A Job Done Well - Making Work Better

Mastering Collaboration: Insights and Strategies for Success

• Jimmy Barber, James Lawther and Amanda Gilbert • Season 2 • Episode 30

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In this episode, we are joined by Amanda Gilbert, and we dive deep into collaboration in the workplace. We discuss the importance of collaboration, how to achieve it, and the common corporate pitfalls that can prevent it.  We share practical steps for setting up collaborative environments, building trust among team members, and achieving shared goals. 

We also highlight real-world examples of successful collaboration and provide insights on leveraging collaboration tools and techniques. Tune in to learn how to enhance your team's performance and achieve better results through effective collaboration.

Plus, we discuss what treats Mrs Lawther is getting for her birthday, the plight of children leaving the nest and a great TV box set recommendation.


Speaker 2:

Hello. I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy and welcome to A Job Done Well, the podcast that helps you improve your performance enjoyment at work.

James:

Good afternoon. How are you doing?

Jimmy:

I'm right, James, how you doing?

James:

I'm fabulous. Thank you very much. I'm delighted. We've got Amanda with us again

Amanda:

Hi, nice to be with you.

Jimmy:

Hi, Amanda. Amanda has joined us because today we are going to be talking about, collaboration. Everyone wants it, how do you achieve it, and how do you get the benefits of it? a, is it a corporate fad? Or can it really add value? We will share with you how you ensure it adds value. Well, Amanda will share with you how it adds value. James and I will pepper in.

James:

because it's fairly clear from this podcast. We're not great at collaboration.

Jimmy:

Or adding value. Anyhow, what's a, what have you been up to recently James?

James:

Well, a very exciting week this week, Mrs Lawler's 57th birthday. I'm

Jimmy:

treats have you got in store? Oh.

James:

got all sorts of treats bought for her. I'm resisting the urge to write in her card, welcome to your late 50s. I don't know if that's well for me.

Jimmy:

No, no, but you you would have done better than the hosepipe at Christmas

James:

Eh, perhaps that went down all right! Believe it or not! You don't know what I've bought, it could be a disaster.

Jimmy:

Well, I know she's a lucky lady James, I'm sure she'll be overjoyed with whatever it

James:

Yeah, but for the next six weeks, she's gonna be a full year older than me, so I'm not gonna be merciless.

Jimmy:

Enjoy it when you can Amanda what have you been up to since Last saw you.

Amanda:

Since we last got together, well really exciting news in our family that my Nephew, who I can hardly believe is old enough to do what I'm about to say, is buying his first house. So I'm not sure why Who's more excited, to be honest with you, about the fact that yeah, he's he's branching out, he's been really good, saved a deposit, and now he's finally into the kind of grown up world of buying a house. I'm helping him to think about how to go through that process. It's a long time since I did it and I think I'm helping his mum come to terms with the fact that he's going to be leaving home as well. It's going to be a shock to the system for sure when you get together and think about all the things you've got to pay for.

Jimmy:

Well, one of my, one of my favorite videos is the, those ones that parents do, of going to visit their children's homes. And they'd leave the door open and leave food everywhere and make a mess and pull the toilet roll out and that sort of stuff. You'll have to find a couple of those videos, Amanda, and share with him. This is what I'm gonna do when I come around and visit you.

Amanda:

That's hilarious, I'd not come across that one before. I hear a lot from my friends whose kids have moved, grown up and moved, and say now that their homes are immaculate, compared to the very untidy bedrooms that they, they used to occupy in parents home. That's for sure.

James:

How about you? What have you been up to?

Jimmy:

Well, I've been enjoying my latest box set, for those of you who haven't seen Unforgotten, all of the series on ITV, It's worth watching. So that's what I've been up to watching box sets. one thing we should mention we were going through recently podcast stats we did notice our geographical reach of our podcast, we are global now, Amanda,

Amanda:

Wow. I did not know that book. Well,

Jimmy:

Listen to,

Amanda:

maybe I did cause a couple of people that I've recommended you to actually are based in the U S so I'm hoping if they're listening, that's showing up in your numbers.

