Collaboration or not?

Do you hand down business information on tablets of stone or are you interested in collaborating? Why pretend you have all the answers when a collaborative approach yields better results? That’s why InCloud Solutions believe in becoming trusted partners.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of entertaining a small child, you will know how frustrating it is watching them painstakingly assembling a Lego toy or pummelling the hell out of a lump of pastry. Your patience ebbs away as your hands itch to take over and get the job done for them.

But of course, that is not the point. The best outcomes are based on working together and collaboration is how we learn. As kids get older, they discover that no one person has all the answers – not even their teacher – and Google is now the “guru” they turn to first!

So, what are the lessons for business?

Why Trusted Partnerships are the way forward

Collaboration is the way forward, as companies reach out to work with specialists who have knowledge and skills, they don’t have in-house.

In business technology, where the cloud means you don’t have to have IT staff any more, it’s important to have trusted advisors. We know from our own experience that to do that well you must listen first – finding out everything you can about a business and how they operate.

The best projects are always those where teams come together to share and pool knowledge, then everybody learns. And when everyone has a voice you can capture ways of thinking that might otherwise be missed. Mixed generation teams can learn so much from one another – digital first Millennials and Gen Zers really do approach things differently, so listen to them!

And of course, some suggest that men and women have differing approaches to solving problems – which is why we need to listen to as wide a range of experience as possible – to capture ways of thinking that might otherwise be lost.

This article first appeared as a thought leadership piece in the programme for WEConnect International‘s London conference November 2019