There’s an old saying that “Competition makes us faster; Collaboration makes us better”. A collaborative approach is most often the better approach and the longest lasting. For one thing, collaboration allows you to leverage more of the mental horsepower you have at your disposal. And the more you leverage this mental horsepower, the more people are inclined to freely contribute. If you seek exceptional collaboration, then you need to create an environment that is conducive to team members engaging free of inhibition. One where leadership is not beyond reproach and humbly welcomes any/all ideas that could possibly question the status quo.

When leveraging the collaborative power of your team’s mental horsepower, you are undoubtedly ascending into territory that most companies never traverse. Where you have true synergy within your organization. Henry Ford once said, “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” The quickest and simplest way to pull people together in a collaborative way is to pitch in and help team members succeed. Helping others succeed builds camaraderie and a steeled commitment toward your purposeful goals. 

Collaboration involves the right messaging coinciding with the right actions as a result, this creates harmony among team members, partners, and clients. A big key is that the messaging and associated actions need to line up 100 percent of the time. In the end, collaboration not only makes your team and company better, but is also far more rewarding than individualized accomplishments. As H.E. Luccock once said, “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” When asked what I am most proud of regarding the twenty-one-year tenure of GlobalStar Consulting, my immediate response is that “I love the way our team members freely pull together collaboratively for the greater good of all involved.”