Episode 4 - Collaboration

Video Transcript:

Lou Quinto:
Hi, welcome to Q and A on Breakthrough Leadership. I'm Lou Quinto.

Craig P. Anderson:
And I'm Craig Anderson.

Lou Quinto:
Today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the topic, what is collaboration? We hear that so frequently nowadays in businesses. We want more collaboration in our teams. We want to have a culture of collaboration. And so what we're going to do is we're going to explore a little bit about exactly what collaboration is. Three areas we want to talk about is one, communication and collaboration, visualization as part of collaboration and also an acknowledgement segment of that.

Craig P. Anderson:
Yeah, and where we're going to start is on communication and I think a big challenge with collaboration is a leader may pull in a group of people and say, "All right, let's talk about this." And then drive the discussion where they wanted to be in the first place. To quote Inigo Montoya, "Collaboration, that word is not what you think it means." Right. That's not collaboration. Collaboration is not standing up and driving the agenda to get the result you want, and then everyone can say, well, I had a chance. Right.

Craig P. Anderson:
I actually had an experience with this where I hired a new product person and they convinced me that they're going to get their product team in a room, lock them up, and then they'll pop out two months later and they'll have an idea. And I said, okay, go do that. And they collaborate a lot in that room, but then came out of that room, marketing, sales, operations, are all looking at it going, I have no idea how we're supposed to do any of this. That I don't know that there's a market for it. How am I supposed to promote this? How am I supposed to deliver on this? So it's created in a vacuum. And so that they thought they were communicating, but they weren't.

Craig P. Anderson:
When you're talking about collaboration and communication, that's bringing everybody together and getting those points of view. The important part here is, you may think, as a group, as an individual group or as an individual, you've thought it all through. But until you get input from one other person or 10 other people, that's what collaboration is, to try and get to a greater idea through the sum of the parts.

Lou Quinto:
Yeah. And one other thing, I look at collaboration today as almost back in the '90s where cross functional teams was the word of the day or the method that we're going to solve our problems. But with the collaboration is, you're right, to bring people together, getting them to communicate. And one of the things that I always tell people is, if you're going to collaborate, you need to make sure, first of all, you know what you're going to do. And then take a look at who's going to be affected by that, and bring those people so that it prevents someone like you that says, "Fine, go in a room, lock yourself." But you didn't realize that it's going to affect a whole bunch of different other areas. So in a way you set that group up for failure because you let them go off on your own.

Craig P. Anderson:
Well, thanks for that. Yeah. Yeah, it was a lesson in leadership when I did that and I was a fairly new leader when I agreed to it. And it is a mistake, collaboration is really about pulling together the best of the ideas to come to a greater whole. That's why we hire great people is we want all that input. So I think it's an important piece.

Lou Quinto:
Yeah, and the other thing too is when it comes to communication, people should not feel that their opinions aren't wanted. And so when a group of people are together, one of the things that definitely whoever's leading or facilitating that group is, they can't be shut shutting people down. It almost goes back to what you said, one person driving the entire conversation and only hearing what they believe to be true and moving forward on that.

Craig P. Anderson:
Yeah. Telling someone that's a stupid idea does not drive collaboration.

Lou Quinto:
No, it does not. Okay. Visualizing. One of the big things with collaborative groups is visualization. And when I talk about visualization, I'm talking about in the actual meeting itself. Most conference rooms today in any business have a whiteboard, a flip chart or something like that. Getting everything up in front of people. We tend to be a visual society. There's that old 7%, 38% and 55% of communication impact. 7% verbal, 38% which is what we call vocal, how you say the words. And then 55% is visual. And if you look at 55% of all communication, no matter where you are in the world, no matter what language you speak, it's visualization. It's that body language, it's seeing it. And so we tend to be, people, individuals who, we like to see things.

Lou Quinto:
And so in that collaboration session, one of the things is to make sure that everything is visual. If you're mapping out processes, write the process up so that everybody understands what step one is, what step two is, what step three is. Because if you're just talking about the steps, in people's minds, I'm not visualizing it. We're not on the same page. We may have those steps out of sync in our mind. And so part of collaboration is making sure that everything is visual. So writing things out, putting it up on the board, drawing pictures, whatever it needs to do, that's what needs to happen. I don't know what you've...

Craig P. Anderson:
Well I've done a lot of different things. Mind mapping works great as a group setting if you're familiar with mind mapping.

Lou Quinto:
Which is a visualization. Right.

