“Hey, I’d love to collaborate with you!”
For people who love to please others, are mostly inspired by the endless possibilities they see, or feel like they are overwhelmed and lacking too many abilities they need — it can be easy to welcome in too many people/too much collaboration. Then, it just becomes more work to manage the mismatch.
For folks who are very headstrong, have strong visions, are super proud of the work they’ve done, or are perfectionists — it can be really challenging to remain open to the right kinds of collaborations. Then, you just wind up drowning in the work or making too small of an impact for real growth to be generated.
I’ve been both of these people — on the wrong side of the collaboration sweet-spot. Those experiences have helped me learn how to recognize very quickly who is worth collaborating with and who probably is not. At this point, I feel like this is one of more crucial skills I’ve developed for the role I play in the ALC Network.
Here are a few conditions that I spat out very quickly when discussing with @bear how to determine when it is a right fit to collaborate with someone, specifically in the ALC context.
I may expound on this more later because it is a really important and underrated skill to develop.
- They show respect and reverence for the work you’ve already done.
- They demonstrate a knowledge and awareness of the content you’ve shared.
- They ask permission for deeper levels of engagement.
- Their potential contributions make it easy to say yes to collaboration because they meet a need and build on the work and patterns that have already been established, rather than suggesting disruptions to them. (Unless, of course, a disruption is being sought.)
What am I missing?