What does collaboration mean as a company value?

Doing the additional work a shared outcome requires. Translation between functions and absorbing coordination account for nearly all of it, and being present in meetings accounts for almost none.

How do you recognise collaboration at work?

Point at what somebody gave up. A team that accepted a worse quarter so another team could land something has done the version that is genuinely difficult, and it will not appear in their numbers.

Why do companies get collaboration wrong?

Because they measure it by participation. Attendance, channel activity and cross-team meetings are all easy to count and none of them distinguish the person doing the work from the person in the room.

What collaborative work is most invisible?

Chasing. Somebody who spends two weeks getting an answer that took each contributor ten minutes has done real work, and the ten minutes is what everybody remembers.

Company values

Collaboration

Collaboration is usually recognised as attendance, which is the one part of it that requires nothing.

Attendance is the easy part

Meetings attended, channels joined, cross-team syncs held. All countable, all recognised, and none of them the thing.

The hard part of collaboration is giving up a local optimum: taking a worse quarter so somebody else can land a migration, or accepting a design that is worse for your team and better overall.

Nobody thanks the chasing

Two weeks spent getting an answer out of four teams, where each of those teams spent ten minutes on it.

Everybody remembers the ten minutes. The two weeks are the work.

How you would know

Translates between functions: Says the same thing twice in two vocabularies so both sides hear something usable.
Brings the disagreement forward: Surfaces a conflict early rather than letting two plans diverge quietly.
Absorbs the coordination: Takes on the chasing so the other people can do the work.
Gives up the local optimum: Accepts a worse outcome for their own team when the whole is better for it.

6 messages that name it

You took a worse quarter so the platform team could land the migration. That was not a small thing.
Manager
Names a trade that cost the sender’s own numbers.
Thanks for the translation. Engineering heard a requirement and sales heard a timeline, and both came from you.
Peer
Describes a skill with no job title.
You raised the conflict in week one instead of letting both plans run for a month.
Manager
The counterfactual is the value.
Priya did the chasing so four other people could keep working. Nobody thanks the chasing.
Manager
Says out loud that the work is normally invisible.
Thank you for explaining the billing model to design without making anybody feel stupid.
Peer
Manner as well as content.
You went to a meeting that was not yours because you knew the answer. It saved a week.
Peer
Small act, measured consequence.

What its absence looks like

Where collaboration is absent, every team optimises correctly and the company gets slower. Everyone can point at their own delivery and nobody can point at the outcome.

Recognising it well

Recognise the sacrifice, not the meeting. A team that gave up its own quarter for a shared outcome has done the only version of this that is hard.
Name the translation. Making two functions understand each other has no output and no owner.
Thank the early conflict. Two plans that diverge quietly for a month are far more expensive than one uncomfortable week-one conversation.

Questions people ask

What does collaboration mean as a company value?: Doing the additional work a shared outcome requires. Translation between functions and absorbing coordination account for nearly all of it, and being present in meetings accounts for almost none.
How do you recognise collaboration at work?: Point at what somebody gave up. A team that accepted a worse quarter so another team could land something has done the version that is genuinely difficult, and it will not appear in their numbers.
Why do companies get collaboration wrong?: Because they measure it by participation. Attendance, channel activity and cross-team meetings are all easy to count and none of them distinguish the person doing the work from the person in the room.
What collaborative work is most invisible?: Chasing. Somebody who spends two weeks getting an answer that took each contributor ten minutes has done real work, and the ten minutes is what everybody remembers.