Collaborative Mindset

I teach humanistic business management.  A big part of the approach is a philosophic tweak and it does involve thinking about all your interactions collaboratively.

So what are the benefits of a collaborative mindset and how can someone develop a collaborative mind.

Benefits of a collaborative mindset?  Better problem solving, less conflict and higher feelings of motivation and satisfaction.

All businesses are in the business of solving problems. If you aren’t solving people’s problems, you aren’t in business. When you adopt a collaborative mindset, it is easier to focus on solving problems because – that is what you are in business to do. You aren’t in business to be the best. You aren’t in business to feed your ego. Your business is to solve problems and that is best done in a collaborative way. Once you get your ego out of the way – things just become easier.


And because your ego is out of the way – you get into less conflict. When you disagree with someone – it isn’t personal. Your goal is not to “win.” It’s to solve the problem so – when you are thinking collaboratively – you actually listen to the pros and cons of the alternate suggestions and make decisions based on what will work – rather than other petty ego driven considerations.



Finally – solving problems is very motivating.   Instead of figuring out what to do for yourself, you are working in service to others and that feels great. It’s a mindset that leads to greater job and life satisfaction and it’s  motivating to help people solve their problems.


The big question is how. How do we get out of our own heads and concerns and focus on collaboration? The answer is love and compassion.  When we focus on helping people, collaboration comes naturally.  It makes work easier, funnier and more satisfying and the solutions you create collaboratively tend to be better than those made alone.  The end result is in addition to all the above benefits, you gain the respect of your peers when you take this approach. There really is no downside which is why its surprising why more people don’t adopt this mindset.


To help teams adopt collaborative approaches managers need to lead by example, encourage moral/ethical decision making in all the decisions that are made and encourage and reward collaboration.

How to not feel bad about owning up to your mistakes

Strong capable people – fix their mistakes.  This is a mindset tweak that helps people understand that it’s ok to make mistakes. What’s not ok is to not fix them.  I tell people, the only thing worse than being wrong, is continuing to be wrong because of pride.

The other thing is that fixing mistakes – feels good. Responsibility is empowering. It means you believe you can fix your problems and instead of wishing for them to be fixed, or waiting for other people to fix them. YOU fix them. It’s empowering. A lot of people try to avoid responsibility, because they don’t understand the power and pride that comes with being responsible.

To get started, you just make a decision to do it. If you make a mistake – think – ok. I screwed up. What am I going to do to fix this?  If it means apologizing, apologize. If it means making amends or at least offering to make amends, that’s what you do.  What people find is that as they start practicing this – and it is a practice - the more respect they will receive from others and the more they will respect themselves. And that feels good. True, some people won’t forgive them. But most will.  And for those that don’t, at least you tried. For those that do – you strengthen your relationship with them.

The key to reaping the benefits of personal responsibility – is to just start practicing it. It is self
re-enforcing so it’s easy to keep at it once you start.