Mass Collaboration – Rethinking How We Work Together

March 12, 2020

I’ve been doing some thinking around the importance of mass collaboration.

In the past we focused on developing people and teams, then the need became, how do we get people to work together across departments within an organization? Our challenge was to eliminate silos.

Now … to meet the challenges we currently face, we have to expand our concept of collaboration to include not only those we currently work with, but how do we collaborate with people outside of our organization?

How do we bring together multiple sectors—business, non-profits, government, academia, and social networks—to create new ways of innovating, building business and tackling the global challenges that face us today?

This type of cutting edge collaboration brings huge potential and raises difficult questions:

• How do we bring diverse groups together for true dialogue that leads to common vision and inspired action?

• How can we shift our focus from the things that separate us, and instead keep our focus on the common elements of our individual visions that we can unite on?

• How do we ensure that all voices are heard and outcomes supported?

In closed system groups, to ensure accountability, the vision and action plans can be tied to compensation and advancement. It was possible to put “teeth” into the decisions. We have some “push” power to enact the change we want. In multi-sector collaborations, how do we ensure accountability and follow-through? I believe we must move from a “push” form of motivation to a powerful “PULL.”

How do we work together to create a common vision and pathway forward that is SO COMPELLING that people can’t help but become excited and put their energy into following through? How do we work with people in a way that they feel like they “Can’t NOT” take steps to initiate change? The motivation shifts from an external push to an internal pull.

Be looking for more posts and resources on this topic as our curiosity leads us to more questions and hopefully … creative solutions!