Collaboration makes all the difference

Real greatness, tremendous breakthroughs and fantastic relationships have something in common: collaboration.

When Lennon and McCartney were at their peak writing those phenomenal Beatles songs, their focus was on making great music, not on whose job it was to write the words and whose responsibility it was to write the music. Sometimes they'd share both the words and music, sometimes one of them would write most or all of a song. It didn't matter who took the credit or who did what. What mattered was the song.

In business it's much the same. We can tell who the great performers are in the workplace. They're the people that work with others, that ask others for their input, that share their own ideas freely--they don't pull rank on those below them. And they don't play victim and sulk because they don't have the authority to tell others what to do. They purely focus on doing great work, no matter who gets the credit or whose job it theoretically should be.

A collaborator, whether he or she is a boss or a part of the team, brings people together and gets the best out of them. This is a rarity in business. That's why we hear things like, "It's not my responsibility" or "The powers that be want such and such to be done" or "It's my client and this what we're going to do." These statements are polarizing and they stifle creativity and teamwork.

If our focus was on collaboration and not org charts, imagine what could happen.


Barry LaBov, CEO
LaBov and Beyond
www.labov.com