Stop. Collaborate and Listen

Aw, YEAH. That’s the stuff.
When you collaborate with other people you get the benefit of multiple minds working toward the same goal. You benefit from multiple years of experience and different personal experiences all brought to bear to solve problems and put ideas into action. Collaboration is cool. Cool as ice, ice, baby!

Collaborating on a project can speed production because you’re not stuck doing all the work.

You may even be able to choose the tasks best suited to your skills and interests because of the diverse strengths and preferences of the group.

Another benefit of collaboration is that you’re in the perfect situation to learn from one another. Ever see a co-worker use a keyboard shortcut while working on an office document and ask them to do it again? The right shortcut can save you hours of redundant work over the course of a year (or a lifetime). When I first learned that pressing ALT+TAB allowed me to cycle through all the open windows and programs on my computer I was amazed — no more removing my hand from the keyboard and reaching for the mouse to click my way through the menu bar and find the window I needed.

And you think you know all the shortcuts — you’re wrong.

I still meet people on a weekly or monthly basis that think they have to go to the Google search page, enter the name of the website they need in the box, and then click a link from the results page. PEOPLE, PLEASE!

You also improve your own communication and listening skills when you collaborate with a team

Too many times you’ve attempted to ask someone for help and given up in frustration and did the work yourself because you weren’t able to get your point across to the other person. Collaborating with a group of people allows you more opportunity to practice those skills and to witness others do the same. The great thing is that you can learn from both the people who are more adept at it than you, as well as the people who are worse at than you. It’s all in how you apply the lessons you learn.

Want to get better at dealing with people?
Get better at planning and production?
And get better at getting things done?

Find an opportunity to collaborate!

Photo credit YoTuT via Creative Commons license