I am often asked to review and blog about new business books coming to market, and only rarely do I oblige.  When Tony asked me to review his new book, I said yes immediately. His ideas around managing energy as opposed to time resonated with me years ago after reading, The Power of Full Engagement and plays a big role in my own consulting practice. The energy management concept, if explored to its full potential, can do more to transform an organization than any other single component.

The great thing about Tony’s new book is that it is full of sound research that reinforces what Tony is teaching and helps us to really understand why we do the things we do, even when they are counter productive to our goals.  More importantly, he provides practical advise on how to begin the process of change that will work for anyone in any stage of their career, or any organization at any level of health.

Not only will you find great information to help you become a better employee, leader, or manager, but you will also find that this book will help you become the person, spouse, parent, child, and sibling that your heart desires.

If any of the following statements resonate with you, then you should RUN, not walk, to the nearest bookstore and get a copy of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working.

• I always feel like I am behind in my work and will never catch up
• I want my team to be more productive
• I desperately want to find balance between my work life and home life
• I want my team to be more accountable and responsible
• I struggle with the daily distractions of email, phone calls, and endless request for my time and can’t get any of my own work done
• My company does a poor job of retaining employees

What I personally love the most about The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working is how it very easily connects to my own work around helping organization find competitive advantages that work in the 21^st Century.  Tony reminds us that, “In a fiercely competitive and rapidly changing marketplace, creative and big picture thinking, curiosity, and openness to learning and empathy are a largely untapped source of potential competitive advantage.”  Going from more, bigger, faster to richer, deeper, slower seems counter intuitive to most, but is in fact the best way to distinguish your company from its competitors.

I have asked Tony to give us his thoughts on a few more in-depth questions on this angle around competitive advantage.

1)   Why do you think it is so hard for organizations to fully grasp that strengthening their connection with and investing in the well being of their employees can be a tremendous competitive advantage?

There’s an instinctive tendency in all of us to default to the easiest solutions. It’s easier to demand more of people than it is to consciously invest in them. It’s also part of the short-term preoccupation that characterizes so many organizations.  If you view people as expendable and interchangeable, you don’t worry about investing in them because you believe they’re all replaceable.  Leaders with a more  long-term view recognize that when you invest in people they become more valuable over time.

We make that investment in ourselves in the years we spend in school. But many organization are too concerned with the next quarter’s revenues to think about investing in the future. But the best organizations do just that. Companies such as Apple and Google offer more to their employees than most other companies – not just in perks like the free meals Google provides or the fitness facilities Apple has, but also mentally, in terms of the environments of learning and growth they actively nurture; and spiritually, by giving employees the sense that they’re doing something that truly adds value to the world. It shouldn’t be a surprise, in turn, that these sorts of companies attract better employees and have great results.

2)   In your work with a vast array of companies, do you see more of a correlation to the age of a company and the age of its executive team and their likelihood to fully embrace energy management in their culture, or is it more highly correlated to specific industries?

There’s no question that a certain kind of company is more readily drawn to our work.  They tend to be more progressive, forward thinking and innovative than average.  We’ve had our greatest successes with technology companies and with creative companies, but interestingly, we’ve also had significant success with more traditional financial institutions.  I think that may be because the folks drawn to the world of finance are often fiercely competitive, and we’re offering a science-based way for them to improve personal performance.

Ultimately, though, we’ve been able to work in almost every kind of organization, because in the end it’s usually one or two senior leaders who make the decision about whether to bring us in.  The trick, we’ve learned, is to introduce them to our work first at a personal level.  When they see its impact in their own lives, they become evangelists for the practices we’re teaching, and the new way of working we’re advocating.

3)   What is the one piece of information that you provide to clients that seems to resonate with them the most when it is difficult for them to see how proactively managing the 4 types of energy can have a profound impact on personal satisfaction and corporate success?

