A group of individuals only becomes a high performing team when the potential of the whole is more than the sum of the potential of its individual parts, a lot more, actually. Putting people in the same room, however, is not enough for this to happen, an important lesson that was again confirmed at XPDays Benelux last November.
Inspired by an important part of the McCarthy Bootcamp, art creation, Christophe Thibaut – a friend and colleague from France – and I organized a collaborative art creation workshop. The result was impressive. While most of participants had not held a paintbrush since they last sat at a school desk, the collaborative piece exceeded any of the individual pieces in all possible ways. Clearly, pasting the individual pieces together would never have resulted in anything comparable to what the team came up with.
Making people work together on a project does not necessarily make them a team, in many cases they will only be people working together on a project. While they will cooperate with one another to get the work done, there most likely will be little collaboration. Collaboration requires openness and trust, willingness to give up ones own ideas and courage to provide a better idea when necessary, no matter whose idea the current one is. Until this is present, the 'team' capacity will never exceed that of all individuals together.
When people cooperate on a project, they tend to merely fill in the gaps, ensuring that their part is done, while not claiming accountability for the whole project. This is a lot easier to achieve, does not nearly generate as much conflict – especially on a new team – and requires less communication. But it sadly enough will barely result in something that exceeds what the individuals are capable of; it will barely reflect the team’s potential.
Detail from collaborative painting - acrylics on canvas, Toronto - January 22, 2011
At Thoughtcorp, we strongly believe in team potential. Now we are in the middle of moving to new offices, we thought it was a good idea to somehow practice what we preach and use that collective force. With a fair amount of colleagues and their families, we collaboratively created a couple of paintings that will soon decorate the walls of the Thoughtcorp offices, paintings that symbolize the company’s true DNA, both the people and the collaboration, something to be proud of! We collaborate.
