Collaborate Creatively And Accomplish More

More often than not, if you’re working on a project with someone, you’ll need to collaborate to effectively solve a problem. If this challenge requires a creative solution, it can be tough to find a common ground, especially if both parties have their individual ideas.

Below are three steps to take when you collaborate. The will help you with any situation that requires significant creative solutions, so that everyone involved can contribute and feel like a part of the whole process.

1. To Collaborate, You Need To Listen To Others.

The first step in working with anyone is of course listening, but this is doubly true when working towards a creative solution when you collaborate. Many times, we have our own thoughts on what is the best way to solve a problem, and might even believe anything else is inferior. I can’t count how many times I have gone into a brainstorming session thinking I had the best solution, only to be outdone with the first suggestion from someone else.

Listening to others will not only allow you to impartially evaluate all ideas, but it will also help you consider possible downsides to your own ideas. Maybe there are factors to consider that you weren’t even aware of. Only when you decide to collaborate will this come out.

2. To Collaborate, You Need To Learn From Others.

Now that you have brought all the ideas to the table, now is the time to learn from what others thought about and ways they approached the problem. Not only are there generally multiple solutions, but there are often multiple types of solutions. Take for example a group of people charged with coming up with a new marketing campaign for a struggling business. While one person might have thought of the best online advertising campaign, they may not have even considered word of mouth. And someone else might have thought of the best customer surveys to conduct to get the feedback that was sorely missing.

3. To Collaborate, You Need To Work With Others.

Taking other people into account and learning from them is all about taking in information. Now it’s time to put out effort and actually collaborate with them. Take all of the various solutions from your brainstorming sessions and the various elements that you’ve pulled together, and start to develop a plan of action. This will be one of the most difficult parts of the whole endeavor, but it’s where you actually generate a product that will be implemented.

Once you have something put together, take some time to go over it with the group to evaluate it as if it were the first time you’re seeing it. Does it answer the questions that need to be answered? Are there areas of the problem that you may have forgotten about? Are there ways to improve this solution even further?

By being flexible and knowing that a creative collaboration is an evolving process, you can really dig in and make a substantially better product. When you decide to collaborate, it can have a multiplying effect, and really drive you to think of solutions from different angles.

Erik Tyler says

May 17, 2015 at 11:45 am

Collaboration is an interesting top and has been an up-close-and-personal one in my life thus far. There are few things I crave more than good, solid creative collaboration. There are few things that make me cringe as badly as “collaboration” gone wrong. In fact, I think there are many interactions which people dub “collaboration” that aren’t true collaboration at all. I would go so far as to say that if ALL parties coming into it are not personally and equally invested, as well as committed to “listen, learn and work together” — it isn’t really collaboration. It’s something else. It helps going into things to know the difference; otherwise, you can expend a lot of energy and wind up frustrated.

Years ago, I chose to take part in some online sites touted as “music collaboration” sites. In many cases, it was really just bartering: “I’ll sing on a track of yours if you play guitar on a track of mine.” That’s not collaboration. That’s two people finding an overlapping way to work on their own goals.

At other times, people would present their own completed (yet rejected) work and ask for my help “just getting it to the next level.” This, likewise, is not collaboration; the initiating party is too invested in what they have already contributed. This is just someone asking for help toward his own goal, not a joint goal. I recall one woman contacting me after having heard some of my own music. She said her “pop song” had been rejected many times without specific reason, but she just “knew it could be a hit” if she could figure out whatever the mysterious and magical missing element was. Her song’s first lines were these: “The bees are busy buzzin’ / And the wasp — the bee’s first cousin.” I kid you not. And it didn’t get better from there. In this case, my “listening, learning and working together” was not an option. I simply told her I didn’t feel I was the right person to help her and CHOSE to graciously “not collaborate” (though the word is a misnomer in this case).

Committee meetings are generally not collaboration, either; they are technicalities devised in order to say that one person’s agenda isn’t being pushed through (though I think they try to pose as true collaboration). Committees are often full of people who just want to feel personally validated by having their ideas included somehow. This often results in lengthy delays, tensions and a poor or disjointed “Frankenstein” of an outcome. Similarly, I think work task forces in corporations where members are assigned by upper management often don’t wind up being collaborations, but more like committee meetings.

The best collaborations happen when partners understand each other going in. They’ve seen and truly appreciated one another’s prior work and contributions. They’ve spent some time together, if only professionally, and “click”; this doesn’t mean they are cut from the same cloth or have similar IDEAS, only that they’ve assessed that they agree on the importance of listening and learning, and that they are excited to work together (e.g., a heavy metal producer is not likely to be excited about working with an R&B singer on a track). They are truly committed to coming up with a cool RESULT — not merely in looking cool themselves. And then they CHOOSE, based on all of the above, to collaborate.

When you DO get this type of collaborative unit, it’s not stressful — it’s fun. You all learn a lot. You feed off of each other. People are inclined to say, “Yes, AND …” not “Yes, BUT …” You get silly and trust that even THAT can produce some keepers.

If you’re assigned to a group posing as a collaborative group and have no choice but to remain, check your attitude. You STILL need to be willing to listen, learn and work together. But maybe it will help if you modify your expectations. Realize that the end result is not a personal reflection on you. Contribute what you can. Help with the end result as best you can, even if you disagree with it. And ask yourself, “Will this matter to me in a year?” If the answer is no, know that you did your best and don’t fret over it.

Comments

Adam Smith says

May 17, 2015 at 10:24 am

Great post, Ryan. The fact that you put listening to others as the first point is strategic. “Listening to others will not only allow you to impartially evaluate all ideas, but it will also help you consider possible downsides to your own ideas.” I’ve been there a million times and am grateful to others for their insight.

Erik Tyler says

May 17, 2015 at 11:45 am

Collaboration is an interesting top and has been an up-close-and-personal one in my life thus far. There are few things I crave more than good, solid creative collaboration. There are few things that make me cringe as badly as “collaboration” gone wrong. In fact, I think there are many interactions which people dub “collaboration” that aren’t true collaboration at all. I would go so far as to say that if ALL parties coming into it are not personally and equally invested, as well as committed to “listen, learn and work together” — it isn’t really collaboration. It’s something else. It helps going into things to know the difference; otherwise, you can expend a lot of energy and wind up frustrated.

Years ago, I chose to take part in some online sites touted as “music collaboration” sites. In many cases, it was really just bartering: “I’ll sing on a track of yours if you play guitar on a track of mine.” That’s not collaboration. That’s two people finding an overlapping way to work on their own goals.

At other times, people would present their own completed (yet rejected) work and ask for my help “just getting it to the next level.” This, likewise, is not collaboration; the initiating party is too invested in what they have already contributed. This is just someone asking for help toward his own goal, not a joint goal. I recall one woman contacting me after having heard some of my own music. She said her “pop song” had been rejected many times without specific reason, but she just “knew it could be a hit” if she could figure out whatever the mysterious and magical missing element was. Her song’s first lines were these: “The bees are busy buzzin’ / And the wasp — the bee’s first cousin.” I kid you not. And it didn’t get better from there. In this case, my “listening, learning and working together” was not an option. I simply told her I didn’t feel I was the right person to help her and CHOSE to graciously “not collaborate” (though the word is a misnomer in this case).

Committee meetings are generally not collaboration, either; they are technicalities devised in order to say that one person’s agenda isn’t being pushed through (though I think they try to pose as true collaboration). Committees are often full of people who just want to feel personally validated by having their ideas included somehow. This often results in lengthy delays, tensions and a poor or disjointed “Frankenstein” of an outcome. Similarly, I think work task forces in corporations where members are assigned by upper management often don’t wind up being collaborations, but more like committee meetings.

The best collaborations happen when partners understand each other going in. They’ve seen and truly appreciated one another’s prior work and contributions. They’ve spent some time together, if only professionally, and “click”; this doesn’t mean they are cut from the same cloth or have similar IDEAS, only that they’ve assessed that they agree on the importance of listening and learning, and that they are excited to work together (e.g., a heavy metal producer is not likely to be excited about working with an R&B singer on a track). They are truly committed to coming up with a cool RESULT — not merely in looking cool themselves. And then they CHOOSE, based on all of the above, to collaborate.

When you DO get this type of collaborative unit, it’s not stressful — it’s fun. You all learn a lot. You feed off of each other. People are inclined to say, “Yes, AND …” not “Yes, BUT …” You get silly and trust that even THAT can produce some keepers.

If you’re assigned to a group posing as a collaborative group and have no choice but to remain, check your attitude. You STILL need to be willing to listen, learn and work together. But maybe it will help if you modify your expectations. Realize that the end result is not a personal reflection on you. Contribute what you can. Help with the end result as best you can, even if you disagree with it. And ask yourself, “Will this matter to me in a year?” If the answer is no, know that you did your best and don’t fret over it.