In an era of overwhelming demand, what resonates first is the science-based case we make for the fact that human beings aren’t meant to operate continuously for long hours. We all know, intuitively, that the way we’re working isn’t working, and that it’s actually depleting us.   It’s thrilling for people to understand that intermittent renewal actually drives higher and more sustainable performance.  Our work gives people permission to work in ways that serve them better – and make them feel better.  And that ultimately serves their organizations better.

Overtime, many businesses end up evolving through the lens of problem solving and not through the lens of what they want to create.  When you take the time to focus on what differentiates a company from its competition, what value it brings to its clients and the world, and what it really wants to become, the problems will automatically solve themselves.  If you are driven as an organization to create a shared vision and something is standing in your way, you will quickly find a way to remove it.   All the while, still focused on a unified vision.

To be successful in the 21^st century, companies must learn to get out of problem solving mode and into the mode of passionate creation.  When solving problems, you are by definition looking to the past and limiting the upside of your answer resulting in a real lack of creativity, innovation, and initiative, which are all forward looking characteristics.  Focusing on questions that matter, questions that lead to ideas and initiatives that create value, brings Courage, Collaboration, and Creativity to the table.  With those three ingredients, the sky is the limit in terms of success.

People ask me all the time HOW to bring more Courage, Collaboration, and Creativity into their organizations.  They completely understand the need, but are unsure how to make it happen in a meaningful way.  These are not the things they teach in Business School.  I tell them there is one key element.  If they can passionately embrace this one key element, the rest will fall into place.  The key is the leadership team being willing and able to ensure that the underlying business model (the core from which the company extends) is courageous, collaborative, and creative itself.  Because the majority of companies today are based on business models that date back to the 1800’s, this can feel like a daunting task.  In reality, it may require a lot of change, but it is also the ticket to phenomenal results.

The challenge of bringing real innovation into companies that are large and set in their traditional ways, is also what can give new companies a real competitive advantage.  Young companies can very easily and very quickly create environments where employees soar, that attract the best clients, and that ultimately enjoy greater success.  This gives a whole new twist to the question of, barriers to entry.  We may also need to ask, what are the advantages to entry.

Courage

If a company is willing to show the courage necessary to break out of a traditional models, try something new and more appealing and show its desire for collaboration through its core actions, then the employees will be much more likely to do what is necessary to engage the best clients, discover the best new product ideas, and work to their fullest potential.  Leaders must model the kinds of behaviors they are seeking.

Successful 21^st Century Businesses will be those that are always searching for something new and rely less and less on the status quo.  Always searching for what has changed, what new questions have emerged, and how it all interconnects.   They will use change as the fuel for their business model because they understand that they pace of change will only continue to increase overtime and at greater and greater rates.  They will also have the courage not to follow the herd and not to allow fear to dictate business decisions.

Collaboration

So many companies fail to harvest the energy and creativity already available inside their firms because their business models are designed to promote internal competition and silos.  If you want to promote cross-pollination and tap into the additional intelligence that exists only at the intersections of knowledge bases, then the internal business model must specifically promote those behaviors.

Creating teams that cross departments, functions, and even regions to work on organization wide projects is a simple way to begin working toward promoting a true culture of collaboration.  Promoting relationships and interaction between people who wouldn’t normally interact is critical.  Collaboration also promotes trust which will is quickly becoming one of the non-negotiables of success.

Creativity

When people are fearful of the consequences of any type of failure, they automatically go into a safety zone where the chances of failure are as small as possible.  This is a place where creativity cannot thrive, because creativity requires a certain amount of risk.  When people are not afraid of failure and know that it comes with a lot of great knowledge for success, they will be bring their full arsenal of creative tools.

Creating is a very natural state for human beings and one that fulfills our hearts and passions.  Thus when employees are free to create, try new things and receive critical feedback, their productivity will naturally increase.  Based on my two decades in the corporate world, working all around the globe, I estimate that most companies are operating at about half the productivity that is possible when employees are engaged and operating at their full potential.  This is not something that anyone really wants to admit, but we all know it is true.

