Few days ago I came across a very interesting story, which I’m not sure if it is real or not. And to be frank with you I don’t really care! Simply because it is at least an awesome Metaphor and as you will see, it makes sense.
The story is about a farmer who grew award-winning corn. He used to win the state fair every year. Intrigued with such amazing record, a local newspaper sent a reporter to interview this farmer. When asked what was his secret, that was the answer:
“Every year I share with my neighbours my best seeds”
Even more intrigued, the reporter asked why he was doing that since these neighbours were his competitors every year. The answer was amazingly simple and powerful:
"Didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbours grow good corn."
This story brought a myriad of memories where I saw this sort of ‘phenomenon’ happening several times…. But with people and not corns.
Here we see at least two dimensions where the “seed sharing” effect can take place: the personal and the professional. And quite often these two dimensions overlap each other at some extent.
Under the personal perspective the first big challenge is the acceptance of this paradigm, which in my view goes against our natural act to hold to ourselves our strengths in order to have an edge or advantage against ‘others’. But in this text I want to explore how this phenomenon can directly affect the results delivered by a team in the work environment.
I’m pretty sure that if you look back (or around!) you will remember of several situations where you saw this phenomenon taking place in a specific team as well.
In my personal opinion, which is heavily based on my experience, the performance of a team is directly related to how much the team members share ‘the good seeds’.
When people share new insights, solutions, knowledge or even just time, the overall performance is consistently more solid and, as a consequence, better. On the other hand, those teams where people hold to his/her own corner and where communication is poor, the performance tend to be at least ‘shaky’.
Even more important, there is a snowball effect that works one way or another. Teams where there is a good level of “seeds sharing” see a continuous level of improvement, which tends to have the work done with higher levels of quality using less resources, whereas teams where the level of collaboration is poor the results tend to be the opposite.
And quite surprisingly, there is no direct connection between great levels of performance and high level of happiness, which means that within these type of teams the level of commitment is detached of the level of satisfaction or happiness.
Collaboration, high performance and low levels of satisfaction? That may sounds a little bit crazy, but this is the type of situation where these teams show the most powerful effect of Collaboration: Each individual build a strong level of commitment with the group. They are much more inclined to give the ‘extra mile’ for the team. There is a sense of purpose. Built and forged by the collaboration among the team.
They win or lose together.
They stay longer, assume more risks and work harder, because they have a sense of responsibility with each other, even if they are not exactly happy with the company or their jobs. Of course, high performance professionals will not stay too long in environments like that, but while they are part of the team they will collaborate, share and give their best.
A keen manager or team leader will look for opportunities to improve the way the collaboration takes place. He/She will not only encourage the exchange of ideas and insights, but will create mechanisms and conditions where the team will feel comfortable, confident and stimulated to do so. For example, each team member can have assigned a relevant topic to study and then present to the rest of the team his findings in a weekly team meeting.
Regardless the mechanisms that you put in place to improve the collaboration, it is important to make sure that there will be in place a open communication line, a transparent criteria and flexibility to allow quick adaptation for changes. The team needs to work to make this environment not only energised but do their best to make it fun as well.
It is not the single answer like a silver bullet, but working to improve the level of collaboration and knowledge sharing is a powerful tool to build high performance teams with an embedded strong sense of commitment. And if that is paired with one environment where this effort is linked with the business objectives and a fair system of recognition and rewards, then the sky is the limit.
And if you have a little more time, do not miss the article called “Small actions, big difference!”