Frances Westley

The word “collaboration” has a very positive connotation these days. Collaboration helps us break out of our “hierarchy fix” as well as our “market fix”. It also helps us direct more attention to how people connect with each other as capable adults. But we also have to appreciate the negative, as well as positive.

So the four of us have collaborated on this topic to bring together a set of points that we have found surprising about collaboration.

The objectives for this topic are to:/p>

• Distinguish the various types of collaborative relationships with which you may be involved.
• Realize what contributes to effective collaboration.
• Apply this to enhancing your collaborative relationships.

Some decisions defy pure step-by-step logic. Excessive analysis with words and numbers can kill “vision”, so today we’re asking you to be “visionaries” by collaborating on a visual representation of a key organizational issue. Instead of dissecting your issue through analysis, you will integrate your differing perspectives through pictures and visual symbols to “see” the bigger picture and experience first-hand another mode of decision making. This can be a powerful way for managers to access insight, to explore, and to innovate.

The objectives for today’s topic are to:

• Contrast “seeing” an issue with just thinking about it.
• Appreciate how creating a piece of collaborative art can change your perception of a key issue and of decision making in general.
• Enhance your capability as a “visionary”, seeing a cohesive whole from seemingly separate elements.