Collaboration
Back in March of 1997, Denise and I got our first home computer and our first email accounts on AOL. By April and May, we were instant messaging each other from my remote work sites as we stayed in touch with each other during my many travels. By the summer of 1999, I was instant messaging and sharing chat sessions with people around the world as I ran client operations in several countries at one time, and then also using internet initiated phone services to stay in touch with business partners and family. In 2001 through 2003, I lived on my blackberry and cell phone as I was truly mobile with an office on one coast, our customer base on the other coast and my home in the middle.  From 2003 till now, I’ve used a blackberry extensively for email alerting, but almost all productive interactions occur through calls or through face to face meetings, with email typically used for advanced materials (no meaningful advanced dialogue) and any other form of collaborative tools not used at all. In many ways I feel like I’ve regressed over the last 5 years in my business communications and collaboration as I’ve adapted my style to fit with the culture of the companies I’ve been part of. But still lurking just under my current style of business interaction is that same desire for the intensity and intimacy of that communications and collaboration that I cherished so much in the past.
Just recently I was part of a conversation where folks were questioning the real value of multiple communications threads occurring at one time. The assumption was that with that many threads occurring (let’s say 6 or more at any one time), none of the threads could truly be meaningful or represent any form of deep thought. But I’ve personally witnessed and experienced the exhilaration that comes from having that many meaningful dialogues occurring at one time. Our kids do this all the time as they’ve grown up with instant messaging, chat rooms and now text messaging. We tend to broadly brush those conversations as “shallow” because they are kids, but in reality, each one of those threads may be as deep as they actually want to go. Today, I know of $100M companies that are run virtually with a primary means of communication being instant messaging and web meetings. Phone calls are primarily reserved for customer interactions, so they optimize their own time with each other by using today’s tools that allows them to have multiple threads as well as multiple collaborative environments. I’ve monitored and participated in some of those “conversations”, and critical business decisions are made with deep understanding of the issues and the risks. And these are folks of my generation that truly have the ability to multi-task and thus leverage the tools to accelerate business growth and increase team collaboration.
Our choice today is whether or not we want to participate and collaborate with such great intensity and such deep intimacy. Lots of folks aren’t comfortable with that, but it sure seems like our world and our emerging team members are heading that way. We definitely have the tools to do it. And we certainly have the personality for it in our team members (who will eventually demand it). I’ll chose the intensity and intimacy any time.