Collaboration

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." – Andrew Carnegie

"The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." – Phil Jackson

"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success." – Henry Ford

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." – Harry Truman

"Effectively, change is almost impossible without industry-wide collaboration, cooperation, and consensus." – Simon Mainwaring

"Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up." – Oliver Wendell Holmes

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else." – Booker T. Washington

"None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful." – Mother Teresa

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Collaboration is an action where people come together to a shared goal to achieve or produce something.

Collaboration can happen from a simple participation and cooperation with someone, to a different scale such as associations, partnerships or alliances between many parties.

So, why should we collaborate?

Let’s discuss what happens when we do not collaborate.

Firstly, everything becomes more forceful and costly (time).

You will lose more time and effort to achieve the goal if you decide to do everything on your own. It is impossible to be a “master of all” and it will be better to engage the expertise and help of another. You will possibly also worry more and become stress as you try to stretch yourself in all directions.

Secondly, as people collaborate, share and talk less, distrust among each other can occur. The impression that everyone is self-centered, and selfishness is inevitable. Conflicts among people get bottled in and resentment will fester.

With no channel of “release” through collaboration, it will eventually change to hostility and aggression. The damage from such a situation can be disastrous. For a person, you will lose a positive environment, peace of mind and happiness.

For an organization, it could be a loss in reputation, productivity and revenue. Legal and physical damages are possibilities too.

Thirdly, with collaboration stopping and hostility rising, everything stops.

People will stop collaborating and even if they do, they will not collaborate with a “win-win” mentality but with much self-centered and selfishness.

Imagine, that everyone becomes that.

The result, everyone loses.

Collaboration will result in the prevention and reversal of all the above.

In conclusion, Collaborate!