Collaboration has so many benefits. It has delivered a higher level of excellence throughout my career than working alone. This post is from the point of view of an entrepreneur, but the skills and process can be applied to any role anywhere.
Are you leveraging your power as a collaborator?
Do your collaborations fall apart after kick-off calls?
Do you find yourself picking up the slack of collaborators?
I've found that four elements—providing value, pure intention, patience, and persistence — build trust over time, create consistency, and strengthen collaborations. Let's discuss the Power of the 4 P's in Exceptional Collaboration.
Provide Value
The key is to provide value in public and ask for partnership in private. Coming from a place of service builds the ability for folks to get to know you, like you, and trust you. These are foundational elements to building strong and productive collaborations.
Some ways to provide value:
Support your collaborators with a project where they may need your expertise or time.
Offer content or other resources that support your collaborators' goals.
Be a sounding board for collaborators' current challenges or needs.
Pure-Intention
Pure Intent doesn't mean that you are perfect in your collaboration efforts. Instead, it leans into a few other elements of the definition of pure: authentic, natural, real, simple, transparent, and true.
When setting out to collaborate with someone or a group of folks, think through your intentions and be pure to those collaborators or prospective collaborators. Use your authentic and natural voice in all communications, even if you use an AI tool to write your messages (e.g., ChatGPT, Grammarly, etc.). Use these tools to create clear, concise, and convincing messages, but review them afterward to ensure they sound like you. Be real.
One example: If paying a stipend is a practice in your business or industry when engaging collaborators, and you cannot pay a stipend for participating, be upfront about that before the kick-off. Then, be prepared to offer equal or greater reciprocity if they choose to participate. The offer could be your time in return sometime in the future or the use of a skill or tool you can offer to bring value to your collaborator.
Clearly communicate when approaching and pitching a potential collaborator. Describe the idea of the Collaboration, and come up with three options (good, better, best - see my post from December on this strategy) for your collaborator to opt in to based on their interest and bandwidth. Be prepared to be flexible and edit your initial offers. You probably have interesting ideas, but other ideas or nuances can also be a good choice.
Patience
Being patient is among these key aspects of Collaboration intentionally, as it is the meat of your collaboration sandwich, especially if you ask for sweat equity from your collaborators and do not pay them directly. Collaboration is likely not the only thing they have on their to-do list, especially if they are entrepreneurs or have a full-time professional role.
Use a CRM-like tracking system and follow up with collaborators 1:1 and key milestone connection points like stand-up meetings for deliverables. I use a spreadsheet to keep track of collaborators' contact information, roles and responsibilities, project collaboration milestones, connection calls, and notes on activity status. You may choose to use other software for this process. It helps me focus on the timeline and my collaborator's needs and commitments.
Persistence
Think about this as a backpacking hike, marathon, or road trip. You have a plan and milestones you want to reach and view. You have key metrics to monitor and deliver, which doesn't happen overnight.
For example, if you've worked on any team- corporate or sports team- you might recall that persistence is how you succeeded or won at the desired outcome. Success might be delivering cost reductions with one Six Sigma experiment at a time, or winning the tournament one play and one team at a time.
The skills and practice are no different with collaboration teams. Help your collaborators stay focused and put one foot before the other through reviews at stand-up meetings to see how milestones are going using the traffic light methodology. Get a free template here.
Exceptional Collaboration is a skill that has to be exercised and honed. It won't likely be perfect the first few times you try it, and like any other skill you attempt, it will grow stronger with practice.
Whether you are attempting collaboration for the first time, or have tried it before. I know that these four elements— providing value, pure intention, patience, and persistence—build trust over time, create consistency, and strengthen the results of collaborations. Eventually, you'll start to do these without much thought as it will become a habit—the way you work.
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