The Power of Collaboration: Beyond the Initial Business Objective

I recently wrapped up a facilitated virtual workshop series with a client who needed quick strategic clarity for priorities their team had been swirling on.

And while we were able to achieve the primary objective they were seeking, it always delights me to hear that they got so much more out of it than that.

At the end of every session, I always try to have participants reflect on their experience using the prompt of, “I loved…, I learned…, I will…”. Here were their top takeaways:

1️⃣ Learning from others with different perspectives helped participants get out of their own heads to think about other realities, constraints, and considerations.

2️⃣ Inspiring, thought-provoking activities and frameworks helped get participants unstuck by seeing things in new ways with new possibilities.

3️⃣ Structuring time for participants to think and work on their own first before coming together to collaborate elevated their confidence and the work itself. Many were compelled to find more time on their calendars to block off for thinking and rumination.

4️⃣ Anchoring the work in problem understanding and clear framing helped participants feel aligned and ready to build connected solutions.

5️⃣ Collaborative connection and alignment happened through sharing pain, purpose, and pursuit of goals in a safe, inclusive forum, which led to a commitment of action to carry the work forward.

The power of collaboration is so much more than achieving the initial business objective or need that prompts you to want to do a project or have a workshop (and, yes, it’s great for that too!).

If you want your team or partners more invested in achieving those objectives, more invested in each other, and more invested in themselves, then engage with them as co-design conspirators rather than box-checked invitees.

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Hi, I’m Joel Worthington, and I help service-oriented, intrapreneurial leaders harness the power of collaboration and subject matter expertise to elevate the value of cross-disciplinary teams and partners.

Email me at joel@jwcollaborative.com to connect about #collaboration #codesign #humancentereddesign #facilitation #coaching and #coachsulting