Mastering Collaboration

Chapter 12. Conclusion

Becoming a master of collaboration is a journey worth undertaking, and I hope that by now you’ve seen some ways that you can bring people together to do great things. If you face enormous challenges or risky, intimidating situations, there’s no better tool to have at your disposal than a great group of people willing to tackle them with you.

In this book, I’ve made the case for collaboration as the approach to solving problems that are complex and confusing. The saying at the beginning of this book, “if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together,” speaks to the support that we give each other when we work well together. I’ve shown how it can help your professional endeavors, whether you are creating innovative products, saving lives in the ER, or reinventing how your organization works. But collaborations shouldn’t be thought of only in our professional lives.

Jim Kalbach, author of Mapping Experiences (O’Reilly), shared a story about a collaboration he was part of in 2017. Kalbach was approached by Hedaya, an organization dedicated to countering violent extremism, to lead a collaboration to understand the journeys of former extremists who had left their pasts, and see how their experiences could be leveraged to reach others like them. He flew to Dubai and met a diverse group of people, including former gang members, Islamic extremists, neo-Nazis (“formers”), as well as the US State Department and NGOs, over several days of collaboration ...