Segment 1: Collaboration, Defined. When people use the term “collaboration,” often they are not really talking about collaboration in terms of working together to create something new. Instead, they are talking about getting someone else to buy into their idea and what they want you to do. True collaboration is a process, a mind-set, a way of solving problems and a way of being. To discuss effective collaboration, we’re speaking with Delia Horwitz on this edition of The Doug Noll Show. Delia is a consultant, keynote speaker, facilitator and co-author of Collaboration Soup, a Six-Step Recipe for Co-Creative Meetings and Other Conversations. Delia’s years of experience with facilitating team-building workshops in corporate environments all began as a fascination with the question, “What does it take for people to get along?”
Segment 2: Movement toward Collaboration. Delia feels that there is currently an evolutionary movement toward collaboration. As an example, there is now grant money being given to teams of scientists from multiple disciplines (who were former competitors) to come together with their different views and work toward a common goal or solving a particular problem. Additionally, Delia is seeing collaboration on a personal level: i.e. Craigslist, eBay, etc. Billions of dollars are being shared through free sites. It’s all about matching needs and resources, and the internet has made it possible to exchange what we need and what we have.
As a consultant, Delia and teaches groups how to keep the fight or flight response calm. How do we stop those triggers? How do we take advantage of the collective wisdom that arises when people are looking at the whole picture instead of just protecting their part?
Segment 3: An Internal Motivation. Delia’s six-step RECIPE for collaboration:
Be READY to go
ENGAGE your stakeholders
Have a CONVERSATION
Allow time for INTEGRATION
Have an action PLAN
END with clarity
Doug and Delia both find that this work is simple but requires discipline. People are hungry for it. They know there’s a better way, and once they experience a true co-creative conversation or group action plan they are changed forever. They have a new reference point. When they co-create a plan that everyone feels is theirs, you end up with ownership, enthusiasm and accountability. There is an internal motivation.
Segment 4: Wisdom from Totality. Delia and her co-author outline a new way of decision making in their book, Collaboration Soup. She tells us that when a group comes together, there is a wisdom that comes out of the totality of the pieces. Everybody puts in their piece, and together they create something that could not be created out of the individual pieces, just like Stone Soup. For more information, visit www.collaborationsoup.com.
To listen to the entire interview: