Strength through collaborative velocity

Do as you wish to be done by...

"Don't tell us about the importance of collaborating, we scrum everyday, tell us something we don't know?"

OK, here goes...

Collaboration is not just about sharing ideas and problem solving it's really about consistently sharing trust! My bet is that you may not fully understand it's contextual importance, or leverage the core value of collaborative velocity? I didn't get it, and yet I learned that it's actually about a much deeper set of behaviors surrounding delegation, ownership and mutual respect. "Do as you wish to be done by", I'll get back to that...

I was lucky to have worked with a luminary Apple executive from the early days of the company. He was responsible for helping to develop AppleLink the first dealer/developer forum (discussion board) which was licensed as Quantum, which eventually become AOL. These were the earliest days of community, chat and discussion board technologies. These were also some of the coolest entrepreneurial years in early digital/social media.

Back to my point...Collaborative velocity is the discipline to share, own, and trust each other's ideas on any team. This can ultimately become the glue that keeps your team together, especially in hard times. It's not about owning right or wrong ideas it's about how we trust each other to throw stuff on the wall, pick it apart, pressure test and take on ownership as founders that believe in an idea, path or strategy enough to want to own it!

The goal is to challenge each other to do our best work and OWN a strategy, and for everyone to collaborate, trust and create the best outcome. Every team needs to live (and die) by the idea that we each own early ideas, the kind that move the ball forward down the field. How many times have you been in a circle kicking the idea ball to each other but nobody owns it? I have millions of times, so the real value of collaborative velocity isn't in the sharing ideas, it's actually an exercise of delegation, ownership and trust. Here's how it works on the surface. A team member owns an idea and runs the idea through the team and gets everyone's input, digging deeply into conversation, data, supporting and dissenting arguments. In the end it's the owner that ultimately decides the path forward. It's not death by democracy (which we all suffer from at one time or another), and it's not top down rulership, it's true collaborative velocity.

So here's the trust part. This is not about being right, or holding someone's feet to the fire, it's about you all trusting each other to do your best work together. It's about the ability to empower each other to claim ownership of something you all really believe in. You will all make mistakes, that's not the point. The point is that the mutual trust, shared risk and ability to create velocity around an idea is the glue that will keep your team together.

DO AS YOU WISH TO BE DONE BY...Here's why collaborative velocity works.

If you live and die by treating each other as idea owners you will discover a strength and lasting humility about working together. One week you have control and ownership, you get to make the ultimate decision about a key path forward. If your idea fails you'll feel bad, maybe really bad, but if it works then you get the credit and bragging rights. When your colleagues are doing the same next week they will fail or succeed just like you. Both success and failure become ultimately accountable with collaborative velocity, so here's the deal. We all make mistakes, yet we all want and need praise, so by owning, trusting, supporting each others success or failures, we ultimately become a stronger team together.

That is why collaborative velocity is so much more about trust, respect and humility. It works!