This Simple Exercise Proves Value Of Collaboration

According to research firm McKinsey, organizations can help boost productivity by as much as 25% simply by improving internal collaboration. Animation studio Pixar already knows this.

It believes so strongly in collaboration that it redesigned its headquarters to compel interactions all over the company between team members. From the bathrooms to the cafeteria, people are constantly forced out of their silos-by design.

Beyond architecture, Pixar is known for a culture where sharing works-in-progress is the norm. Is it humbling? Yep. Is it valuable? Absolutely. (And Pixar has a dozen-plus Academy Awards to prove it.)

To get people in the habit of collaborating early and often, try a technique called Sharing Works in Progress. It's designed to make us feel less possessive of our ideas and to leverage the expertise of others. Start by dividing the room into teams and providing a flip chart and a bunch of sticky notes to each team.

For the next five minutes, ask each team to come up with as many ideas as possible to solve their unique challenge. To illustrate, let's try this one: you are Nike. how do you partner with Godiva?

Don't worry if the ideas are good or bad-just come up with as many as you can. Write each idea on a sticky note and place it on the flip chart.

As a team, identify the most disruptive ideas...and then, choose only one. Take 60 seconds to decide, and then write a brief description of that winning idea on the top area of the flip chart and remove all the other sticky notes.

Ready to change things up? Hope so, because your team - and every other team- is about to migrate to whichever flip chart is to the right.

You should now be standing in front of a disruptive idea on another team's flip chart. After reviewing their challenge and disruptive idea, grab some sticky notes and build on their idea with as many enhancements as you can in five minutes.

Write each enhancement on a separate sticky note and add them to the flip chart under the selected idea. But don't get too comfortable here because you're about to move again. Find your way to whichever flip chart is to the right of you.

Now you're at a new flip, displaying a new disruptive idea and a bunch of sticky notes with possible ways to further develop that idea. Compare their original challenge along with people's ideas and enhancements and then, in a civilized manner, identify all the reasons their ideas won't work. Use sticky notes and take four minutes to do this.

Productive phrasing for your feedback might include "We're concerned about X. How might we avoid that?" Or "Curious about the R&D capabilities for Y. How could we solve for that?"

Critique is an uncomfortable but necessary step because collaboration isn't just about more ideas, it's about stronger ideas. In many cases, the path to a stronger idea requires us to point out concerns so we can come up with a bulletproof concept.

To demonstrate this, head back to your original flip chart. In our case, it's the Nike-Godiva partnership. On your flip, you're gonna see further developments to your disruptive idea, as well as candid concerns. Taking all of it into consideration, what improvements can you make to your disruptive idea that also addresses people's concerns?

Take four minutes as a team to come up with your newly improved solution to the original challenge. Keep in mind that your solution should also take competitors and consumers by surprise with its originality and you'll be presenting it to the group.

Fast forward to four minutes from now, when you're sharing a brilliant idea about Godiva and Nike's melt-proof chocolates with energy-boosting vitamins that are marketed to athletes at high-end gyms. Multi-layered ideas like this can be achieved by a single individual - but probably not in a matter of minutes.

All of us spend unnecessary time and resources trying to perfect things before we reach out to others for input or advice. But innovation doesn't happen when we're heads-down in a cubicle or office. Conscious, ongoing collaboration gets us comfortable sharing works-in-progress and innovating faster.