Craig P. Anderson:
Which allows for the verbal input, it allows for kind of even tactile because you're putting it up there. And then the visual of seeing where everything goes and pulling all those ideas together. I've done a lot of work with design thinking, with the firm locally and a lot of that is getting the ideas on post it notes and organizing those ideas into something more coherent. But it's a great-

Lou Quinto:
A new name for affinity diagramming. Yes.

Craig P. Anderson:
Sure. Yeah. Because we're just going to date the heck out of ourselves with '90s references today. But yes. But I think it's all about getting those ideas out there and helping people kind of visualize what it is we're trying to get to, in a way to see something that's actually coming out of those ideas and that brainstorm that your doing.

Lou Quinto:
okay. All right. And the last topic, is part of collaboration, is acknowledgement. And acknowledgement is very simple. Acknowledging people for the job that they did, for the input that they provided, the research that they did to be able to help us get information that we need to solve a problem, make a decision. For the acknowledgement of, "Hey, that was a great idea." And a lot of times we don't spread those deserving words around. But let's face it, even with a dog, if you are very nice to the dog and you say good things to the dog, you want positive behavior or positive reinforcement, you're going to say good things. We don't do that, or at least I don't find people do that enough in business. We compliment each other for the good things that they did. And if it is, sometimes it's almost a backhanded compliment. Like, "That was a great idea, didn't expect that out of you."

Craig P. Anderson:
Yeah. And I think part of the acknowledgement is even starting sooner and getting kind of the quieter voices in the room to pull out and then acknowledging those ideas. Right. It's even the thing that drives me crazy, and instead of but. And I'm the worst person in the world for doing it, but it's-

Lou Quinto:
There you go.

Craig P. Anderson:
There I went. Yeah. And so it's trying to pull everyone into the room because especially kind of your newer employees may have great ideas, but that's a pretty intimidating thing sitting in a group of 10 people. So, "Hey, Jane, what do you think about this issue?" And acknowledging their participation and the input that they have, because it can springboard to other ideas. And the quickest way to shut things down is, just saying that's a bad idea.

Lou Quinto:
Killer statements.

Craig P. Anderson:
Yeah. Killer statements. "We're not going there today." Or, "Let's take that offline." Which is a huge pet peeve of mine. But at any rate, it's how do we get people to participate? When they see acknowledgement, they see positive coming out, people are going to be more willing to weigh-in as opposed to less willing.

Lou Quinto:
Yeah, and as I always tell people, there's always someone that's going to be in the room, maybe one or two people maybe more than that, that they just when they get into a social setting, they don't say anything. And sometimes when they're in our business meeting, we just think, "Well that's the way Craig is. He's always taking things in and he doesn't have a lot to say." But unfortunately, what I find sometimes is those are the people when the meetings over, are doing the most talking about how messed up everything is that the group decided to do. And so I always tell people whether you're the leader or driving the meeting or whether you're just a passenger in the meeting, if there is that person that is in the meeting who is not saying anything and you know that they have an opinion or you suspect they have an opinion, is just stop and say, "Hey, I've heard a lot of good things over the last 10 minutes. Craig, I haven't heard from you. Tell me what do you think?"

Lou Quinto:
Because a lot of times just by doing that, you're telling the person I am respecting what input you have. I'm giving you the opportunity now to speak your mind. But if the meeting just keeps running like a freight train, that acknowledgement isn't there.

Craig P. Anderson:
Absolutely.

Lou Quinto:
Okay. So today, key takeaways. Collaboration, the new buzzword, making sure you have good collaboration. That's one thing that I've taken away. You've mocked me because of my referencing 1990s type of management terms. But collaboration is the big buzzword. It's not that it hasn't been there, it's changed, it's more refined. It's more defined, as far as what it is. And those companies that have better collaboration are seeing more productivity. And they're also seeing a culture shift where people feel that they are actually part of the company, as opposed to I'm just here, punch the clock, get my pay, do my work and go home.

Craig P. Anderson:
Absolutely. And I think my take away just to make amends for my '90s references, I'll quote Vanilla Ice, "Stop, collaborate, and listen." That's how you start moving these forward. You stop driving the car so fast, collaborate with the people around you. And part of the collaborating is listening to the other ideas and being open to those, acknowledging the ideas that are flowing out so you actually get something better than bad '90s rap. So that's my take on takeaway for today, Lou.

Lou Quinto:
All right, well thanks for joining us on Q and A on Breakthrough Leadership. If you've liked this video, go ahead and click the like button down at the bottom. Go ahead and subscribe to our channel also so that you know when the next episode is coming across. Have a great day. I'm Lou Quito.

Craig P. Anderson:
I'm Craig Anderson.