Jimmy:

Well, we,

James:

global, what do you mean like north of Mansfield? Is that what you're

Jimmy:

no, we are listened to in 62 different countries.

Amanda:

Wow, congratulations.

Jimmy:

no, we should thank our global listeners. Please feel free to share it within your countries.

James:

So what's our topic du jour then?

Jimmy:

so our topic du jour is collaboration, and we have Amanda, the queen of collaboration to demystify the topic, but also share some thoughts and insights about how you can actually add value because, know, it's collaboration can be a bit of a mixed blessing, can't it?

Amanda:

Yeah, I sure can. I definitely think from my experience of actually helping teams come together to collaborate, this is a big part of the work that I do that it's something that's worth investing in just naturally assuming that by pulling a group of people together and then expecting them to work magic is probably. Wishful at best, but you can increase your, or accelerate your ability to be able to collaborate well and avoid some of the pitfalls for sure.

Jimmy:

So Why Why are we talking about collaboration then?

James:

Why wouldn't we talk about collaboration, I think is a better question. Because if you are running an organization, an organization is all about collaboration. So I, you know, as I like to do, I look in the dictionary, what does collaboration mean?

Jimmy:

Yep,

James:

come to my statement of bleeding obvious, which is two or more people or entities or organizations working together to achieve a task or goal. So unless you are a one man window cleaner working in business. And frankly, it's all about collaboration, isn't it?

Jimmy:

I I had a dictionary definition as well, James, and I think this just sums us up. My dictionary definition was a partnership, a union, the act of producing or making something together. Yours is much more practical, mine's much more fluffy.

Amanda:

Well, mine was the joint effort of several individuals or groups of people working together to complete a job or achieve a common goal. So I think we're probably all in similar territory.

Jimmy:

We are, but I think if you take a step back, whilst your point is a good one, James, why wouldn't you, because at work, generally, you are trying to create something, produce something, get an output. And in order to do that, you almost certainly need to work with others in order to achieve that at some point. However, of playing devil's advocate slightly, collaboration has. Got a little bit of a life of its own over the last few years where people talk about it become a bit of a another management buzzword. And it's, it's all, know, or let's talk about collaboration. everyone, everyone nowadays wants to do a collab with all the famous people, they all want to do this with this one, with that one. So it's become, it's really a trendy thing, but does that really mean that it's that important?

James:

Well, yeah, but I mean, having worked for 30 odd years, I can't think of a single day where I haven't been collaborating with somebody.

Amanda:

Well, it's interesting.

James:

endemic in the organization, is it not? Sorry,

Amanda:

Yeah, no, no. And. It's interesting because I read a definition that it hadn't occurred to me before, but let me share it with you and see what you think. In this definition, it made the distinction between cooperation and collaboration. So cooperation being this is your project, James, you need to deliver, and actually you want to deliver your goal, in which case you, we cooperate. Versus in the, in this definition, the distinction was collaboration is actually where we truly share a goal and we're coming together to deliver on that shared goal. I thought that was interesting because I wonder if at work what we're more used to is cooperation. So I'm running my business operation. I need you to come in and help me to deliver my objective by creating a great, you know, analytics platform for that or so on and so forth. Does that resonate with you?

Jimmy:

think it does. I to draw that distinction is interesting one because yeah, if I was running an operational area, I would want cooperation from James and his teams to help me That's different from James and I collaborating to achieve something that is a joint goal. So I can see the distinction. But to James's in, in 30 years of working, collaboration happened all the time, but I think when organizations get on the collaboration bandwagon, I think there often as many negatives coming out of it as there are positives. And I guess that's why I think it's an important subject to talk about, because if we can help people get more focused on the positives and avoid the negatives, that's got to be a good thing. Hasn't it?

James:

Well, what are the negatives then, mate, because I'm not sure I see it.

