Is collaboration a skill, a mindset, or a culture — and how do you grow it?
Collaboration is intent. If there is an intent, people find ways to collaborate and then design the right models, frameworks, and workflow within the tools that fall in their intent vision.
Collaboration can absolutely be a skill, think about facilitation of collaborative exercises or participating in collaborative exercises, both require skill. Collaboration can be a mindset too, perhaps one that is developed over time by experiencing the positive power of collaboration. And collaboration can be a culture too ...in terms of how people interact to get the work done and the nature of the collaboration. How do you grow collaboration? One way is to be super prepared when facilitating a workshop. When you are planning out your workshop you want to include intentional activities for people to collaborate on. You want people to leave your workshop enlightened by how powerful collaboration can be.
A lot of people think collaboration improves by having more Slack channels. NOPE. The way I see it, great collaboration happens when you have the right process (structured workshops mapped to clear outcomes) + the right skills (facilitators who can lead a group through the process while balancing involvement). Think of collaboration like a fitness goal. Workshops are the gym, and the facilitator is your personal trainer.
I believe it all starts with a mindset of enabling diversity. The skills of creating a safe space, facilitating productive meetings and building trust enables the culture of collaboration.
All three! Skill: you can practice to get better if it doesn’t come naturally. Try “yes and” games or learn new tools. Mindset: you can reframe problem solving to utilize collaboration. Culture: you can build a psychological safe workplace that allows collaboration to flourish and also provide the tools (ahem, Miro) to do so.
Collaboration is a professional lifestyle we develop by coming together (more)! 💛🖖🏽
Essential part of a thriving culture, also has tools and techniques you can get skilled in, mindset...that's the hardest to shift, but yeah, it certainly requires a certain mindset too. But I'm reminded about the Jim Benson book (The Collaboration Equation), he says something beautifully simple like this: It's when individuals come together to create value. Now for that to work well it clearly requires certain conditions to be met - building trust by respecting and allowing professionals to act with confidence; providing great visual collaboration tools (and so on) 😊😉
All the above (and more). At its core, it's about recognizing that the best outcomes will emerge when diverse perspectives and experiences come together. To grow collaboration, make it visible: celebrate moments where individual contributions had a meaningful impact on the collective result.
Collaboration is really this beautiful blend of culture, mindset, and skills all working together. It's not just one thing—it's the whole package. You need the right culture that values working together and sharing ideas. You need people with a collaborative mindset who genuinely want to contribute to something bigger than themselves. And you definitely need practical skills like communication, empathy, and conflict resolution to make it all work. The cool thing is that when you grow one aspect, the others tend to follow.
I would say that's a key principle, and the key to it is openness to dialogue and the ability to ask the right questions 👀 🔎