![\"\"](\"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/NonCollab2x2a2.png\" "\\"NonCollab2x2a\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n- \n
- If someone wants to collaborate and is in general agreement with us, the atmosphere is collegial <\/strong>and we often call those people friends.<\/li>\n
- If they don’t really collaborate, but agree with us nonetheless, then they are in compliance <\/strong>and not real obstacles.<\/li>\n
- if they are non-collaborators and also often in disagreement with us, they oppose us and will often be combative<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is the category of non-collaborator that causes us the most challenges.<\/li>\n
- in my experience the most interesting situation occurs when there is active collaboration but sufficient disagreement .\u00a0 This combination can be quite powerful as it generates a creative tension <\/strong>from the occasional conflict.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Focusing on the non-collaborating disagreers, what I see most often is an attempt to move the disagreers to the left into compliance, or to remove them altogether to keep team harmony.\u00a0\u00a0
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/CombativeToCompliance.png\" "\\"CombativeToCompliance\\"")
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\nWhat can be far more powerful is to work to move them upwards towards collaboration and to work with the creative tension to generate more innovation.
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/CombativeToCreativeTension.png\" "\\"CombativeToCreativeTension\\"")
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\nSo how do we do this?<\/p>\n
The first step is to look at why there is no collaboration.\u00a0 Most likely it is because they have no desire to work with people that don’t agree with them.\u00a0 Things get even worse if the experience that they have is being pushed to the left towards agreement.\u00a0 They feel that they are being ganged up on and that their opinion is not valued.\u00a0 Why would they want to collaborate?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
That is why it is so important to show respect for all opinions.\u00a0 Only through respect is it possible to build a culture of trust.\u00a0 One key element of respect is that of listening.\u00a0 If someone does not feel that they are being heard, how can they feel\u00a0 that their views are being respected?<\/p>\n
While it is possible to innovate without diversity, it is far too easy to fall into the groupthink trap.\u00a0 A diverse environment with a culture of trust and respect will generate the creative tension that powers innovation and value generation.<\/p>\n
Which brings us back to the complying non-collaborator.\u00a0\u00a0 Why are they not collaborating?\u00a0 Quite possibly they aren’t feeling that collaboration is worth their effort.\u00a0 Maybe they generally agree with the direction but not sufficiently to risk their own personal safety.\u00a0 Perhaps they have something to offer but realize that it is not fully aligned with the group.\u00a0 In an environment without respect and safety it is very easy to shut these people down.\u00a0 Since they generally comply we write them off as non-collaborators.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0But it may be our loss as they may have something useful to offer.<\/p>\n
- If they don’t really collaborate, but agree with us nonetheless, then they are in compliance <\/strong>and not real obstacles.<\/li>\n
![<\/a><\/p>\nSo how do we do this?<\/p>\nThe first step is to look at why there is no collaboration.\u00a0 Most likely it is because they have no desire to work with people that don’t agree with them.\u00a0 Things get even worse if the experience that they have is being pushed to the left towards agreement.\u00a0 They feel that they are being ganged up on and that their opinion is not valued.\u00a0 Why would they want to collaborate?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\nThat is why it is so important to show respect for all opinions.\u00a0 Only through respect is it possible to build a culture of trust.\u00a0 One key element of respect is that of listening.\u00a0 If someone does not feel that they are being heard, how can they feel\u00a0 that their views are being respected?<\/p>\nWhile it is possible to innovate without diversity, it is far too easy to fall into the groupthink trap.\u00a0 A diverse environment with a culture of trust and respect will generate the creative tension that powers innovation and value generation.<\/p>\nWhich brings us back to the complying non-collaborator.\u00a0\u00a0 Why are they not collaborating?\u00a0 Quite possibly they aren’t feeling that collaboration is worth their effort.\u00a0 Maybe they generally agree with the direction but not sufficiently to risk their own personal safety.\u00a0 Perhaps they have something to offer but realize that it is not fully aligned with the group.\u00a0 In an environment without respect and safety it is very easy to shut these people down.\u00a0 Since they generally comply we write them off as non-collaborators.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0But it may be our loss as they may have something useful to offer.<\/p>\nUpdate: Kent McDonald and I took this blog posting and created an article for ProjectConnections here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I recently came to the realization that often the issue that we face when talking about who we label as non-collaborators often has more to do with whether they agree with us or not.\u00a0 When someone agrees with us, we either assume they are collaborating or we really don’t care because they are complying with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/toddlittleweb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/NonCollab2x2c2.png\"){kind=link}