I recently read a post by Jamie Notter, on his blog “Get Me Jamie Notter” http://www.getmejamienotter.com on collaboration.
Jamie got me to thinking (as his posts usually do) about why we don’t choose to collaborate more.
My conclusion, envy and ego. We are so afraid of sharing the glory, or seeing someone else get ahead, that we refuse to share the responsibility.
It reminds me of a story I read in Antonio’s Gun and Defino’s Dream by Sam Quinones (as an aside, Mexican Mennonite Drug Lords?). The story was about crabs in a pot of boiling water. When one crab tries to get out of the pot, the other crabs pull him back down; if they can’t get out, why should he.
Envy and ego can destroy an association. Whether it is a staff member undercutting a fellow employee by not sharing timely information, or a board member not fully engaging in a discussion, envy and ego can destroy our attempts to collaborate.
And what makes it worse, is most of us agree that more gets done when you quit worrying about who gets the credit.
Tags: Jamie Notter
