“It’s up to you as the leader to set the boundaries of your business deals and collaborations to preserve your mission but not to box your company into a corner of limited opportunities.” Mark Albion in True to Yourself (Berrett-Koehler 2006)
I remember the ‘teams’ push of the 1980’s and that I lived through 35 hours of teams training … knowing the whole time it would not amount to anything more than chaotic, mental clutter. I don’t appreciate people who go into training deeming it a failure!
What I knew going in was that teamwork was not a ‘what’ or a ‘how.’ Teamwork is an outcome of the right whats and hows. Post training I watched groups of people become very frustrated when managers tossed the keys to the kingdom in the in the middle of the group, turned around, and walked out the door. What those teams needed was a manager who knew how to play on the team – to shine bright and then fade out.
Our collective experience has brought us into the 21st Century with something challenging and wonderful – Collaboration. As I write this, many are experimenting wildly with collaborative processes while still trying to find the best language to define, understand, and present 21st Century collaboration.
For the sake of beginning to understand the collaborative experience, I offer this chart highlighting the differences in spirit between teamwork and collaboration.
| Teamwork | Collaboration |
| … is a goal | … is a strategy |
| … management guided | … self-organizing |
| … work together under direction from above | … work independently for a common good |
| … closed control at the top | … shared control from the bottom up |
| … narrowly focused efficiency | … broadly focused effectiveness |
| … artificial pieces & structure | … natural flow & unstructured |
| … limited content focused on a desired result | … a desired result opens up to unlimited content |
| … the ’story’ is in the results | … the ’story’ is in the experience |