“Individually and Together” — three words I heard this weekend from Will.i.am being interviewed as he fondly remembered the journey of success for his group The Black Eyed Peas.  Yes, I am over 40 and a fan of the Black Eyed Peas!  As a writer, sometimes you hear a group of words in one context and your mind instantly relays them to another and you know that somehow you must capture that connection on the page.  For me, these three words hold the keys to success in the 21^st Century for any business, large or small, local or multi-national.  When I was growing up, if a member of a band did something on his or her own, it was basically viewed as defecting.  Today, the Black Eyed Peas show us that band members doing their own thing and great stuff with the group is actually great for business.  Maybe the Cold War really is over.

How does one reconcile the dichotomy between a world increasingly focused on the individual and simultaneously asking its citizens to work in greater collaboration for the greater good?  The problem lies in seeing the two forces as a mutually exclusive.  The minute we begin to see them as more alike than unalike we begin to tap into their power.  By individually pronouncing ones passions and desires and focusing on what really drives you forward, you are more able to contribute to joint tasks in a selfless manner.  It is difficult for many of us to see this because society dictated for much of the last century that you are either out for yourself or you are for the good of others, and never the two shall meet.  The missing link is the belief that somehow left to our own devices, we are pre-programmed for choices and behaviors that are unsuitable and against what is good in this world.  Based on my experience, this could not be further from the truth.

Leaders today are challenged with how to allow maximum individualism while maintaining a strong thread of common vision between every person in an organization.  It’s a bit like the challenge that search engine companies are facing today: how to put a context around what any individual is searching for (based on their individual profile) such that they find exactly what they are seeking and perhaps something even better that they didn’t know existed . . . all the while maintaining some semblance of privacy.  When the figure it out, it will be a game changer.

It’s about giving employees back their power of creativity, permission to fail in search of excellence, and the respect that every person on the planet deserves regardless of their role.  It’s about leadership with less ego and more personal confidence creating the skills necessary to embrace and lead any group of individuals to their highest potential.  It’s about tapping into the personal energy of every member of an organization such that the energy of the group expands beyond the sum of its parts.

In another part of the same interview, Will.i.am spoke of inspiration, indicating that when it calls, you don’t hang up . . . you give it directions to your house.  Unfortunately, most of us hang up on inspirational thoughts and chalk it up to another wrong number from Mr. Impossible Dream. When, in reality such inspiration can at any moment become a pivotal point in our lives leading us to create a life full of impossible dreams that come true every day.    It’s a mindset that I have been aware of in my own life for sometime now and have slowly been shifting toward, and I will tell you that its power is immeasurable.

So, what does it really take to be a successful 21^st century leader that can relate to each individual and then relate them all to each other?  It takes courage to love who you are, to love who everyone else is (regardless of where they are in life), to believe your team can connect the un-connectible dots, and the sincerity and vision to bring everyone together.  It takes the courage to know when to go for it and when to do more research.  It requires a willingness to take personal risk by really putting yourself out there.

Be the energy . . .

When you see the level of response from the US and nations around the world to the tragic earthquake that rocked Haiti only a few days ago, it is hard not to feel proud of the quality of global citizenship displayed by so many.  Individuals and organizations have been sent to help with security, medical care, food distribution, general aid, and journalistic coverage and they should be commended for their commitment to humanity.

However, as an economist who was working on economic development in Haiti before the tragedy, I know that the strategy and model used for rebuilding is the key to success.  Despite good intentions, the developed world does not have the best track record for helping under-developed countries gain any significant traction.  There has never been a lack of funds or good intention, but there has been a lack of effective and unifying strategies designed with the population’s physical and cultural needs in mind.  This unfortunate and tragic earthquake has presented the world and Haiti with an opportunity to set the rebuilding of Haiti on a course that will have long term significance for its people, if we are all willing to try something new and think about building sustainable economies with a new perspective.

