Are you used to thinking in terms of competition instead of collaboration? If you answered "Yes" to that, you're not alone. Take a look at our language, and you can easily see how competition is implicitly and explicitly woven into it:
"It's a dog eat dog world."
"Gotta step on someone's head to get ahead when you climb the ladder of success."
"There's only enough for one of us here, may the best man win."
Geez, talk about limited mental programming! What if there was enough for everyone (there is), success happened with every choice sans hurting another (it does, there's always the opportunity to learn - success!), and we aren't dogs wanting to attack each other, defending our domain (also true when you look through the lens of trust and transparency instead of fear).
Here's a wild idea - What if we collaborated with our "competition" and were able to have an even bigger impact, benefitting everyone involved?
It's not a pie in the sky idea, it's happening, right now.
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending an event called Radical Collaboration at Temple (a green nightclub) in San Francisco. It was hosted by 3rd Whale, GenGreen, and Creative Citizen. These three companies would have been considered competition for each other, until they got together, assessed their strengths and needs and found they fit together nicely. Funny that!
This isn't a typical, old paradigm merger where "the best man wins" and one company buys out another. It's collaboration, partnership, conversation, lifting each other up. All guests of the event were encouraged to do the same, talking with as many as possible about what they can offer and what they're looking for. I had a fantastic time. That's what happens when you're open to the moment and authentically chatting it up with people.
What collaborations would you like to see happen? Which ones would you want to participate in?
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