Collaboration

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.

A colleague recently passed along an article by Paul Ford entitled “10 Timeframes” which stimulated the Transcribe group to consider the true value of a minute. More specifically, we were curious about the difference between a minute and a collaborative minute.

The votes are in! The top three Transcribe posts so far are:

1. "A Model of Interaction Transcribed"

2. "BS Transcribed"

Clarity is an essential and often overlooked ingredient of effective collaboration. While brainstorming ideas for our Transcribe conversation, the group became very interested in investigating the effect of Business Speak (BS) or buzz words on collaboration.

We here at CN are fired up about the Olympics, so they were an easy pick for Friday’s Transcribe topic. It was also easy for us all to agree that the Olympics are a collaborative event, yet after an hour of discussion questions remained regarding how they are collaborative.

Illustration by Mike LaRhette and Annie White

One of my favorite parts of leading Collective Next is watching good ideas emerge, take root, and grow without my involvement. One such idea has been Transcribe Live in the Lab, a meeting of the minds every Friday afternoon with the simple goal of seeing what percolates. This whitespace has become an important forum for us as a community to engage each other in conversations that are normally squeezed out by the demands of delivering work and running a business. In doing so, we are able to step back, reflect, and gain new levels of clarity.

Several of our CN scribes, Tricia Walker, John Colaruotolo, and Evan Wondolowski, whisked away to Edinburough, Scotland on June 25 on the heels of TEDxBoston for TEDGlobal 2012. Here are their posts from abroad.

Hello, Edinburgh! View from my hotel:

There he is! I spotted TED!