There are a number of areas that will obviously require simultaneous focus, however the primary force and core strategy should be helping Haiti to rebuild their own country, with their own hands, and resist the temptation to do it for them. Often our own need to help gets in the way of truly understanding what is needed.  This may sound over simplified or inconsequential to many, but I assure you it is not. The rebuilding must be done in a way that unites and aligns citizens, government, businesses, investors, and aid organizations.  Without unity, there will be continued factions, hoarding, corruption, and minimal progress.  This monumental task requires a top-down strategy with a bottom-up implementation plan.  I have faith that with the assistance and guidance from the rest of the world, Haiti can rebuild itself and become much stronger than it was before the earthquake.

We must avoid simply jumping in with quick fixes and rebuilding everything back they way it was.  A master infrastructure plan that is comprehensive in its ability to connect the disparate parts of the country and support agriculture and other industries is critical.   It must take into account the reverse urban migration that is likely to occur as a result of the earthquake.  Many people will go back to the small towns and villages where they are from because they no longer have homes and jobs and have nowhere else to go.  The people in Haiti’s countryside are generally the poorest of the poor — why so many migrated to the big cities in the first place.  Supporting agriculture, tourism, and arts industries in the countryside will provide people the means to stay, to start over and to allow the country to grow in a more balanced way.

Agricultural Development Aid is a crucial component, and it will be required in a way never seen before.  With the traditional strategy of sending a disproportionate amount of food aid compared to Agricultural Development Aid, we generally set a country up for failure.   Sending only food aid does serve an immediate need and feeds people today, but it can also destroy what markets still exist.  Building chicken farms, developing farm land and building other food production facilities puts people in business so they can build up their own markets allows the aid to continue to churn through the economy and even increase economic activity over time.  Simply handing out food produced elsewhere and brought in through an outside distribution channel fills an immediate need, but if it is not balanced with other strategies eventually also feeds the equation of poverty.

Businesses must be created and financially supported so they can hire local employees and begin the re-building process.  Contracts must be structured with built-in profits from the rebuilding efforts that can be used to create further self-sustaining economic activity.  The banking industry must be supported such that the bankers can make enough profits to stay in business and grow while providing heavily subsidized loans for building businesses and rebuilding structures.  The World Bank and the IMF need to find creative ways to support industries and businesses directly as opposed to giving the lions share of funds directly to the government.  When businesses begin to grow and more money is invested in capitalistic endeavors, the government’s revenue will grow in sustainable ways and can it begin to rely less and less on foreign hand-outs.  The government should be orchestrating, aligning, and ensuring coordination of all efforts.  The government should be making master plans and ensuring long-term strategies are properly focused on growth.  Groups like Aimer Haiti, who can help build and mentor businesses, should be working with the government, the World Bank, the IMF, the US, foreign investors and domestic investors to develop completely new strategies for growth.  Aimer Haiti has already been working on such collaborative and creative economic development strategies since their launch in 2009 and for years before as concerned citizens and Haitian business owners.

Energy has been a growing issue for Haiti as its population rises, and is now even more critical.  Electricity has never been reliable and is often supplemented with large battery stores powered by diesel generators.  The good news is that technology has advanced enough that a country like Haiti can leap-frog many of the evolutionary steps in energy that the developed world could not.  It’s a matter of getting the brightest minds together, inside and outside of Haiti, to come up with the best solutions given the unique conditions of the country.  Before the earthquake Aimer Haiti was exploring the possibility of using small solar energy units in some of the poorest areas to provide light, refrigeration, and power. With refrigeration, people can store and sell perishable products such as produce and fish.  With power people who cannot read or write can begin the process of building an education base through radio and television.  Mobile phones can be powered and connect people to markets to sell their goods.

