Maximizing Our Result – Collaboration vs Ego

In my 25+ years in business I have been blessed with so many wonderful projects to participate in.

That is not to say, however, that every project that I participated in was a success.  Some were total, dismal, embarrassing failures.  As with most of us who are human, I had my part to play in the successes and failures and as most of us will admit, the greatest lessons come from the latter.

Of course, there are libraries of books that discuss “the secret of a successful project”.  There are great books on leadership, strategy, team building, processes and methodologies.  There is so much stuff on the market these days, we could spend the rest of our lives devoted to learning how to create the perfect project but never find the time to actually be involved with a project because we are too busy learning.

Over the last couple of years, I have been invited to participate in or make observation on a large number of significant-scale projects, projects on a national or international scale that hope to achieve large scale impact in a number of areas.

These projects have an interesting life cycle that I found myself musing upon this morning. 

All of the projects start with phenomenal fanfare.   The world has been waiting for us for years and we have arrived.  So we believe and shout to anyone who will listen.

The projects are staffed with enthusiastic people but not necessarily with the right blend of gifts, talents, strengths and knowledge to carry the project.  It’s kind of like the 100 meter sprinter who decides he or she will run up the side of Mount Everest.  Ahhhh – the power of enthusiasm.  Not every project can be accomplished just because WE BELIEVE.

Generous amounts of capital are infused into these projects by public and private organizations who share the enthusiasm that they too have an opportunity to change the world.  Often times they have no idea what they are investing in but they find the enthusiasm to be contagious and so common sense due diligence is circumvented.

Measures of success, critical success factors and measurable objectives are defined vaguely or intentionally left out.  After all, who needs this type of stuff when you know that the world needs what you offer and your enthusiasm and willpower can overcome any obstacle?

Execution and strategy details are not important.  The commonly offered explanation for this is that it will slow down our momentum.

For some, the details would reveal that the emperor is not wearing any clothing.  That wouldn’t be a good thing, would it?

And so the project begins.  The Big Bang has occurred, the universe that the project exists in has been created and the world waits with bated breath for a phenomenal result.  That is what our ego tells us.

Along the way, many, MANY meetings are scheduled and tons of reports and presentations are created.  The reason?  Nothing shows productivity like a lot of activity.  Who needs traction when we have tons of action?  Action implies results and results can be used to draw in additional capital if nothing else.

What about the ultimate objective?  It has kind of faded away in a haze of ego and obfuscation.  That’s ok claims our ego – we can reconstitute the objective and make corrections towards the goals at any time.

So everything is all set – the project to change the world is on its way.

It is at this point that, in my observation, project leaders and team members make a critical choice that determines how successful the project will really be, regardless of what the owners think (or hope) their impact will be.

At this point in a project, the project team has a choice to make regarding how they will maximize their result.

Do we choose to maximize our contribution and result using collaboration or do we choose to maximize our individual recognition using ego?.

Approximately 80% (Pareto rules again) of the projects I have observed come to the incorrect conclusion that every other attempt has failed or will fail because the people who are running those projects don’t have what it takes – knowledge, passion, skills, leadership abilities or some other ingredient that somehow we have a monopoly on.

Having made this decision, that 80% proceeds to reinvent the wheel, thereby condemning themselves to repeat many of the mistakes that their peers and predecessors have already made.  Oftentimes, they repeat the ultimate mistake – abject failure with no positive impact or results.

Remember the bread recipe rule that I quoted from the brilliant Gerald Weinberg in an earlier blog?

If we take the same ingredients, the same recipe and the same baker, we will always produce the same bread. 

Their ego believes that they will bake a better loaf even as they bake one identical to the disaster that others have baked.

As this happens, their ego, not willing to accept responsibility for failure, then begins to find a rational explanation for the failure.  Reasons like “so and so didn’t do their job right, the economic situation we are in today caused our capital or markets to dry up, my best person left when I needed them the most, the government passed legislation that derailed us, etc”.

Infighting begins as egos attempt to find out who is responsible for this failure.  Morale falls as the seeds of disrespect, mistrust and intentional misleading take root.

The organization or the project is dying but ego refuses to believe it and so the fighting continues until the meltdown is complete.

Meanwhile, the other 20% are asking themselves a different question:

In order to maximize my result, a result that matters more than maximizing my recognition, what organizations, people, technology, processes or anything else exist that I can leverage such that we produce the greatest result that is possible?

When one asks this question, one acknowledges a simple fact:

Not only am I not the only game in town or the smartest person on the planet, if I go it alone and a bet is made on me versus the planet, the odds-on favorite will not be me.”

We also acknowledge something else.

Not only can someone help me maximize my dream but I can help someone maximize theirs as well.

How powerful is that?

Leveraging a collaborative collection of knowledge, skills, talents and networks, a collection of people can become a phenomenal unstoppable force when the sum of those gifts is used.

When ego steps in, we use the least common denominator of all of those gifts, a very small percentage of the overall potential.

Refusing to accept a collaborative approach produces a lot of wasted resources (effort, time and money), a lot of frustration and a lot of cynicism.  We also waste a phenomenal amount of time addressing needs on this planet that are here right now and need a solution very quickly.

A touch of ego provides us with self confidence and drive.  I am not saying that we subsume our ego such that we are living doormats.

However, we need to temper the ego such that when we observe what the other person is doing and accomplishing, perhaps we need to do it with an eye towards collaboration and not using the cynical eye of competition or envy.

Maybe if we asked the question “What does this person do that I can benefit from and what can I offer to that person to help their cause?”, perhaps we can move some solutions along a little faster and with a greater impact.

Perhaps the initial question should not be an ask but an offer. 

How can I help you?

The road to success, surrounded by friends and people passionate around a common purpose, is an emotionally powerful one that not only lives with the participants forever but creates a legacy that others can duplicate and build upon.

To follow the other path, attempting to brute force one’s way without actively seeking and accepting the help of those who can make a difference simply because our ego has convinced ourselves that no one is as capable as we are, often produces lonely, frustrating, sometimes explosive, depressing failure.

While I am an optimist who looks for the best in everyone and every situation, I will say that there are some egos out there that need a failure or two to recognize the importance of collaboration.  When the lessons have been learned, those people will be the greatest champions of collaboration.

We often hear the great clichés about leaders, teams, all for one and one for all, etc.

They are great ideas.

Many a corporate rah-rah session is filled with such drivel.

However, let’s make it such that our actions speak so loudly that we can’t hear what we are saying when it comes to collaborating for success.

If we don’t, we are wasting everybody’s time – and that is one commodity that we have a limited amount of and which no known science can ever help us recover.

As Berlioz wrote - "Time is the great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all of its students.”

We have a choice of maximized, impactful legacy or a hope of maximized recognition.  What happens if the recognition is one of greed, distrust or some other attribute we would rather not be known for?

I know which choice you would make.  Let’s make it happen instead of espousing one thing while practicing another.

A lot of people are waiting for the phenomenal results you are capable of producing.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry