applied collaboration

How long is 150 years? Sure, it’s a decent span of time. But consider that only in the last 150 years, two very important decisions were made:

• Slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865. (147 years ago!)

• Women were given the right to vote in 1920. (92 years ago!)

How about 40 years? Now we’re talking within our own lifetime! Consider that only in the last 40 years, these decisions were made:

During our recent Presidential Elections, I was introduced to a great concept that I had been theretofore unaware of, “the illusion of explanatory depth.”  

(And yes, I did intend to write “theretofore” in the opening. But, full disclosure, I’ve never used that word before and had to look it up to be sure it was a “real” word.)

We let our guard down during this Friday’s Transcribe and discussed what we fear as facilitators of change. Though each member of our team has varying degrees of experience as a facilitator, we found many shared fears and effective practices to overcome them.

Transcribe is not only a laboratory to test new ideas, it is also a test kitchen for tools that facilitate effective collaboration. The virtual world is becoming more and more mainstream and we at Collective Next have been considering how we can harness its power to bring people together and move them forward. At TEDx Boston 2012, we were introduced to the amazing vritual environment that AvayaLive offers and they were kind enought to build us a virtual office.

Illustrated by Michelle Wright

There is a moment before stepping out in front of a group of people who have come together to tackle a problem that requires all of your attention and ability when you have a decision to make. You can choose to approach the unknown as palpable ambiguity or malleable possibility. During this Friday’s Transcribe, we here at Collective Next discussed how we attempt to balance the necessary tight rope walk of preventing the bottom from dropping out and blowing the roof off of any situation.

As the newest member of Collective Next, I was excited to participate in my first Transcribe session. As it turns out, it was a busy day around the office, and only Mason and I were able to participate. We took the opportunity to share with each other our histories with CN, and the driving forces behind our decisions to join.

This guest post was written by Jimmy Guterman, founder of The Vineyard Group. He’s written plenty of books and used to be an editor for Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. He is also a rock star.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of working with the Collective Next team on an onsite-offsite (it was like an offsite, but they didn’t get to go anywhere) investigation of what it takes to be a thought leader.

Today in the Lab, we discussed a concept that is very near and dear to our Collective hearts. Through a discussion that went in a variety of directions (and inspired by conversations that we had been having for a while), we came up with an axiom: Good Leadership is Good Facilitation and Good Facilitation is Good Leadership.

While this concept has a lot of subtle nuances there were a couple of common characteristics that should be core to facilitators and leaders alike: Situational Awareness and Having Empathy and Compassion.

In last Friday's Transcribe, we discussed how a session is like a good book, you are engaged from start to finish, you experience each twist and turn side by side with the main characters, and it leaves you thinking in ways you had not considered before.