Work That Collaboration Muscle
My company has evolved and so has my style of working. In the old days it was, “My way or the highway.” Basically, you were paying the bills, your name was on the front door, you had all the control. Or power.
My goodness, a few of my early bosses in New York City - legends every one of them - were screamers. I look back and I have thoughts on what was really going on, in addition to the stress. They got the job done and were never without a line of young people who wanted to work for them, but it was tough. Still, I have a ton of respect for them and what they did in what was a super competitive environment.
Today, though, in a work culture characterized by open source, agile business design, and test and learn, it’s increasingly important to have a collaborative muscle. If you get a chance, check out the book New Power by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms. I suggest you do - it’s awesome. Here’s a snippet:
Old power works like a currency. It is held by few. Once gained, it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substantial store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible, and leader-driven. It downloads, and it captures.
New power operates differently, like a current It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like water or electricity, it’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it.
When I was coming up, business was not peer-driven, it was leadership-driven. Top down. Period. Today, running my business is so different from the early days. I’m still the first in line when the you-know-what hits the fan, but in order for me to work with my team I have to be a collaborator. We figure out what we’re doing together, we make decisions across the team. We still have leaders, but they lead more as a matter of providing structure. Strategy is developed and then pressure tested by all, and then pursued - by the team.
Still, sometimes it is hard to work that collaborative muscle, even uncomfortable. First, many of us really like thinking something through and don’t feel good brainstorming. Or we’re embarrassed because we feel like our ideas don’t have merit. And it’s stressful to have to come up with something when you take longer to process good ideas than in the pressure cooker environment of a group meeting.
I was in a meeting with my biggest client, and we were brainstorming the brand’s mission and what activities they should be pursuing to reach their audience. We were meant to be using a growth mindset - another thing to check out:
Growth mindset people are permanently improving their intelligence and ability to learn new skills, through hard work, training, and perseverance. They believe that learning doesn't stop the moment you leave school or university. They accept and even welcome failure as a means to move forward.
All I felt was dumb, like I had no ideas, like no one liked my ideas. How’s that for insecurity? Wow did that shine a light on all kinds of things (I’ll save that for another blog). But keeping the growth mindset front and center - in fact, feeling like it was a buffer for me - we were meant to stretch our thinking. No one was doing it ‘right’. I kept pressing in. By the end of the meeting, we had all contributed to some really solid ideas, and I had learned a few key lessons about myself.
True, collaboration, learning new skills, being part of a team can actually be hard, but it’s not only a great way to grow personally, it’s good for community.
When was the last time you pressed in to be a part of a group dynamic and found it uncomfortable? What did you learn about yourself? I want to know!