Is collaboration becoming the ultimate soft skill to develop today

is collaboration becoming the ultimate soft skill to develop today. By R.KHODRI

We all know that human nature makes us prefer the effortless route. Like any skills that requires effort and interaction with others, the collaborative mindset is not one of the most natural skill we strive for. So why we tend to deviate from one of the most vital skill that has been considered as the foundation of greatest civilizations ?

Collaboration in today’s corporate culture

When it comes to corporate structures, as we tend to gain more power we are less keen to collaborate but rather impose or delegate. Sounds like cliché, but hang on, I am not saying that gaining a senior role within the organization prevent you from practicing collaboration, however at a certain level within the organization, the collaboration become a strategic aspect of your leadership skill set. To achieve this, you need to  choose carefully your challenges to allow you fostering the collaboration at its best.  Again, it is all matter of spending your collaborative effort on the things that matter to you and to your organization (I am putting the political aspects aside to focus on the pure collaborative effect).

Is collaboration dead in our individualist world and the meme culture? 

if we take the Influencers as an example, we tend to have one unique person who has tons of followers (a leadership position with a pool of delegates) The way it works, the subscribers take as granted what the influencer advise to them and generally this is a sponsored product or service to the benefit of the influencers. In this example there is an untapped collaborative effect that we could use as a leverage to increase collaboration at its peak. Having an optimistic mindset, I am sure we will see more and more collaborative effect in that space. (there will be a more responsible use of social media to onboard collaborative project with great virtuous effects- this will be another subject I will cover in future post)

To Summarize :

• If collaboration is not your natural skill, then don’t force it

• Collaboration is an inherent attitude of open minded persons

• Cultivating the best environment is key to foster collaboration

• Practice collaboration to get better at it

• You need to love human interactions and you need to look how you should improve consistently your daily human interactions

• Collaboration is not a give and take exercise

• Do not confuse collaboration with negotiations or compromise

• Start always the collaborative attitude no matter what. Don’t wait a reward from it but rather benefit from the positive momentum you have created at start. Keep on doing it, even if your counterpart don’t play the game in the beginning.

• This is a long term game

Riadh KHODRI (riadh.khodri@gmail.com)