General Business Strategy

Honest Collaboration: Collaborating when things get real

Upcoming event: Collaborate Virtual 2021

When the organizers of Collaborate Virtual, a free event celebrating the art of collaboration in design, asked us if we’d be interested in speaking at their event, we agreed immediately.

As human-centered design consultants, we collaborate a lot. We love collaboration because it’s a time when multiple ideas and perspectives come together and morph into a solution or, at least, into the next steps towards a solution.

But, collaboration isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Misunderstandings from miscommunication are bound to occur when people are involved in high-stakes discussions. As tense moments arise, collaboration comes to a standstill.

Many of us run away from these tense moments hoping to hide the issues and push forward; the exact opposite of what we should do.

Instead, we need to go into these moments honestly, respectfully, and with compassion. Doing so allows us to come to the best solution and to build better, stronger working relationships.

Honest collaboration is the term we use for mastering these tense moments. It means sticking around when issues arise and moments get hard. It means taking a different perspective and approach. It means putting in more work to get better results.

We’re excited to share more about how to DO Honest Collaboration at this year’s Collaborate Virtual. It’s a free, hour-long session that will be half insight sharing, half discussion with attendees.

We hope you can join us on July 13th at 10 am ET!