The Collaboration Manifesto: Preface

I am writing a book called “The Collaboration Manifesto”. Here is the Preface to the book plus the Nine Proclamations. Feedback welcome.

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Preface

Over my career, I have been thinking about cross-team collaboration as it is one of the key success factors in delivering value for our organizations and customers.

The problem – most teams suck at collaboration.

While collaboration in the business environment is seen as both necessary and ubiquitous, it is by no means uniformly successful. In fact, recent studies find that nearly 75% of cross-functional teams are dysfunctional. (Tabrizi, 2015)

In truth, successful collaboration is hard work. We experience subtle frictions in our day-to-day jobs. But do not despair, there are teams and organizations building stronger practices to more effectively “labor together”.

This treatise contains nine proclamations of The Collaboration Manifesto. It describes values and behaviors that networked and resilient teams are successfully using to generate value for their organizations and customers.

The Manifesto is structured to analyze each of the nine proclamations. Each chapter provides practical and immediate things to do as well as relevant case studies of effective collaboration. I organized the book so you can immediately begin testing the ideas and tactics, perhaps even to turnaround a non-collaborative situation that you are dealing with.

The proclamations contained in this book are just a starting point. You may have discovered additional rules or principles that support greater collaboration among individuals, teams, and organizations. I encourage you to share those insights so that we can co-create a more comprehensive set of beliefs and practices for The Collaboration Manifesto.

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The Nine Proclamations

1.  We are greater together. Teams that collaborate deliver better results.
2.  We take the time to invest in relationships.
3.  We promote “One Team” behavior across teams and organizational divisions.
4.  We incentivize collaboration and teamwork over personal gains and office politics.
5.  We strive to bring people together to bring about something brilliant.
6.  We understand the importance of diversity of thought.
7.  We embrace continuous learning.
8.  We encourage a bias toward action over inaction.
9.  We strive for company culture where leaders are empathetic and encouraging.

Astrevo works with teams like yours to deliver customer satisfaction through increased collaboration and communication.

Contact us to learn more.