We have heard it said that collaboration is the new competition, but what does that really mean? Is it no longer survival of the fittest? Are single silo’d organizations and people outdated?
Maybe the reason is that with data and information exponentially growing, seemingly faster than any one person can process or implement it, there is a compelling need to expand bandwidth (both technology and people), to efficiently and effectively get things done.
So the next question is how do we do this?
There are several technology tools that help us to communicate and collaborate across geographical boundaries and platforms effectively. But how do we master the people skills to plug and play well within a collaborative system, if for decades there has been insufficient information to build commonality or create trust? When at times it may have seemed that distrust is a strategic advantage.
The real question is how do you build warm productive teams in environments competing for excellence?
How do we build team when people are more connected to devices than to each other?
How do you build team when racing against the clock?
How can we prioritize people in all our complexity, so that effective nuanced communications perform and produce a sustainable environment and product that people want and desire. Products that people want more than cold efficient delivery systems. Each and every day technology is better at producing cold efficient systems faster than any human can.
The real question is do humans want, or are we willing to pay for a better or different product than cold efficiency? Is collaboration a better mousetrap?