Jimmy:

so some of the negatives I it can slow things down because, you know, I think when, People think that they have to all collaborate together. They mistake it for everyone has to have a say. People mistake collaborating to come up with an answer with everyone has to agree, you know, everyone has to have a say, everyone, and so I think when done like that, where, where everyone has to have a say, and often people who don't really know a lot about the subject have to have a say, I think in organizations when they do that, it slows things down. So

James:

that's, yeah, that's interesting, that's consensus though, isn't

Jimmy:

yeah.

James:

yeah, yeah. And so if collaboration is about consensus, then I think you're absolutely right. Absolutely. I'm not sure it is.

Jimmy:

No, but it often does. That's the point,

James:

Oh, okay.

Jimmy:

gets, it gets, these things get confused, and so consensus being unanimous, involving everyone, engaging everyone, all of these things get mashed together, badged as collaboration, and then all of a sudden it creates work, everyone's got to have a say, everyone's got to know everything. So I do think that that's one side of collaboration that doesn't

James:

there's an old Hindu proverb. You go like this, it's probably not Hindu at all. It

Jimmy:

I already like it,

James:

But you know, old Hindu proverb, right? If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.

Jimmy:

Yeah,

James:

So, yeah, I totally get it. Yeah,

Amanda:

And I think what you're describing, Jimmy, is an intention to collaborate, but actually collaboration done wrong. So the first premise being is, you know, when there's collaboration, a bad thing, actually, we're probably struggling to think of it being a bad thing per se. Collaboration done wrong. wrong creates all kinds of unintended or bad consequences

Jimmy:

On a principal level, why wouldn't you want to do it? You're going to work with people, you're going to, it's a fact of working life. To James's Hindu proverb, we want to go far, it's, you know, it's a good thing. But I guess my point is, in execution, I've seen many, many organizations do it badly. And therefore, the side effect of collaboration, is not a positive one. It's not that the subject in principle is, is a bad thing. It's the execution that lots of organizations, partly because, and we touched on this a few times, is they jump on the bandwagon because it's it's a good thing and it's a corporate buzzword, but they don't really follow through. It's had that conversation recently about well being. Every organization thinks they should look after the well being of their employees, but how much actual effort. Do they really put behind their well being practices? I think the same could apply collaboration.

James:

yeah, but the opposites that why I suppose that here's a question for you What is the opposite of collaboration? And I would say, well, competition is probably the opposite of collaboration. And I was listening to a podcast this morning and it was a quote from Mark Carney. I think he used to be the bank governor of the Bank of England. Is He running to be the prime minister of Canada or something like that. And He given Mr. Trump's current behavior, he has said, we are no longer your allies to the north. We are now just your neighbors. And you think to yourself, well, bloody hell, what is that going to do for the economy? So I think you know competition and driving barriers is really a very very bad thing Yeah, so it really it's I don't think this is something that's is really negotiable. I think it is done badly quite often, but it shouldn't be negotiated, negotiable, certainly not within an organization.

Jimmy:

No, I agree. And I think whatever level you are in an organization, you want to foster collaboration in the right way. But, you know, this is I think why it's important to talk about the subject is because so often it is not done in the right way and it has negative consequences as a result of not being done properly. It's not that collaboration as a subject is wrong. So Amanda, help us understand more about how do we, how do we achieve the benefits of collaboration and what are the benefits of collaboration?

Amanda:

Well, I think first of all is understanding actually what's the benefit. What are you actually going to get out of developing this collaborative effort? Some of the things that spring to my mind, I'd love to know your thoughts on this too. Actually, For lots of people, a great degree of satisfaction and motivation. So from an engagement perspective, coming together as a team, identifying a shared objective and working together on that can be highly satisfying, highly motivating. You talked about something earlier around, it can be slow done wrong. But actually done well, collaboration can lead to really fast and effective problem solving. You've got a group of people with some different perspectives on the same problem, actually with the right setup and structure around that going at pace. So you're increasing satisfaction in your organization, you're delivering faster on problem solving. Different ways by bringing different perspectives, different people together, you can. create innovative solutions, things you might not have thought of on your own or in your own work stream or functional stream, but actually by working with other people who bring a slightly different lens, opens up the opportunities for kind of innovation and creativity. Just some of the things that occur to me.

