Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Collaboration, Colleagues, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture
My friend James sent me this pic a while back.
To say I feel seen is an understatement.
While I am a big believer in collaboration, the reality is it only works when you’re working with people who share the same level of experience, exposure and standards.
Or put more specifically, share HIGH levels of experience, exposure and standards.
That doesn’t mean they all have to come from the same discipline … or see the same outcome … but it does means they’re working up to the greatest opportunity rather than down to the lowest common denominator.
But that happens less and less.
One of the big problems is because companies think all their ‘partners’ are equal.
I get it, we all like to think we’re dealing with ‘the best of the best’ … but that’s sadly, rarely the case. Procurement … heritage … global alliances all contribute to who gets to be part of the ‘network’ and so the range of quality and experience in these situations is often vast.
That doesn’t mean they won’t offer something, but it does mean their frames-of-reference will be much smaller than everyone else and when this happens, they tend to pull everyone back down to their level rather than push everyone further up.
Or it gets even worse.
The people with the highest levels of experience [proper experience, not ego or delusion] get accused of trying to ‘own’ the situation when all they’re trying to do is create the best possible outcome from the situation.
The reality is experience should be seen and respected as a competitive advantage. Whether we like it or not, people who play at the highest level, tend to play at a higher level. It’s why I love the comment from one of the greatest football managers of all time when he said, ‘learn from winners, not players‘.
Put simply, winners take us to places we didn’t even know, whereas players only can go where they know.
And while the concept of ‘team’ is everyone progresses together, it still needs someone to lead them to the promised land which is why I think the biggest reason collaboration ends up underwhelming is not because there’s a lack of desire to work with others, but because there’s a lack of reality of who needs to be there and what collaboration needs to truly work.