Quotes About Collaboration

find someone who can demonstrate trust, engage in conflict, commit to group decisions, hold their peers accountable, and focus on the results of the team, not their own ego.

On a cohesive team, leaders are not there simply to represent the departments that they lead and manage but rather to solve problems that stand in the way of achieving success for the whole organization. That means they'll readily offer up their departments' resources when it serves the greater good of the team, and they'll take an active interest in the thematic goal regardless of how closely related it is to their functional area.

I believe that teamwork is not a virtue, but rather a choice. It's a strategic decision and an intentional one, which means that it's not for everyone.

If team members are never pushing one another outside of their emotional comfort zones during discussions, then it is extremely likely that they're not making the best decisions for the organization.

a leader's first priority is to create an environment where others can do these things and that cannot happen if they are not having effective meetings.

few groups of leaders actually work like a team, at least not the kind that is required to lead a healthy organization.

A leadership team is a small group of people who are collectively responsible for achieving a common objective for their organization.

people in a healthy organization, beginning with the leaders, learn from one another, identify critical issues, and recover quickly from mistakes.

The healthier an organization is, the more of its intelligence it is able to tap into and use.

I think we need to start having a Headline News every day, for five minutes. We could call it a Daily Check-in or something. That means we should get together in a conference room, standing up, and just announce what we're all doing.

We have a strong and natural tendency to look out for ourselves before others, even when those others are part of our families and our teams.

Why matrix organizational structures became so popular I'm not really sure. There is certainly an element of flexibility and collaboration suggested by them, but in reality they are forums for confusion and conflict. They have certainly not contributed to the breakdown of silos; they've merely added an element of schizophrenia and cognitive dissonance for employees who are unlucky enough to report into two different silos.

When players on a team stop caring about the scoreboard, they inevitably start caring about something else.

There is always that little voice in your head saying, "What about me?" Sometimes that little voice drowns out the cry of the team, and the collective results of the group get left behind.

Employees know that they ultimately pay the price when their manager doesn't get along with or cooperate with managers of other departments, leaving the staff to navigate the treacherous and bloody waters of organizational politics.

The key to all of this, then, is to teach team members to get comfortable being exposed to one another, unafraid to honestly say things like "I was wrong" and "I made a mistake" and "I need help" and "I'm not sure" and "you're better than I am at that" and yes, even "I'm sorry.

Tell me about the most important accomplishments of your career." Look for more mentions of we than I.

Team Effectiveness Exercise. This exercise requires team members to identify the single most important contribution that each of their peers makes to the team, as well as the one area that they must either improve upon or eliminate for the good of the team.

The leader is going to have to be ready to not only light the fuse of good conflict but to gently fan the flames for a while too.

Rather than coming together to make the best possible decision for the entire organization, they become lobbyers for their own constituents

when team members reveal aspects of their personal lives to their peers, they learn to get comfortable being open with them about other things. They begin to let down their guard about their strengths, weaknesses, opinions, and ideas.

The first dysfunction is an absence of trust among team members. Essentially, this stems from their unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group. Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust.

Building a team is hard

Because of this lack of real commitment and buy-in, team members develop an avoidance of accountability, the fourth dysfunction. Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven people often hesitate to call their peers on actions and behaviors that seem counterproductive to the good of the team.