourite actor! Yayyyy! What a moment! In the speech that follows, my most favourite actor proceeds to thank several people and mentions that she or he shares this award with the film crew.

On-screen glamour has a well-coordinated film crew behind the scenes. There is such a variety of roles — the producer, the director, actors, make-up artists, costume designers, set designers, sound designers, spot boys, editors and more. Yet all work towards one goal —making a successful film.

Movie-making is a highly collaborative effort.

So, what is collaboration all about?

When different kinds of individuals or teams pool in their resources and skills in order to achieve a common goal, it is referred to as collaboration. We are all different in our natures, abilities, and interests. The idea of collaboration is to work alongside someone who is different from you and work together effectively to come up with a solution or answer to a problem, that both agree to or achieve something that both want.

Collaboration requires some elements to make it successful.

There can be a single team or more than one team in a collaborative effort. Boeing’s Dreamliner aircraft was made jointly by different companies across different continents. A part of the tail was made by Boeing in the U.S., Australia and Canada, the engines by Rolls-Royce in Europe, part of the wings by Mitsubishi in Japan, to name a few!

One may even decide to join hands with competitors if the goal is common. For example, companies such as Coke, Pepsi, Unilever and Nestle have joined hands for waste management in Chile.

Collaboration is a highly valued skill today

Collaboration is one of the most highly sought after skills today — it is one of the key 21st century skills because we have begun to realize just how inter-dependent we are and that we achieve greater success if we collaborate. A few reasons why collaboration is so important today:

Many families migrate to another city or country and we study or live and work with people from different regions and/or cultures.

When people join companies with either a national or a multi-national presence, such as PepsiCo, Nike, Infosys, and others, their team members may be in different towns, cities or countries. So, someone living in Bengaluru may be working with a team member or a team that is based in New York.

When we need to work more effectively with people who are so different from us in their thinking and their way of working, we need to use collaboration.

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