Solving the energy issue is also the key to stopping deforestation.  Until there is a reliable source of energy to replace charcoal, and until there are jobs and small businesses to give people a means to survive, deforestation will continue.  Deforestation causes rapid erosion, which leads to road and bridge destruction, and leaves the land unsuitable for farming ensuring the cycle of poverty continues.  The cutting down of trees does not happen because Haitians do not care about their land, it happens because it has become a means of survival for so many people.

The interconnectedness of all of these major issues in Haiti is another reason why getting the overall re-building strategy right is so key to its long-term future success.  Every solution and every single effort of aid and rebuilding should be viewed as an opportunity to put Haitians in businesses that will create jobs.  For example, the distribution of food and creation of helicopter landing sites, which is happening right now in Haiti, is a huge opportunity to employ people and allow them to feel a part of the solution and not a part of the problem.  There shouldn’t be such a stark line between those giving aid and those receiving aid.  This is an example of the change in thinking and the change in mindset that is needed to change the trajectory of how under-developed countries are assisted, particularly in times of need.

This type of re-building is not done from an office or over the phone, it is done by creating relationships on the ground, building businesses, one at a time, and helping families, one at a time.  It’s about doing, creating, uniting, and elating in each small success that both dedication and determination will bring.

History has proven time and again that capitalism and the building of a significant middle class are still the best ways to bring people out of poverty.   Before the earthquake, one of the first billboards you saw when you were leaving the Port au Prince airport, was the large unity triangle of Aimer Haiti, which of course translates to “Love Haiti” in English.  I hope it is still standing!

Just as we must be careful of the words we use with ourselves, so as not to unintentionally sabotage our own motivation; we must also be careful with the words we choose to exemplify our commitment to excellence inside our businesses.  There is a big difference between a goal of being the best and one of constantly improving and learning.  On the surface one might guess that being the best is always the best option, but I beg to differ.  The difference is in the mindset.  Being the best is a place to get to while always improving is a place to come from.

If your goal is to be the best, then what is there for you to strive for once you’ve reached that plateau?  In the 20^th century, being the best was a title much easier to hang onto once attained because change occurred at a much slower pace.  Today, you could loose such a tile in a day from one disgruntled customer who was savvy enough and creative enough to reach one million viewers on you You Tube with a story of how he was wronged by your firm.   And the kicker . . . it doesn’t even matter if it is true.

If your goal is to be the best, then how do you and your employees feel when you are not the best?  You probably feel as though you are failing in some respect.  Sure, that bit of anger and resentment toward the one who is the “best” may fuel some extra time at the office, but it is also affecting your mindset and your ability to really come up with that next great idea that might in fact land you top of the heap.

If you goal is to be in a state of constantly improving and forever learning, then it really doesn’t matter who is perceived as the best on any given day, you and your team are always looking for that next edge.  There is no anger, no resentment, and no feelings of failure to cloud anyone’s mind, judgment, or motivation.

Excellence comes from doing the ordinary things extraordinarily well with energy and enthusiasm as if they were the most important job in the world.  This is the key to excellence.  Everything counts no matter how big or small a role it plays.  Little things add up to big things.  Your energy when you complete the ordinary will dictate your energy with the extraordinary opportunities come your way.  It’s the same reason why some people seem to get all the opportunities?  They don’t really; they are simply ready to greet them when they arrive.

Never loose your desire to learn, or tire of improving yourself ~ from artist Jane Farr who has joined Ancora Imparo (Italian for I am still learning) and Kaizen (Japanese for being in a continual state of improvement) in the beautiful drawing above.

Click here to read Realistic Impossibilities

Was it really the amount of risk taken in the past few years that triggered the financial crisis, or might it be the type of risks taken that are the real culprits?  Perhaps, a simple case of too many eggs in one basket for too long?  Yes, banks kept piling on debt securities from residential and commercial mortgages based on a model that had value increasing in perpetuity.  Yes, hypermarkets such as CDX/CDS were created without anyone taking the initiative to add them all up and see if the insurance sold was actually more than the companies were worth.  Yes, Investment Banks were allowed to leverage up to levels that had never before been implemented. But to me, that says that we took too much of those particular kinds of risks for too long and did not scrutinize the underlying assumptions nearly enough.

