The Science of Collaboration

Opportunities come at us all day, but we often, in fact mostly, we cant recognise them because we are larger-minded and fail to see what a joint collaborative solution we could offer. Let me explain.

Out of fear of having to share money or resources or for a lot of people in my sector, afraid others will steal my ideas, we fail to want to share. We see an opportunity and our whole mind and body goes into action to see how much money we can make from this by doing as much of it as we can ourselves. We find ways to craft our response in a way to secure all the core work, then some creative writing to secure the outlying and peripheral work. Having submitted this proposal, we sit back and wait for the positive answer and start to plan how we will do all this work when it comes in and then spend the money.

But in most cases it does not. We get demotivated and grumble against those who won the contract and find fault in their operation to justify our frustration.

But there is another way. To give away as much of the work in order to secure a smaller portion. Now, this may seem crazy at first but read on. By working with others who do what you do poorly, well, your offering to the client becomes a stronger proposal. Your team of collaborative expertise gives the client what they need. You get to do what you do well, it is fun, you get pai,d and the client is happy. Then this will flow into additional work. Rinse repeat.

Collaboration is simple maths. Where 1 alone is always alone, but when 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 becomes a sustainable team of constant improvement and expertise that can be reposted again and again, delivering expertise services to a wider range of clients.

Simple: Go work with others, play nice and share the spoils.