When employees depend upon the workplace to be a meeting place to meet new friends, the boundary between career and personal life becomes blurry. While there will be a few individuals that relate on a personal level, there is a level of professionalism required to meet goals, create synergies and eloquently agree to disagree for optimal results. This requires effective communication, negotiation, and fact-finding - not forced collaboration.
Webster defines "collaboration" as the state of having shared interests or efforts. In environments where people are trying to be noticed and get promoted, there is a thin line between collaboration and competition. The collaboration will motivate a person to ask others for help to get what is needed for a joint project. However, competition will drive a person to hide the information he has to use as a bargaining tool for his promotion.
Collaboration cannot be forced with team gatherings.
If people neither like nor trust each other, there is no exercise or facilitated offsite meeting that can change that. Smart individuals focus on the existing needs and handle the tasks accordingly. Wise individuals don't forget what has been done to others and protect themselves from having it done to them. In an organization that should be based on employing more individuals with wisdom than brilliance, respect of others with regards to work (not character) is all that is necessary to get the optimal results.People will eventually learn to work with each other organically.
Closed office doors and private hallway whispers prevent collaboration from happening. Before promoting and directing everyone to collaborate, make sure you have not been the leader who has inadvertently set an example where a disparate lack of cohesiveness and blatant divide is a normal function of the organization.
Photo by Alejandro Escamilla
Published on August 8, 2015
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