WEEKLY WISDOM - COLLABORATION

Collaboration: the action of working with someone to produce or create something.

Think about what you do every day in your leadership or entrepreneurial venture. In almost every aspect of your role, you engage or interact with others. Those others support your success whether you realize it or not. What if you had to not only be responsible for your role but also for all staff that report to you and the responsibilities of those who serve as a support to your department or business? I am certain that you would not be successful and for that matter no one would be successful.

Let’s look at this a bit more strategically. One of the best ways to effectively advance your business or venture is to collaborate with other organizations. There are countless ways that you can make this happen. I will push a little more as well. Think about organizations that are not in your industry to see if there could be a creative collaboration between or amongst you all. Before we do that, let’s define collaboration. Collaboration is the process of two or more people, entities, or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. 

Let me give you a couple of examples of collaboration. There is an insurance company that provides retirement plan services to counties across the country. They have partnered with an organization that provides support services to state associations and counties. The companies have collaborated to the point to where the insurance company has over 25 billion assets under management and the organization that provides support services is paid up to 10 million dollars a year for marketing services. You can see how that collaboration benefits both companies as well as the clients. My wife worked for a non-profit organization that focuses on healthy relationships and they have collaborated with a university to train and educate cohorts of couples on healthy relationships. They share resources between each other that the other does not have in the way of personnel, finances, marketing, etc.

You can think of many more examples where collaboration is an amazing currency. Your challenge is to think about who you can partner and collaborate with to expand your business. Determine what they can truly bring to the collaboration or partnership. Note that your collaboration does not have to be huge. It is in the small that things can grow to the big and from the good to great. Develop the appropriate trusted relationships and focus on how both or all parties will benefit from the collaboration.

Here's a bible verse that provides inspiration for working together. Ephesians 4:16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Start today valuing what you bring to the table and think about those who can benefit from your services and how you can benefit from their services or resources. Even if you already have a collaboration in place, please note for sure that there are still more partnerships that have yet to be formed.

(ENGAGEMENT)

Exercise Your Power this week-

1. Select one to two persons or organization that you can collaborate with in your current position or on a new project.

2.       Determine your skills and assets that you bring to the table with a collaboration.

3.       Identify the best collaboration you have experienced and what made it great.