Requirements for Collaboration - my experiences

I posted on Sunday ideas on how to implement collaborative learning.

This week Monday and Tuesday were tough days. Hence this additional post tonight.

Monday

It was a day of intense preparations by my team to the Board. We learned how the Board of Directors can promote collaborative learning. Tuan Haji Ishak Hashim., a Director on our Board emphasized the need for democratic learning and what we can do about it. Insightful ideas, incisive action plans and a day of soul searching led to very meaningful learning as a result of co labouring due to intentional design.


Tuesday

A day most INFJ Chief Executives would worry about. On the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), I am an INFJ. FJ executives tend to be more emotionally driven than TJ executives who are more logical. That is as simple as I can describe the MBTI. Suffice for now, that there is much more to be explained in MBTI but as an ISFJ, I had to grapple with decisions I had to make as a CEO.

The day started pretty good. We had the opportunity of meeting the Chairman of one of Malaysia’s leading corporations. The one hour we were with him, we learned so much due to the collaborative nature of the meeting. His remarks drawn from Napoleon Hill impacted me enormously. This is one of the reasons I am blogging well past 1200 mid night. He said:

If you want to be the person you want to be then you must WALK, TALK and BEHAVE like the person you want to be.

Powerful learning for all of us.

The second part of the day was a painful one as a young person whom I handpicked for a senior position in the future made an abrupt departure from the organisation giving us the required notice. Challenging and tough but the truth of the matter is that people change their minds very fast.

The three months training investment was gone. My recent article Does Training lead to employee attrition ( International Society for Performance & Instruction) argued for the need to train. Yes, I firmly believe so. As much as I am a firm believer in employee training, I cannot but emphsasie the need for employee retention analysis.

More tough for me was the need for me to ask the person to leave immediately. Tough but I had to make that decision as a CEO responsible to my shareholders and employees.

Collaborative Learning requires the participation of all. It does not work one way. Maybe I was not collaborative enough. That is the only self criticism I can think of.

Managing a successful business like ours is tough. And, I learned today, CEO’s are paid to make tough decisions. I still agonise as a human being though.

Collaboration is tough indeed. The passion to help people learn and perform despite meeting people like this every now and then fuels my contribution journey.

I am sure you know how hurt I am even though I have done my job as a CEO.
Lessons learned - collaborative learning requires intentional design, co - labour and meaningful learning.

One passenger can derail the train. Beware.

Comments

Murali said…
In my view People Management/ Human capital development is, and will remain, one of the glues that ensure that the enterprise can operate as a cohesive whole. The line of sight should be focused on assisting the organization in understanding, managing and improving the “business” and the "employee themselves". This has everything to do with attracting individuals who have the capacity to understand business, to think conceptually and strategically, and to express themselves as business people. One such incident dotted in between number of success stories can't derail our passion to help people grow, this very belief would be the foundation to the survival of any organization.

The CEO's job is very tough as they have to balance 2 key economic artifacts "Money" and "People". You call some shots favoring this side and some shots on the other. They have no choice but to act fast and act in a clinical fashion. They cannot let issues like this taking central stage as they are capable of diverting "Focus from Business" and drain organizational energy. A momentary blip is good enough to render an organization non-competitive. Mark Twain quoted it beautifully:


"The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn’t prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot."

Mark Twain (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Chapter XXXIV)
2:23 PM
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