collaboration – Page 2 – Reimagine. Strategy.

May 23, 2022May 19, 2022

Invent or Improve?

When a process or product or idea isn’t working, do you want to tweak the design slightly or throw it out and start over?

This is a distinction I’m learning about through my work with the Adaptability Quotient tool. It’s an assessment that measures individual and team adaptability, and one of the results is an aggregate measure that reflects if a team prefers to approach adaptability through a lens of “utilize and improve” and/or “explore and transform.” The former will lead you to approach change systematically and build on existing solutions, whereas the latter would have you trying different ways of working and experimenting with newly invented solutions.

April 25, 2022May 2, 2022

The Alchemy of Us

I am taking a course on non-directive coaching. Beyond providing an opportunity to learn and practice a method, this experience is inviting me to interrogate what I believe about working with individuals and groups. So, in the spirit of “learning out loud” (a key skill when we’re collaborating in dispersed teams these days), and at the risk of caricaturing for the purposes of explanation, here’s what I’m noticing so far:

March 21, 2022May 2, 2022

Forewarned

Where I live, it is becoming increasingly possible for people to meet in person.

And my stress level is rising.

Not so much because of COVID risk, but because uncertainty is stressful. And higher stress means lower adaptability. Hear the paradox? So I’m digging into the source of the stress, and it’s because people are shifting gears on short notice. Forewarned is forearmed.

February 7, 2022May 2, 2022

Tell Don’t Ask

I am a fan of collaboration and co-creation — they build buy-in and reduce blind spots every time. But I am also committed to meaningful engagement. Too often when people are planning stakeholder consultations or community engagement, they are doing so because they feel they should or have to, but when you scratch below the surface, they actually don’t have anything worthwhile to ask people. Instead, they either just have information to share, or they are simply “ticking a box.” (For more on this, have a look at the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation. If you’re at the “Inform” end of the scale, be there clearly and proudly!)

December 13, 2021May 9, 2022

Subjective Abundance

I have long been an advocate for an abundance mindset, rather than operating out of a sense of scarcity. This reflects a way of being in the world, not primarily access to material resources (although I suspect having the latter makes the former much easier).

So it still surprises me when scarcity-based thinking creeps into my own ways of working and/or drives the behaviour of my collaborators. It’s sneaky and it’s everywhere. And so refreshing when replaced by its opposite.