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The Collaboration Equation: Strong Professionals | Strong Teams | Strong Delivery
Individuals work in teams to create value. This is the Collaboration Equation.
Professionals act with confidence.
The Problem: By their very design, the organizations we work for destroy confidence. They run on systems and processes that starve professionals of information, direction, psychological safety, and purpose, causing even the most talented individuals to question themselves and their decisions. They drift and become alienated, inevitably turning to structures that force competent and thoughtful people to wait for direction which never comes.
Whether virtually or in real life, we isolate workers in cubicles, teams into silos, and decisions into oblivion.
This way of working...is not working.
The Solution: The Collaboration Equation draws from a lifetime of building collaborative systems, helping individuals be professionals, teams take pride in their work, and companies be resilient. This dynamic guide to working together shares insightful case studies, practical coaching, and helps readers build a real culture, design real processes, and to create real collaborative systems that people enjoy working in.
You will be able to build visual systems where people can see their work.
You will be able to create cultures with a "Right Environment" so they can mind their system.
And you will create an organization where your individuals truly work in teams to create value.
Your professionals, your company, and you will act with confidence.
Without fail, every well-run endeavor has involved collaboration. Every real collaboration creates and maintains its own clarity. Every real collaboration has psychological safety. Every real collaboration has fearlessly shared leadership. Every real collaboration has the guts to work for real success.Individuals in teams create value.
Every successful team I have ever seen operated as a team. Every successful team I have ever seen had individual professionals behaving professionally. Every successful team I have ever seen knew what success looked like. They made their quest for success visual, they talked about it regularly, their opinions were respected, and their actions were appreciated.
Practical collaborative work creates its own rewards, its own psychological safety, its own agency, and its own quality control. Intentional collaboration creates a right environment where all professionals can operate to their highest potential. Professional collaboration abhors defects, hidden issues, and poor communication.
In business, we have a choice; we can make things better or we can languish is costly mediocrity. Sometimes the paths to better look blocked by immovable objects, but there are no immovable objects in the universe. Everything has a lever, everything has a button. Collaboration finds the irresistible force.
The fact is most businesses today are in the business of making just enough money to sustain their internal waste and maybe a little bit more. They make terrible decisions, build structures that invite bickering and impedance, and bring in new professionals with great promises that have poorly attempted delivery.
Most businesses, but not all.
Professionals act with confidence.
The Problem: By their very design, the organizations we work for destroy confidence. They run on systems and processes that starve professionals of information, direction, psychological safety, and purpose, causing even the most talented individuals to question themselves and their decisions. They drift and become alienated, inevitably turning to structures that force competent and thoughtful people to wait for direction which never comes.
Whether virtually or in real life, we isolate workers in cubicles, teams into silos, and decisions into oblivion.
This way of working...is not working.
The Solution: The Collaboration Equation draws from a lifetime of building collaborative systems, helping individuals be professionals, teams take pride in their work, and companies be resilient. This dynamic guide to working together shares insightful case studies, practical coaching, and helps readers build a real culture, design real processes, and to create real collaborative systems that people enjoy working in.
You will be able to build visual systems where people can see their work.
You will be able to create cultures with a "Right Environment" so they can mind their system.
And you will create an organization where your individuals truly work in teams to create value.
Your professionals, your company, and you will act with confidence.
Without fail, every well-run endeavor has involved collaboration. Every real collaboration creates and maintains its own clarity. Every real collaboration has psychological safety. Every real collaboration has fearlessly shared leadership. Every real collaboration has the guts to work for real success.Individuals in teams create value.
Every successful team I have ever seen operated as a team. Every successful team I have ever seen had individual professionals behaving professionally. Every successful team I have ever seen knew what success looked like. They made their quest for success visual, they talked about it regularly, their opinions were respected, and their actions were appreciated.
Practical collaborative work creates its own rewards, its own psychological safety, its own agency, and its own quality control. Intentional collaboration creates a right environment where all professionals can operate to their highest potential. Professional collaboration abhors defects, hidden issues, and poor communication.
In business, we have a choice; we can make things better or we can languish is costly mediocrity. Sometimes the paths to better look blocked by immovable objects, but there are no immovable objects in the universe. Everything has a lever, everything has a button. Collaboration finds the irresistible force.
The fact is most businesses today are in the business of making just enough money to sustain their internal waste and maybe a little bit more. They make terrible decisions, build structures that invite bickering and impedance, and bring in new professionals with great promises that have poorly attempted delivery.
Most businesses, but not all.