At the same time, we were under-funding, intellectually and financially, innovation in new technologies and revolutionary products.   We cracked the code to the human genome a decade ago, and yet the average person sees little evidence of it in their daily lives.  We seem to be lacking in our abilities to bring new discoveries and breakthroughs into marketable territory.  Was it just a myth that we were in an era of great innovation, because we said out loud enough times that we actually believed it?  Were the best and brightest young minds being shuffled to Wall Street because they are better salesmen?  What can we teach and what can we do to promote and support entrepreneurs?  Perhaps some of those investment dollars (many coming from overseas) could have been better invested funding innovation instead of financial securities.  Funding innovation may seem like a much riskier bet, but I can promise the underlying assumptions would be a lot more realistic than the bets that were made in slam-dunk securities the last few years.

What I’m trying to say is that, as a nation, we seemed to have taken the easy way out (at least that is what we thought) and bet against what we knew was an inevitable cycle in hopes of piling on a bit more cash.  Where is the innovative and courageous American spirit that this country was founded upon?  Where is the spirit of the people who came together 2 short decades ago and created the impossible . . .  a nation built solely on the promise of freedom?  We have become complacent as we pretend to be a happy lug of androids that go to work, do what we are told, and go home.  Now that we know it won’t work in the future, we have a chance to make some game-changing moves.

We need to harness those adventuresome spirits that lead droves of people across the entire country in wagons with no real idea of what lay ahead.  Those are real risks, laced with dreams, passion, and courage.  Many of us have become our own silos.  We lack connections, challenges, and most of all the passion required to create real success.

The point is, if we are going to take risks, which we know is a part of life and business, we should take risks that are worth taking.  Let’s not take the same old risks over, and over, and over again until we look a bit daft for not recalling that economies run in cycles.  If we take risks in areas we are passionate about, and stop living up to the herd mentality, then we can make great strides in the growth necessary to push this next cycle.  It’s clear that the same-old thing is going to work this time.  Whatever we do must be different, inspiring, and creative.  Most every industry is being forced to reinvent itself in one way or another, which is an open invitation to do better.

Broaden your lens, stand on your head for a new perspective. . . do something, anything, to ensure that you are taking a new kind of risk that has some passion and guts behind it.

Until now, my business trips have taken me to London, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Seoul, Frankfurt, Munich, and Paris, the glitzy global seats of corporate power.  Last week I found myself driving to rural Greenville, Mississippi to meet a group of folks from the Delta Citizens Alliance.   On the 9-hour drive, when I was wondering what in the world I was doing, I reminded myself that this is the time for me to give back.  It’s time for me to apply what I have learned in my 20 years in business and lend a hand.  What I found is that I had a lot to learn from the most courageous group of people I ever had the fortune of meeting.  More powerful than any group of business leaders I have ever met, simply because they know they can make a difference in the world.

This was a group of very busy people.  They run non-profit organizations that target the youth, they are consultants to non-profits writing grants and getting through the red tape, sociology professors, and community activists.  These are the movers and shakers of the Mississippi Delta.  Some had high school diplomas and others had PhD’s.  We were white, black, and brown.   We were all the same, in our hearts, and we were all there to ask a hard question that few are willing to ask.

No one was afraid to ask the question, and everyone was ready to receive the answer, no matter where it pointed.  No one squirmed in their seat or tried to deflect.  No one was trying to be a victim and point the finger elsewhere.  Everyone was ready to take full responsibility, even when the answer pointed back at all of us.

