536. Expert Interview: Collaboration–What It Is and How It Works

Tim Sanders

Tim Sanders spent most of his early career on the cutting edge of innovation and change. He was an early-stage member of Mark Cuban’s Broadcast.com, which had the largest opening day initial public offering (IPO) in history. After Yahoo acquired the company, Tim was tapped to lead their ValueLab, and by 2001, he rose to Chief Solutions Officer. In 2005, he founded Deeper Media, which provides consulting services for leading brands. Today, he is one of the top-rated speakers on the lecture circuit. Tim is the author of four books, including the New York Times bestseller Love Is the Killer App: How To Win Business & Influence Friends. It has been translated into more than a dozen languages and featured in Fast Company, USA Today, the New York Times, The Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor and on CNN. A master storyteller, he offers listeners actionable takeaways that produce results right away.

Collaboration–What It Is and How It Works

“We studied the effectiveness of collaborative meetings in more than 186 situations, in companies from five employees up to 50,000. We wanted to see how often participants left the meeting with the solution in hand. So much depended on the variety of perspectives included in the room. When you add a second perspective—for example, when sales brings in marketing you increase by 50% the chance you walk out of the meeting with a solution. On the average, we walk out of the room 15% of the time with a solution. The other 85% of the time, it was just another stupid meeting. When you bring in that second perspective, it goes up to 30%. But watch this: When you bring in a third perspective—let’s say, sales, marketing, customer service—your chance of finding a solution goes up 100%. Now, here’s the magic of the Beatles, the power of four: When you include a fourth perspective—it could be a millennial generation employee, who sees the world completely differently—you increase your chance of finding a solution by 300%. more than 70% of the time, when there were four perspectives in the room, participants walked out with their next play. That’s remarkable! I think that’s a good take away for in hand. It’s not about how many bodies are in the room, it’s about how many perspectives.”

Why Is This Important?

“Collaboration is not in our DNA as much as we think. Most organizations see collaboration as a last resort, not a first response. If you Google the word collaborate, one of the definitions is ‘to confer with the enemy. Collaboration used to be when the dissidents and the Insurgent would compare notes to overthrow the kingdom. so, it’s no surprise that in an organization sales doesn’t want to collaborate with marketing, and marketing doesn’t want to collaborate with customer service. With that in mind—when we’re thinking about collaboration as a first response, not a last resort—there is a proven process, with definite steps to increase the chances of success.”

What Are the Key Lessons Learned Here?

1. Share your knowledge, your network and your compassion to multiply the value of everyone you interact with.

2. Success is a team sport.

3. Collaboration gives small business a competitive advantage over big companies.
Your ability to collaborate is only limited by your ability to make friends in unusual places.