Last Wednesday I had the pleasure and privilege of being the first Genius Woman in the Genius Women Series being run by Rachel Petero of Genviva. A lively and talented bunch of men and women came together to talk about collaboration and community and to help me focus on my business and what I wanted to achieve.
One of the points that struck me was the strong feelings around the word collaboration. I knew about the negative connotations of the word during and after World War II where a collaborator was a traitor; someone who helped the enemy – the foreign occupier of their country. But it seems now that large corporate organisations are giving the word a bad reputation for different reasons.
Collaboration is now used in company missions, values and corporate lines but is not actually delivered upon. Thus, it has lost its impact and perhaps even the positive feelings that should be evoked by a word, which to me, is all about bringing positive change.
So how do we go back to collaboration being worth something again?
How do we ensure that its true meaning –
to work together for a common goal
– comes into play again?
Is it time to clean the word up?
Or is time to find something that truly means something to people, and encourages people to come together, to work together, to help each other – BECAUSE THEY WANT TO.