WATCH: How to engage and retain your best people with Collaboration (E4)

This video is the next in the series about “The Five C’s of Post Pandemic Management”. And it’s about ‘How to Keep your People with Collaboration’. 

Because effective collaboration is something that a lot of people desire at work and they’ll stay working with you as a manager if they believe that you’re collaborating with them. 

Sustainable Relationships

But collaboration is all about ‘Sustainable Relationships’. And sustainable relationships are all about making sure that there’s ‘Mutual Benefit’. 

Clarity of Goals and Needs

Now, we can already have mutual benefit when we’re really ‘Clear about each other’s Goals and Needs’. So as a manager, you really need to spend some time teasing out the goals of your people. And they may have different goals, different team members may have different goals. They may even have different needs, different expectations from their work, from their job, from their career. And a good manager who’s good at collaborating will be able to tease that out. Because a lot of people aren’t actually clear about their goals and many people don’t properly express their needs. And you need to be able to do this yourself, as well, so they understand your needs and your goals. 

Paradox of Equity Mindset

And that brings me nicely to the ‘Paradox of Equity Mindset’. So the Paradox of Equity Mindset was developed by Dr. Dan Harrison, he’s an expert in Positive Psychology and Behaviour Analytics. And he says that there’s these two behaviors, two traits, which may seem to be opposing or even contradictory and yet when they come together, form something synergistic which is mutual benefit. 

Achieving Balance

So the two traits are being able to ‘Help others Achieve’. And it’s about helping others to achieve because you know what their goals are, you know what their needs are, and you do what you can do as their manager to ensure that those needs are being met. But you’re doing it in a way that’s not ‘self-sacrificing’. So you’re not sacrificing your own needs and your own goals just to help other people. And the other side is to be able to be ‘Assertive about Expressing your Needs’. So other people know what your needs and goals are and to do that in a way that’s not dominating. So otherwise, that’ll create a lack of benefit and they’ll just think, “Ah, David’s just after his own thing and doesn’t care about me.” So it’s about bringing these things together in balance so you get this mutual benefit. 

So when it comes to Collaboration, Stay Curious! 

With best regards,