- GenresLeadershipManagement
438 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 10, 2022
30 people are currently reading
149 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 24, 2023
The title of this book is a bit misleading. You won't find there any equation, magic formula, or framework to copy-paste in order to alleviate all the problems organizations face. Instead, you may discover a methodical approach to building a collaboration system, unique and tailored to your team/org.
The ideas presented here are simple - visual management, psychological safety, transparency, setting explicit and reasonable expectations, allowing people to their job effectively, and trusting in their judgment - but they are not easy to implement. This book helps to notice anti-collaborative patterns and presents a way to fix them. It doesn't promise an easy or quick process but when done right, it can improve not only collaboration but also the effectiveness and well-being of the people involved.
I'm afraid that some readers might shrug this book off and say it's just common sense. But as we know common sense is not so common. Ideas presented here come from decades of experience - not some lofty slogans and manifests - just good old practice. And often practice is counterintuitive to popular notions, e.g. micromanagement might be helpful or even necessary, self-organizing teams might be new corporate silos, and Agile might make teams very fragile.
I find this book a bit chaotic. I had an opportunity to meet Jim and this book reads exactly how he talks :D Which is engaging but can be difficult to reference later on. I had problems with quickly finding specific passages, so use your notes, highlights, and bookmarks to their full extent.
The only thing I struggled with is the assumption that in the right environment, everyone is a professional - competent, responsible, communicative, and making sensible decisions (well, maybe except VPs and other senior leaders, who occasionally get a really bad rep in this book). I'd like to believe in this rule... but every rule has an exception. I'd love to read an extra chapter on how to deal with such exceptions that could spoil or slow down the collaborative effort.
I wholeheartedly share the author's vision of the collaborative system and the right environment. I'll surely reference this book often to find the inspiration and courage to push back on wasteful work and mindless practices that foster anti-collaborative behaviors.
The ideas presented here are simple - visual management, psychological safety, transparency, setting explicit and reasonable expectations, allowing people to their job effectively, and trusting in their judgment - but they are not easy to implement. This book helps to notice anti-collaborative patterns and presents a way to fix them. It doesn't promise an easy or quick process but when done right, it can improve not only collaboration but also the effectiveness and well-being of the people involved.
I'm afraid that some readers might shrug this book off and say it's just common sense. But as we know common sense is not so common. Ideas presented here come from decades of experience - not some lofty slogans and manifests - just good old practice. And often practice is counterintuitive to popular notions, e.g. micromanagement might be helpful or even necessary, self-organizing teams might be new corporate silos, and Agile might make teams very fragile.
I find this book a bit chaotic. I had an opportunity to meet Jim and this book reads exactly how he talks :D Which is engaging but can be difficult to reference later on. I had problems with quickly finding specific passages, so use your notes, highlights, and bookmarks to their full extent.
The only thing I struggled with is the assumption that in the right environment, everyone is a professional - competent, responsible, communicative, and making sensible decisions (well, maybe except VPs and other senior leaders, who occasionally get a really bad rep in this book). I'd like to believe in this rule... but every rule has an exception. I'd love to read an extra chapter on how to deal with such exceptions that could spoil or slow down the collaborative effort.
I wholeheartedly share the author's vision of the collaborative system and the right environment. I'll surely reference this book often to find the inspiration and courage to push back on wasteful work and mindless practices that foster anti-collaborative behaviors.
December 7, 2023
Simply awesome, foundational work.
One point off for the grammar issues that bothered me. Sorry, Jim!
One point off for the grammar issues that bothered me. Sorry, Jim!
October 16, 2022
Yet another instant classic from Jim, this time narrowly focused on collaboration and what that means working teams or even teams of teams. There's a great number of case studies that help explain the approach and practices around visual control systems and in particular Obeya's. I will need to read this book a couple more times to fully let it all sink in but I can already recommend it to a broad audience!
November 18, 2022
A great opportunity to install some of Jim's extensive experience into your brain. The book talks about the collaboration equation and expands into practical techniques, cultural cues, and change.
November 21, 2022
I was aware of Jim Benson from Personal Kanban, but wondered what else he did.
Well now, I know. TCE captures his decades of experience with Modus Cooperandi.
In this book he brings you real, practical, immediately implementable techniques to help teams to truly collaborate.
It's pitched at just the right level, not too light, not too heavy.
I recommend the print version over Kindle.
Highly recommended.
Well now, I know. TCE captures his decades of experience with Modus Cooperandi.
In this book he brings you real, practical, immediately implementable techniques to help teams to truly collaborate.
It's pitched at just the right level, not too light, not too heavy.
I recommend the print version over Kindle.
Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews