Quotes About Collaboration

They did not rely on any outside structure or safety net. They were the structure, and if any of them failed, the group would fail.

Eliminate Bad Apples:

Laszlo Bock, former head of People Analytics at Google, recommends that leaders ask their people three questions: What is one thing that I currently do that you'd like me to continue to do? What is one thing that I don't currently do frequently enough that you think I should do more often? What can I do to make you more effective?

Make Sure Everyone Has a Voice:

This approach extended to the raucous all-employee street hockey games in the parking lot ("No one held back when fighting the founders for the puck," recalled one player) and to the all-company Friday forums, where anyone could challenge the founders with any question under the sun, no matter how controversial—and vice versa. Like the hockey games, the Friday forums often turned into collision-filled affairs.

Having one person tell other people what to do is not a reliable way to make good decisions.

This is what I would call a muscular humility—a mindset of seeking simple ways to serve the group.

All our movies suck at first," Catmull says. "The BrainTrust is where we figure out why they suck, and it's also where they start to not suck.

master coaching is something more evanescent: more art than science. It exists in the space between two people, in the warm, messy game of language, gesture, and expression.

On the face of it, these awkward moments at Pixar, the SEALs, and Gramercy Tavern don't make sense. These groups seem to intentionally create awkward, painful interactions that look like the opposite of smooth cooperation. The fascinating thing is, however, these awkward, painful interactions generate the highly cohesive, trusting behavior necessary for smooth cooperation.

One study found that workers who shared a location emailed one another four times as often as workers who did not, and as a result they completed their projects 32 percent faster.)

Collisions - defined as serendipitous personal encounters - the lifeblood of any organization, the key driver of creativity, community, and cohesion.

High-proficiency environments help a group deliver a well-defined, reliable performance, while high-creativity environments help a group create something new.

Increasing people's sense of power—that is, tweaking a situation to make them feel more invulnerable—dramatically diminished their willingness to cooperate.

The Spurs eat together approximately as often as they play basketball together.

What are groups really for?" Polzer asks. "The idea is that we can combine our strengths and use our skills in a complementary way. Being vulnerable gets the static out of the way and lets us do the job together, without worrying or hesitating. It lets us work as one unit.

The goal of an AAR is not to excavate truth for truth's sake, or to assign credit and blame, but rather to build a shared mental model that can be applied to future missions.

Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It's not something you are. It's something you do.

Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they'll find a way to screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a good team, and they'll find a way to make it better.

I would wish for any one of my colleagues to have the experience of working with Martin Scorsese once in their lifetime.

Leadership is not domination, but the art of persuading people to work toward a common goal.

The purpose of a pitch isn't necessarily to move others immediately to adopt your idea. The purpose is to offer something so compelling that it begins a conversation, brings the other person in as a participant, and eventually arrives at an outcome that appeals to both of you.

What an individual does day to day on the job now must stretch across functional boundaries. Designers analyze. Analysts design. Marketers create. Creators market.

That's why Linux and Wikipedia and Firefox work.