Is Collaboration the new ‘indispensable’ skill?

When I first moved into a Managerial position in corporate, many more years ago than I’d like to admit, I remember very quickly making mental notes of the ‘people to know‘ within the different departments.

Not in the influential sense, but in a ‘these are the people who know the stuff that matters in this business‘ sort of a way… The people with the real day-to-day understanding of how the business works, who were verging on INDISPENSABLE …..

What a word! – indispensablesynonyms: essential, crucial, necessary, key, vital, needed, required, called for, requisite, important, all-important, vitally important, of the utmost importance, of great consequence, of the essence, critical, life-and-death, imperative, mandatory, compulsory, obligatory, compelling, urgent, pressing, burning, acute, paramount, pre-eminent, high-priority, significant, consequential

Wow! Who wouldn’t want to be described with all those words?

Soon after I identified who those ‘indispensable’ people were, I began to see another interesting difference amongst the same people. Those who wanted to share what they knew, and those who didn’t. Each thought their way was the best way. The ones who didn’t want to share their information thought they were making themselves even more indispensable and important. Unfortunately, they were wrong. They were not indispensable.

To consider yourself more important and therefore choosing not to  share information that is crucial to the running of a business, is very short-sighted, and has become more and more outdated. We live in a very collaborative society now. No-one is ‘indispensable’…, not really. You may be an amazing employee or colleague, but ultimately, when things get tough in the world of business, not much can save you..

Oh, no wait!
Of course you can be saved! What was I thinking!
I forgot to mention that those people who DO choose to share information, who DO collaborate, who DO love to impart their knowledge to others and ultimately see others success as partly their own success in the world – they are the new ‘indispensable‘!

There has been a huge shift in how we decide who to work with. I am not suggesting that you tell everyone all the ingredients for your massively successful new chocolate slice that’s ‘taken the dessert market by storm’ (although seriously, if it’s that good, you can PM me…, I won’t tell anyone!) or the specifics of how you made that new invention that ‘no-one is going to be able to live without’ by 2017..
In fact, all I’m really saying is…play nice!

Collaborate: The new Indispensable?

collaborate -synonyms: cooperate, join (up), join forces, team up, get together, come together, band together, work together, work jointly, participate, unite, combine, merge, link, ally, associate, amalgamate, integrate, form an alliance, pool resources, club together

The words that are floating around in my business network at the moment sound like this: collaborate, develop, unite, blend, fusion, alliance, emerge, create, do. We are doing some amazing connecting!

As one, we can only do so much – if we collaborate, we can achieve anything!

Love to hear your thoughts, or your stories of how collaboration has worked for you?

*First published on LinkedIn 24/11/15: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-you-dare-share-celia-newlands