Comments on: Collaboration? Bah, humbug! http://talkingstory.org/2010/01/collaboration-bah-humbug/ Starting new conversations in the workplace! Fri, 11 May 2012 01:39:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Rosa Say http://talkingstory.org/2010/01/collaboration-bah-humbug/comment-page-1/#comment-3499 Rosa Say Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:51:48 +0000 http://talkingstory.org/?p=3426#comment-3499 Good for you Kerry; that “sound off” remains so important. Meetings like the one you have planned can be a buzzing hive of collaborative synergies, OR they can be a battlefield rife with land mines, and neither possibility can be ignored. Leading the discussion takes skill, and so the point I wanted to stress within this post, was that we have to know our team well enough to be able to read the signals they give us as our practice gets more perfect. When you say, “Knowing this group, there will be plenty of good discussion” I cheer for you, and the relationship history that implies you have invested in them. There’s a fine line we must be aware of, with assuring a team we’ll own responsibility for “the final say” too: They cannot have that feeling of “why do we bother, when he’ll/ she’ll still do this his/ her way?” A mentor of mine used to call it “definitive decision-making with ‘me too’ wiggle room.” Co-authorship will usually trump the best buy-in possible with a singular decision. Let us know how it goes! Love to learn more from you. Good for you Kerry; that “sound off” remains so important. Meetings like the one you have planned can be a buzzing hive of collaborative synergies, OR they can be a battlefield rife with land mines, and neither possibility can be ignored. Leading the discussion takes skill, and so the point I wanted to stress within this post, was that we have to know our team well enough to be able to read the signals they give us as our practice gets more perfect. When you say, “Knowing this group, there will be plenty of good discussion” I cheer for you, and the relationship history that implies you have invested in them.

There’s a fine line we must be aware of, with assuring a team we’ll own responsibility for “the final say” too: They cannot have that feeling of “why do we bother, when he’ll/ she’ll still do this his/ her way?” A mentor of mine used to call it “definitive decision-making with ‘me too’ wiggle room.” Co-authorship will usually trump the best buy-in possible with a singular decision.

Let us know how it goes! Love to learn more from you.

]]> By: Kerry Palmer http://talkingstory.org/2010/01/collaboration-bah-humbug/comment-page-1/#comment-3497 Kerry Palmer Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:54:08 +0000 http://talkingstory.org/?p=3426#comment-3497 Great point! We are dealing with something similar to this with a team I am leading at the moment. Not everyone is sold on the direction we are leaning toward, so I am giving them the opportunity to sound off later this week. Every idea is on the table, and they are free to state their opinions honestly and openly. Knowing this group, there will be plenty of good discussion. However, I have made it clear that I have the final say. Great point!

We are dealing with something similar to this with a team I am leading at the moment. Not everyone is sold on the direction we are leaning toward, so I am giving them the opportunity to sound off later this week. Every idea is on the table, and they are free to state their opinions honestly and openly. Knowing this group, there will be plenty of good discussion. However, I have made it clear that I have the final say.

]]>