Speaker 3:

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Jimmy:

you, If you do it. and embrace it in the right way. I think it can add huge amounts of value and get you much better results. A good example of that. When I joined a particular organization, they wanted to become more digital. Lots of organizations and they had spent many millions of pounds on this project. And the project had involved a load of technical people sitting in a room building stuff, So, but it hadn't, so as a result, it hadn't got any anywhere great technical solutions, but no value to the end customer. So the team that were working for me, they, what they did is they got the technical guys together. With the operational guys and the also the end customer who are going to use this system and the three groups work together on what was going to be a solution that was going to mean that the customers could use it, the users could use it and it could be technically delivered. And in a relatively short period of time, with a relatively small amount of money, they built a solution that ended up over 95 percent of customers submitted all of their claims by this new system. And that was down to the fact that all of the groups involved in the, you know, ongoing use of the system collaborated effectively together.

Amanda:

Wow. I love that because that's a big impactful organizational project as well. No doubt. And one that over time would, that would take quite some time to deliver, but actually you've probably increased the impact of the product and probably speed to market too by that effective collaboration. And actually sometimes it can occur. don't always encourage this or we neglect to encourage it, but even in smaller teams, I mean, We were joking at the beginning of this, this, this podcast, but your podcast series now where you're inviting guests is an example of a collaboration, right? You have, I realize, are deeply wise and experienced in many things and

James:

Most things, Amanda, most

Amanda:

Most things, I apologize for that. and from time to time, you'll invite guests who may have similar perspective or slightly different perspective. So your product gets enriched by the introduction of kind of some, some new thinking or maybe some new expertise. A project that I'm working on at the moment, with a group of amazing ladies who've actually dubbed themselves Amanda's Angels, which I thought was lovely, but actually came together, needed to deliver this piece of training and communication quite quickly. But what's been lovely about that is actually a group of people coming together, shared goal, very clear what the goal is, and very clear what the timeline is, and actually the boundaries and scope of work. So now I'm getting into the territory of what's important but actually have been it. Really kind of willing to share the workload, dip in and dip out kind and generous towards each other, you know, this isn't my piece so stay well away from it, it's, you know, if you can make this better than build it. And actually what's happened is that in that small way, delivery of a relatively contained piece of work, the, the. The again, there's the speed to market. The time in which that's been delivered has been remarkably quick and the energy and engagement around that piece of work has been kind of high and rewarding and satisfying for everyone that's part of it. So it applies to small projects. But certainly what you were describing, Jimmy, in terms of organizational context, you know, there's bigger projects being thoughtful about how you set that up really, really important, but then what can be achieved is well, way beyond that, which one group alone would, would manage. I'm fairly sure.

Jimmy:

And I think you touched on a really important point there, which is, You know, having a shared goal, having a shared outcome that you're trying to do together. Because, again, back to my being a slight naysayer on this. When I've seen it done badly, it's because people have slightly different goals. So in a, in a project, you know, you get the finance team who are interested in delivering the project on budget. You get the tech, the project managers who just want to deliver it on time. know, and you get the. Yeah, the end users that just want an all singing or dancing thing. Yeah, and it's the fact that you haven't created a unifying shared goal and shared effort, shared work to get there that often is where collaboration can break down.

James:

Yeah, okay. But then, so here's my question. What does effective collaboration look like? What are the characteristics, the behaviors, what do you need for collaboration to happen? So share goal one thing, what else?

Amanda:

Well, I would say huge amount of trust and psychological safety. So laying the foundations for how we will work together, what this looks like, actually agreeing almost what it looks like, how we want this experience to be together before you even get into the work itself. And then really investing in trusting relationships so that there's no misunderstanding about your intention or your real agenda. We're actually kind of building that relationship capacity to be able to collaborate,

James:

yeah anything else?