The question we were there to explore was, “Why, after all the money spent and all the programs implemented, is the Mississippi Delta still so void of hope and prosperity?”  It takes a lot of courage sometimes just to ask the right question.  This group was also determined to find the right answer and get on with doing something about it.

They all share the dream of seeing the Delta turnaround, and become an shining example of what can be achieved when people are willing to love and care for themselves and others.  They can visualize their hometowns full of healthy, beautiful and happy kids playing on the streets without drug dealers on the corners.  They can see the houses and yards cared for and manicured and neighbors greeting each other on the sidewalks.  They can see the old abandoned school down the road revitalized and brimming with squirming, learning children once again.  They can see young adults in local colleges and new shops and businesses opening up every year.  They have a tremendous dream!

We asked why the community colleges weren’t full when scholarships and transportation were readily available.  We asked if towns were really ready to work on race relations when turf wars prevented people from getting in the room together to just start a discussion. What was amazing, and a real testament to the validity of the concepts we were discussing, was how quickly everyone came to the same answer.  They may have said it in a slightly different way, but the answers were all the same, and we all knew without a doubt that they were true.

The Center for Sustainable Change, an organization out of Northern California that has had tremendous success facilitating the turnaround of some of the most hopeless communities in the US, was there to share the 3 Principles of Psychology and how they promote positive change.  Three simple principles that help individuals form an understanding of how we create our own realities (good or bad) through our own thoughts.  External circumstances are simply challenges to address and “things” in life to deal with, but they do not create our mental reality.  We create our reality in our own heads, one thought at a time.  Once you give yourself permission to question your thoughts and choose to dismiss the ones that are not helpful to achieving your goals, the possibilities become endless.

Our collective answer to the hard questions was this: programs unfurled and money spent weren’t working because (1) the people they were designed to help had little or no say in what they truly needed, so community residents had no investment in the outcome, and (2) until we take time to focus on the innate well-being and wisdom that exists in all of us, it will remain difficult for people to see a different reality and work together for change in the Delta.  These are simple truths, but according to this group of warriors, they hold the key to success in the Delta.

The Delta Citizens Alliance in conjunction with the Center for Sustainable Change have established a steering committee (of which I am honored to be a member) to start conversations with the communities of the Mississippi Delta about innate mental health and the 3 principles.  With a renewed sense of hope, positivity, creativity and well-being, these communities will no-doubt create their own successes.

If you belong to a business organization that is jumping onto the band-wagon of corporate social responsibility, I would encourage you to consider supporting the work that is happening in the Delta.  Communities and businesses can accomplish twice as much if they work together. And when the status-quo “thought box” is opened and “out of the box” thinking jumps out, the possibilities for win-win collaborations are boundless.

Without the proper culture and structure, collaboration and all of its benefits will elude even the most determined company.  Stakeholders, organizational structure, leadership style, culture, and mission must all be properly aligned in order to create a model that promotes collaboration and success.  Like creativity, collaboration cannot be forced; it must be cultivated.  It’s a process, and like all worthwhile endeavors, it takes time.

Two of the strongest promoters of collaboration are informality and trust.  Informal settings are much more relaxing.  When people are relaxed they are able to let their minds wander a bit, perhaps even over into someone else’s domain.  There you are able to discuss, ponder, create relationships, and perhaps solve a joint challenge or two.  On-the-fly decision-making takes far less time than chain-of-control decision-making.  Ad-hoc interaction takes far less time than scheduled encounters.  All of this leads to greater efficiency and increased productivity.  When employees are a part of the process and fully engaged they feel as though they are adding value, which translates into taking responsibility.

Trust is one of the biggest factors in promoting a collaborative culture. A trusting relationship is one where the other person’s thoughts and opinions are valued.  When you value the opinions of others and they value yours, then you can discuss anything without judgment and evaluation.  From that point, there isn’t any challenge that can’t be tackled. Trusting yourself is also a big component of collaboration.  Unless you trust your own creativity and ideas you aren’t likely to share them.

