Whether you work in a team or are leading your own business venture, collaboration is a key capability you’ll need for professional and business success.
There can be enormously powerful outcomes and mutual benefits gained from collaborations between businesses that complement each other. For many this may seem counter-intuitive. However thinking about this fast-paced, tech driven, changing marketplace, it is the lateral thinkers, the game changers and the disrupters who are paving the way to success with key collaborations and YOU can too.
Here are 5 tips to get you started:
- Adopt a positive mindset that shifts away from competition and solo effort to a mindset of shared vision, goals, resources and shared SUCCESS and outcome.Collaboration – 5 tips to get started
- Have a vision for your business, project, team or career and be prepared to share it with potential collaborators. Seek them out in your marketplace, workplace or industry. They may be a mentor or an allied business, they may be a colleague or someone with similar passions to you who together you have a stronger presence, resources and capability. Think of it as the sum of 2 parts
- Know your values and look for collaborators that are aligned. Be ready to communicate your goals.
- Look for skills and services that complement yours or fill your gaps. Your strengths may be someone else’s Achilles heals. Build relationships with people who align with you but may also fill the gaps in your areas of expertise and likewise you with them.
- Effective communication, trust and honesty is important to a successful collaboration and relationships are rarely instantaneous but built over time on a foundation of shared values and goals.
As one brilliant strategist and collaborator, Richard Branson, says:
“When you believe in something, the force of your convictions will spark other people’s interest and motivate them to help you achieve your goals.” Richard Branson