Amanda:

I'm on a roll on this. I love this kind of work and I love working with teams to kind of develop the capacity for this too. So what other things? Getting really good at delegating. So if you're the manager, you're the owner of this piece of work. Ultimately, making sure that you've set the boundaries in the scope of the work and clear about the outcome. Get out of the way then and allow the team to do the work. So avoid this kind of helicopter management where I come in every now and again and then tell you how I want you to do it. And then I leave and the team are just kind of, you know, Disrupted actually set the boundaries, have you reporting structure, in terms of information but then get out of the way of them doing the work. this already, decision making framework, who really owns this decision, so if we're doing the work, we're designing something, we're designing a new tech system. Actually, who is signing off on what the features of that actually look like being clear about that up front so that the collaboration can work within that framework. And then there doesn't get there's no misunderstandings around that as we get really deeply into the work.

Jimmy:

Sounds Amanda. It Sounds an opportunity for a racy matrix.

Amanda:

Yeah, you perhaps ought to explain a little bit more about

Jimmy:

I will. Yes. For those of who don't know, a racing matrix is where in any piece of work or organization or team or project, you lay out those four things. R stands for res responsible, so identifying who's responsible. A is who's accountable. Ultimately the overall accountability for something. C is consulted. So who are you going to talk to about it? And I is informed The person who's ultimately accountable has the overall, like, decision making authority in this. And there's also, it's also really useful to identify the difference between people who are consulted and informed. And consulted means that I'll talk to you about things and it's a two way consultation, so I'll take your input, whereas informed is I'm just going to tell you that I'm doing things. People think they should all be consulted and that's back to my examples of that can slow things down versus actually I only need to tell these people about something. So up front defining those for those four groups and being clear to people that definitely is one of the things that helps collaboration. I think,

James:

and at the risk of getting all geopolitical again, because I think it's really important. But the whole conversation at the moment about peace in Ukraine and the negotiation where they're not including the Ukrainians. It's fundamentally against your AC matrix. Yeah, you've just done a hiding to nothing.

Jimmy:

and that's the point about agreeing up front. Who's doing what, who's saying what, who's involved, and that's what they're doing at the moment. and Everyone wants to be in the heart of it, but actually defining before you get into the content of what the agreements are, just being clear about who has a say in what is crucial.

Amanda:

Set it up up front in 100 percent comes in that contracting phase for me right at the beginning. Everyone's clear defining clear goals and roles Think something about establishing communication protocol as well like who are we going to talk to and when are we going to, and how are we going to update each other as well? So the more clarity and transparency of information and information exchange that you can establish and then build into your structure, the better. And then something that I think is super important. Celebrating the success. So there might be some small moments and some small wins towards that bigger goal. Or anyway, celebrating the successes along the way, not just at the very end, I think is really important. So that the group can feel and experience and have recognized the value that they're creating. by their collaboration efforts, because it takes a lot.

Jimmy:

on that, on that point, Amanda, about celebrating success on the journey. is, that was one of the big learnings I had on my, on my career because I was always, It's celebrate at the end when you've achieved the end goal. And actually, I realized that actually celebrating the smaller milestones creates a much more enjoyable work environment for people and be it really helps accelerate progress. If you just pause for a moment, enjoy the fact that you've made progress. If you're aiming to only celebrate when you achieve perfection, you'll never be celebrating and that's, that's hard environment for people to work in.

Amanda:

really hard because the next thing comes along, the next iteration, the other part of that as well. If you're a leader, if you see people really kind of trusting each other, leaning on one other's expertise, building and creating ideas, celebrating that effort and that behavior, you know, commenting on that too will likely one sets a model for people about what's expected. That's important, right? And clarity, but also encourages more of that behavior. So the, the work and the small wins as well as the big wins. And recognizing those collaborative efforts and that sometimes leads to that old chestnuts. if you've got a performance management system, which is about rewarding individuals, how does that reside with encouraging collaboration? Because, if we look on the other side, what gets in the way, then one of the things is, if I'm collaborating on this piece of work, it takes me away from over there, my legal role. In my legal role, in my legal function, where my performance is appraised, where I'm compared around people doing similar things, feels like a priority, I'll give that more

James:

there anything Else that really supports collaboration, do you think?

