The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

As I said, it’s not always the case, but it increasingly feels ‘the norm’, often influenced by a procurement process that places more importance on ‘who will do the most for the least’ rather than who is best equipped to lead.

Just for the record, I’m all for collaboration.

Done properly, it is a powerful way to achieve incredible things in collapsed time.

However to stand a chance of achieving this needs a lot of careful thought and pre-planning.

For a start, you need to ensure the people in the room all have similar standards, experience and seniority or you end up only being as good as the least experienced person in attendance.

Or the loudest voice.

Too often there is a view that all you have to do is shove different organisations inside a room and tell them to get on with it.

And while companies do want the best for their clients … they all have their own agendas, definitions, remuneration structures and egos and to expect that to all be put aside because you want them to work together is naive.

It’s why curation, transparency and clarity on the ultimate goal are vital in enabling a strong outcome … but the problem is too often, collaboration is used because of timing pressures rather than seizing opportunity, which is why so much of what comes out of it feels like the worst of ‘committee thinking’.

When it works, everyone wins.

When it doesn’t, everyone – at best – stands still.