Not everyone needs to be talking to customers

Putting everybody in one room is the lowest denominator of collaboration. Same with asking everyone to take part in the same work.

Everyone in the same room should be rare, to refill the trust batteries. Everyone in the same room as the mode of collaboration is waste.

Real collaboration is when someone knows something deeply, another person knows something else deeply, and we put our heads together. We bridge the gaps, we fill in different perspectives, we add in information the other doesn’t have. It’s 1+1=3. More comes out than we put in.

1+1 can equal 3. 1+1+1 can also equal 3. 1+1+1+1 can equal 2. The limit approaches zero.

What we need to collaborate better is (1) appreciation of each others’ strengths and (2) a common language to communicate with.

Creating the common language takes time in smaller groups.