Time to shift from competition to collaboration

Published on Linked In Aug 20th 2020

Free market thinking, underpinned by a competitive mindset, has dominated the way we have run organisations for the last 40 years but with the advent of a global pandemic it’s time to shift to collaboration. We have been told repeatedly by governments around the world that we need to work together but what does this actually mean in practice?

Competition is driven by a win lose mentality with individuals and organisations constantly looking for a competitive advantage to exploit in order to gain market share and access ever increasing profits. Whilst it celebrates the values of freedom it can undermine group benefit and can justify bad behaviours on the basis of outcomes.

Collaboration relies on cooperation, courage to speak truth, taking turns, honesty, and humility. It is undermined by commanding, gossiping, restricting communication, work slowdowns, and retaliatory behaviours.

So how do you do it? You may have gathered that collaboration goes hand in hand with empowering leadership, b…