There are no magic bullets.  It is simply good old virtues like informality, trust, a united vision, common goals, and the use of agreements as opposed to expectations.  Expectations smack of controlling and invite an air of arrogance that is simply not necessary.  Most people will honor their agreements but few care much about someone else’s expectations that they can’t control.  These are simple concepts that bring powerful changes.

The WSJ recently published an article (REPLICATING CLEVELAND CLINIC’S SUCCESS POSES MAJOR CHALLENGES) that clearly states the overriding quality of cost effective super stars in healthcare like the Cleveland and Mayo Clinics is a culture of collaboration.  As opposed to the independent, ‘every doc for himself’ model that is operated in most hospitals in the US.  It is actually one of the few useful bits of information I’ve seen regarding what can be done to contain health care costs while maintaining the drive for new and innovative treatments.  The article also points out that Medicare aligns better with the ‘every doc for himself’ model than it does the integrated, collaborative approach to caring for patients.  What a brilliant opportunity for change.

People are finding ways to become more connected every day.  You can be a part of it, or watch it pass you and your business by.  The good news is, that if done authentically, creating a culture of collaboration inside your firm and with your customers will actually be a lot of fun and very rewarding.

What is Collaboration?

According to Wikipedia Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Collaboration does not require leadership and can sometimes bring better results through decentralization and egalitarianism. In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources.

Collaboration is not about finding a group of people that think similarly so that it is easy to agree upon the next course of action or the right solution.  To the contrary, collaboration works best with a group of diverse thinkers that tend to come at a problem from slightly different angles and who commit to work without judgment and evaluation.

Why Is Collaboration Important?

We learned from Dr. C (Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), recounted in my post on Creativity, that creativity requires a domain, or an area of interest in which people have knowledge to which creative thinking can be applied. Dr. C also concluded that the best ideas actually live at the overlapping intersection of adjacent domains (think “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter”, and “you got your peanut butter in my chocolate”). He explains that creativity tends to exist where different cultures, beliefs, and knowledge can mingle allowing individuals to put together new combinations of ideas and see different contexts and points of view.  Creativity in cultures that are more rigid and rule-based require far greater effort, and thus will yield a more disappointing result.  Thus, it only makes sense that through Collaboration we can turn up the intensity on any creative process being cultivated inside of any organization.

The bottom line is that your company can either be setup with a structure that promotes internal competition and silos or one that promotes collaboration as a means for growth and success.  The large mega banks are generally structured for internal competition.  Companies like Best Buy, Patagonia, Zappos, Cleveland Clinic, and Google are generally structured for collaboration.

“Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.” ~ F. D. Roosevelt

There are two primary elements that are fueling the demand for richer and more productive interactions within the workplace. First is the economic reality dictating an increase in productivity as the only path to business sustainability in what is now truly a global business forum.  Without question, collaboration increases productivity and efficiency within organizations, especially technology continues to allow us to work in virtual worlds.  Second, is the desire for more meaning in our lives and our work.  We feel much more satisfied as human beings if we are connected to something creative, challenging and bigger than ourselves.  Now, more than anytime in the past, success is predicated on a company’s ability to create a culture of collaboration.

Just look at what is happening with social media.  It is one giant collaboration fest.  Anyone can join in on any conversation at any time.  Companies are actually listening to their customers and collaborating with them on new ideas.  This should be a big signal to everyone that creating connections is a trend that is here to stay. You can either belly-up and figure out how to make it work for your company, or you can continue to try and pretend like it doesn’t exist.  Your choice.

Trends are beginning to emerge that support the emergence of business models that are completely opposite from those used for decades.  Practices such as open source technology and lead user innovation are gaining substantial ground and finding great success.  We are moving away from closed, IP-protected, manufacturing-centered innovation to open innovation often developed by users and free from legal claims.  A clear movement from hording and secrecy to collaboration and connection.