{"id":272,"date":"2011-11-11T10:55:53","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T10:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/what-collaberation-should-mean\/"},"modified":"2011-11-11T10:55:53","modified_gmt":"2011-11-11T10:55:53","slug":"what-collaberation-should-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/what-collaberation-should-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had a chance to take a sneak peek at a documentary on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nilerodgers.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nile Rodgers <\/a>a few weeks back. It was nicely done, even though it was in Japanese. It really didn&#39;t phase me because much of the dialog was from Nile. The short can be viewed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nilerodgers.com\/blogs\/planet-c-in-english\/189\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It might seem an obvious that collaboration and music go together.&#0160; And as someone who is a musician, I would agree that often the two go hand-in-hand.&#0160; But what about the rest of the spheres of life and work?&#0160; Not so much.&#0160; There was one scene where I found myself thinking&quot;that&#39;s it.&quot;&#0160; Nile was working with a group around the production of a Broadway musical he created called <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nilerodgers.com\/blogs\/planet-c-in-english\/2-amazing-breaking-news\" target=\"_blank\">Double Time<\/a><\/em>.&#0160; If you check-out the clip you&#39;ll know what I&#39;m referring to.&#0160; But I was struck by the group&#39;s dynamics.&#0160; There were a few musicians, a vocal ensemble,&#0160;directors\/producers, and Nile.&#0160; Each of these folks were doing there work individually and collectively.&#0160; One thing was clear, they were moving toward the goal of a great performance.&#0160; And isn&#39;t great performance what we want?<\/p>\n<p>Have you found some form of collaboration that leads you to a great performance?<\/p>\n<p>In your career experience you may not have found it.&#0160; And many never do.&#0160; Part of the problem arises in organizational health and our own misplaced priorities.&#0160; We don&#39;t fully understand how collaboration works and how to get the most from it.&#0160; Ironically, you might be involved in it and not even recognize it.&#0160; You have to look for it.&#0160; You have to want it.&#0160;&#0160;The tragedy is found in those who just do it and don&#39;t think anymore about it.&#0160; Routine, habit, monotony are keywords here.<\/p>\n<p>Your career should be about more than salary, benefits and MBOs.<\/p>\n<p>I really believe our best and greatest work comes when we collaborate.&#0160;&#0160;It&#39;s a key&#0160;way to leave your fingerprint on this motion picture called &quot;life.&quot;&#0160; But as with&#0160;all brilliant things, there are the enemies and the threats.&#0160; Let&#39;s review a few:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Money and the Desire to Get More<\/strong>-this one is manifested when our endeavors are rooted in making money first.&#0160; The emphasis is on the word first.&#0160; Making money is not a bad thing, unless it is at the top of the list.&#0160; Greed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Self-Centered Leaders<\/strong>-these folks have no interest in anyone or any endeavor other than themselves.&#0160; These types of leaders may mask it, smooth it or even lie about.&#0160; Their mission is to be King or Queen-first and last.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Our Fear<\/strong>-We all bear some responsibility for the collapse of collaboration.&#0160; We fear so much and find ourselves unwilling to be vulnerable.&#0160; I don&#39;t need to tell you what a killer fear is.&#0160; Collaboration is sabotaged when we are insecure and doubt our place at the table.<\/p>\n<p>I have felt most alive when I&#39;ve been involved in the art and science of real collaboration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had a chance to take a sneak peek at a documentary on Nile Rodgers a few weeks back. It was nicely done, even though it was in Japanese. It really didn&#39;t phase me because much of the dialog was from Nile. The short can be viewed here. It might seem an obvious that collaboration&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,5,123],"tags":[22,23,1105,1104,1100,1099,102,1101,1102,1103,178,67],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-commentary","category-entrepreneur-advice","category-leadership-development","tag-business","tag-career","tag-career-performance","tag-chic","tag-collaborating","tag-collaboration","tag-music-2","tag-music-performance","tag-nile-rodgers","tag-nile-rodgers-double-time","tag-organizational-development","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}