Collaboration is the new buzz word for how work is done these days. You may not think of collaboration as health related but it is! When people are engaged in their work, they feel better, and are more productive.
Check out www.mbsconnect.com for an online wellness forum for companies seeking to boost workplace wellness. Below are excerpts from an article that may help you get beyond the touchy-feely stage to the bottom-line value of true collaboration.
At some level, you may have already deduced that hierarchical, top-down management techniques are not adequate for dealing with today’s business problems and opportunities … Continued use of these practices creates instability and produces predictable, negative results. For perspective:
• 74% of U.S. workers over the age of 18 are not engaged in their work (Gallup)
• 30% of IT-enabled projects never come to a fruitful conclusion (Gartner Group)
• 70% of Business Process Redesign (BPR) projects fail (Malhotra)
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Achieving optimum results in today’s marketplace is possible, yet it requires a new, collaborative system of leading and managing.
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We need a new orientation to collaboration … Although practiced by most organizations as either a behavior or a value, collaboration provides little benefit this way. … It does not live; it is only an ambition.
…. You can probably conjure up a mental image of what you think it looks like when people collaborate. Yet this is instantly problematic, because one person’s idea of what it means to collaborate can be very different from the next person’s. And if there is one thing that will prohibit a group from working well together, it is using different approaches to their work.
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So what do we mean by “collaboration?” … Collaboration is a principle-based approach to leading, managing and working. The implicit principles of hierarchy (authority and control) are replaced with the explicit principles of collaboration: ownership and alignment. Ownership is defined as, “The degree to which people believe or feel that a process, decision, or outcome is theirs.” Alignment is defined as, “The degree to which people operate in the same way and or toward the same end.” Ownership is like getting everyone in the same boat. Alignment is like getting everyone rowing in the same direction. This shift in emphasis from control to ownership and from authority to alignment creates a sweeping change in how work is done and how the workers experience it. To those who practice it, it is truly magical.