Amanda:

One of the things that has become more and more present these days is collaboration tools. So the ability to be able to not to be in the same room, but be be in the same room, just as in the same way that we are right now. So across time zones by using technology is also super cool and be able to something now as simple as being able to be working in the same document, for example, and kind of building information structures together is something that I gather people do,

Jimmy:

so James and I have a shared drive that we put all our information and the stuff that we're working on together. And we can both access that whether whether we're together or not. So I think that and that works, that works really well because it takes some of the sending things backwards and forwards. But just to pick up on something you said, Earlier, Amanda, you were talking about the important and building relationships within a collaborative environment. Does that include in there actually building an understanding of the skills and capabilities of people have, because I think that's, as well as building the trust in terms of the relationship, me building an understanding of what you are capable of and what you're good at and what you're not good at, that also helps. know, Good, effective collaboration because, you know, James knows what I, I, I'm gonna struggle with and vice versa. And therefore we know when we can lean on each other and actually when we should take the lead on things.

Amanda:

100%. What skills do we have available to us? What can we draw on? What can we count on you for? I think it's really, really important. I think another dimension too is actually understanding within this collaborative effort is there something I would like to work on? So is there a development angle to collaborating? So the, the. the benefit of being able to draw on existing skills, but also to develop new skills that become available through that collaborative effort.

Jimmy:

just, Just to build on Amanda, I think being clear on what's what's in it for me, whether it's a development point of view or, a learning or if it's a sense of achievement, whether it's reward, whether it's career advancement, whatever it is, I think collaboration tends to be thought of as a group thing. So we, as a team, we, as a unit, we, as a project team, are going to collaborate. But I think sometimes what gets missed out is the, the what's in it for me as individuals. And if you can be clear about what's in it for me, why am I, why am I doing this? I think I like a lot of things, not just collaboration. Being clear on that really kind of drive and motivate people.

James:

Well, I think I'd pile in there with a couple of other points and links. And I think the one is, you know, we can talk about tools and everything, and I'm absolutely with you. They make collaboration easy. But actually, are people prepared to bury their ego? Because people aren't prepared to bury their ego, then that will always get in the way. But then that leads to why would I bury my ego? Well, it comes down to what's in it for me. And it comes back to our old friend purpose, I think, which is if you haven't got a really strong purpose that everybody lines up and agrees with, then you're kind of on a hiding to nothing. And that needs to be better than just a strong goal.

Jimmy:

Within that, James, it's also, it's have you got that purpose? But the key thing there as well is have you got the people brought in to that purpose? Because, Because, then the what's in it for me is that we are going to achieve the purpose that means something to me personally. And that, know, in a lot of occasions, that can be enough for a lot of people. They feel they have made a contribution towards a successfully delivery of a goal, a purpose, whatever it is. But that's got to mean something to them. If it doesn't, just because you as a senior person have said, this is important to do. If it doesn't mean something to them, they're not going to get the what's in

James:

Oh, absolutely. And I've seen so many organizations say, you know, our goal is to drive profits to X percent or this many million or whatever the hell it might be. And frankly, the people on the shop floor do not give a stuff. So let's not be too surprised if they're not collaborating to support

Jimmy:

So just going back a stage. So we said that collaboration is hugely important you've, you've got to do it. Why wouldn't you? We're always working on, on shared goals. And then we've described what good collaboration looks like. So if it's obvious, and we've just said how you do it, why don't organizations do it all the time?

James:

Can I pile in again? There's one of my favorite quotes. There is more competition within organizations than between them and it's usually less ethical,

Jimmy:

Yeah,

James:

which I think it just shows that it is endemic within

Amanda:

within. So that old chestnut, that thing that comes up so many times is your reward system set up to celebrate and reward. collaborative effort or actually does it set up individual performance and reward individual import performance and so often gets in the way.

