In my most recent post, I introduced the Collaborative Operating System’s (COS) definition of collaboration in some detail. If you haven’t seen the article, check it out. Several readers expressed appreciation for its power and simplicity. Here’s that definition again, just so that you have it at hand: Collaboration works when all the stakeholders have ownership of and alignment around what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. In this post, we’ll kick the tires on this definition a bit. In order to do that, let’s start with an example scenario based on (somewhat simplified) real events. Scenario - EZ Tech Voucher Program The VP of Human Resources for EZ Tech (~1500 employees) calls a meeting
In the first post of this series, I listed the top five reasons companies fail at collaboration. Number one on the list is that coworkers rarely develop and agree upon a sufficiently explicit definition of collaboration. For anyone interested in leading collaboratively, fixing that problem is job #1. In this post, I offer a definition that can serve as an example. If you like it, you’re welcome to adopt it as your own. For my highly caffeinated readers: If you're curious to understand the reasons why defining collaboration is so critical for organizations, read on. But if you feel as though you already understand those reasons well enough, you might want to skip to the next section. What’s T