Jimmy:

reward systems, what else

Amanda:

Another thing that gets in the way it's my professional identity. So if I identify that in my I am. a lawyer or I am a software engineer and I come to the party in that kind of frame. That's my professional identity that I'm bringing. If I don't feel like that's being satisfied or developed in some way, then actually it can all start to kind of break down because this isn't a project that I contribute to or get anything from.

James:

I think it's really important to the personal identity. And so when I have seen conflict in organizations, that conflict is invariably between different departments. actually within departments, people tend to cooperate quite well, and they work together. But you've got a couple of things going on. One is, I think, just the constant focus on efficiency of the departments, which doesn't help. You know, your point about we haven't got a shared goal, we've got different goals. And then the other thing is just size as well. So you, it's a little Scottish thing, isn't it? You know, clans get up to about a hundred people and then they start to budge off. But actually there comes a point where you don't know all these people. So you will tend to collaborate with the people that you know, and those people will be the people within your departments. So identity really important and size. I think

Jimmy:

Yeah. And I think the another one is fundamentally how, how you're structured. So not so much just the rewards, but to your point, James is a bit about, you know, whose, whose team are you in and stuff like that. I mean, I was brought into one organization where they had had a transformation that had gone horribly wrong and was causing so much problems to the organization. And they brought me in and all the teams that had, Supposedly collaborated on this failed transformation. They all had different reporting lines previously. And what they did is they brought me in and gave them all to me. So it became one person's problem. And then they were all around my table and they had to collaborate because previously they were around different tables. So I think just your organizational structure can either help or hinder collaboration depending on how you structure yourselves.

James:

Just one more thing. It's not just about collaboration within an organization. A wise man once said to me, you know, organizations don't compete, supply chains compete. So it's about you and your suppliers and are you collaborating with your suppliers? I work for one organization and I was responsible for the supplier there. And the previous incumbent of the job said to me, Oh, it's quite easy to collaborate. manage this supplier. All you have to do is just make sure you keep your foot on their neck. if that's the way you treat your suppliers, do not be surprised if you've got a second rate organization.

Jimmy:

And I think that's a great point, James, because that is often missed. You know, I collaborate with the people around my table and, know, my suppliers are just here to do a transactional job for me when actually thinking about who are all the people, regardless of team, regardless of organization, I need to collaborate with in order to achieve my goal. Thinking that way would unlock a lot of improvement.

James:

So go on then in summary, then how would we pull that together?

Jimmy:

So in summary, I think the overall concept of collaboration and this is the reason we're talking about this today is it's vital to organisation success, but only when it's done well.

Amanda:

and I think to do it well, you need to invest in setting up the environment for collaboration and the ways of collaborating deliberately and intentionally and revisit them through your collaboration effort. So right at the beginning, clarity of goals and roles, making sure that you've created mutual respectful and trusting relationships. Celebrating the work and the behavioral milestones along the way, but all very intentionally.

James:

And then the other thing I think is it's not enough to do a lot of work to focus on what you need to do better. It's really important when you look at the reasons why you haven't got collaboration in your organization.

Amanda:

Well, thank you. I've enjoyed collaborating with you today around this podcast.

Jimmy:

Yeah. Thank you, Amanda. It's been fantastic to have you on again. All right. Thanks, everyone.

Amanda:

Thanks.

James:

speak to you later.

Speaker 4:

We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast from purpose to corporate jargon, but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well, easier said than done. So if you've got. Unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck. If your backlogs are out of control and your costs are spiraling and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised just keeps failing to deliver. We can help if you need to improve your performance, your team's performance or your organization's. Get in touch at jimmy at jobdonewell. com or james at jobdonewell. com

People on this episode

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James Lawther

Co-host
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Jimmy Barber

Co-host
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Amanda Gilbert

Guest