KMC 8) COLLABORATION (Part 3 - NEW VIDEO)

Key Mentorship Characteristics (KMC)

Please feel free to add your perspective on the role of “COLLABORATION” in Mentorship.

Share your experience with respect to this aspect of mentorship and invite others to participate where you feel they could add value to our discussion.

We asked:
• What is the role of COLLABORATION within a mentoring relationship?
• What does COLLABORATION mean to you?
• How is COLLABORATION developed between the mentoring partners?

When it comes to COLLABORATION within a Mentoring relationship, here are a couple of Tips that if followed, should result in a better Mentorship for both the Mentee and the Mentor! 

NEW VIDEO CLIP related to "COLLABORATION" ...

Over the past few years we've asked several of our interviewees for their thoughts related to some of the Key Characteristics that we’ve seen within Healthy Mentoring Relationships. We're using these to develop a compilation for each characteristic and uploading them to our YouTube Channel. 

We invite you to add your thoughts, comments, experiences and wisdom to that being shared by some of our many experts on this topic. 

Listen to their responses, compare them with your own experience and then share your thoughts on BOTH our YouTube Channel and on this post to the Mentorship BLOG.

Before viewing the video clip, let me express our deep appreciation and special thanks to these friends for sharing their time and Mentorship experience with all of us, and helping us to bring this collection to you:

 * David Saxby - Spark Communications Inc.
 * Claire Clark - Aboriginal Women's Professional Association
 * Norm Greenwood - Greenwood 2 Management
 * Jared Smith,  Principal at "Incite"
 * Peter Bradbury, MBA, CA - Calgary Volunteer Business Mentor (Retired)
 * Al Petersen - Petersen Buick GMC
 * Dr. William A. Gray - Mentoring Solutions



HERE IS THE LINK TO OUR VIDEO: 
     Title: Mentorship Characteristics - "COLLABORATION" 
  
TO VIEW THE VIDEO CLICK HERE:  URL link http://youtu.be/sz_taXDFg1g

NOW it's YOUR TURN! - Please feel free to share your comments and experiences with respect to this aspect of mentorship. 

WHAT'S been your experience with respect to COLLABORATION within MENTORSHIP?

Also, help us to reach others who could benefit from participating in this discussion. We welcome your 'sharing' this page with those in your circle of contacts!

Questions:

   • What is the role of COLLABORATION within a mentoring relationship?

   • What does COLLABORATION mean to you?

   • How is COLLABORATION developed between the mentoring partners?

8) KMC - COLLABORATION (Part 2)

Key Mentorship Characteristics (KMC) ... COLLABORATION

We asked:

• What is the role of COLLABORATION within a mentoring relationship?
• What does COLLABORATION mean to you?
• How is COLLABORATION developed between the mentoring partners?

Here are a few additional thoughts we wanted to share with you. These come from a variety of sources as well as from our own personal experiences: 

We know that more can almost always be accomplished by working together as a TEAM, than by trying to do things solo. Cooperation, collaboration and commitment to seeing a project through are all required if the team is to be successful. Can we bring these ingredients to the teams that we need to work with?

Working together with others, as with a team in sports, provides a greater depth of talent, experience and resources that benefits everyone. Call it cooperation, collaboration, partnership or a strategic alliance – it’s always nice to have extra help to get the job done!

A lot of the work that I do is in collaboration with others, so it’s vitally important that all parties, fully ENGAGE in the process. Having a partner in ‘name only’ does little to actually help achieve your objective. In fact, it likely hinders you from achieving what might have otherwise been possible.

I like to revisit our objectives every now and again with my team when working with entrepreneurs. For the work we do, our “5-C Client Service Focus” keeps our attention on the Client, our Content, our Contacts, our Collaborations and our Creativity. It reminds all of us of what we are trying to do, and the strategies we are using to get us there!

Why do I enjoy collaborating with others to get things done? There are many reasons, but one of the most compelling is the “multiplication” of our collective STRENGTH. Together, our STRENGTH is greater than the sum of our individual STRENGTH.

I think we really do ourselves (and others) a great disservice when we choose to not cooperate and collaborate with others. Not only does COLLABORATION help each of us to get things done, but we would likely find better ways of achieving those objectives.

“There are FEW LIMITS more difficult to overcome, than those we impose upon ourselves.” 

What is Collaboration?

It's, I work with you - YOU work with ME.
It works for YOU, and it works for me.
... That's COLLABORATION.

Collectively, when we tap into the skills, knowledge and expertise of others we significantly increase our capacity, and for all practical purposes ... there are, "NO LIMITS".

I like the quote from Zig Ziglar who said, “You can get everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” (Secrets of Closing the Sale - 1984) 

Let me leave you with the thought: “If you are going to be there, BE there!” In other words, be sure to add value to the meeting, discussion, project, or whatever you are working on with others and particularly in a MENTORING relationship.

NOW - Please feel free to share your comments and experiences with respect to this aspect of mentorship. Also, help us to reach others who could benefit from participating in this discussion. We welcome your 'sharing' this page with those in your circle of contacts!

Questions:
• What is the role of COLLABORATION within a mentoring relationship? 

 
• What does COLLABORATION mean to you? 

 
• How is COLLABORATION developed between the mentoring partners?

John Maxwell - on “COMMITMENT”

As if on cue ... our good friend John Maxwell has added his thoughts on the word “COMMITMENT”, which just happens to be the NEXT “Key MENTORSHIP Characteristic” that we’ll be discussing in the month of OCTOBER!

Great timing ... thanks John! We thought your comments were most appropriate and very applicable for those looking at building Healthy Mentoring Relationships.

 

To whet your appetites, we invite our audience to view John’s comments on COMMITMENT. We think you’ll definitely find some value in what he’s mentioned.

At the same time, we invite you to take a few moments to consider what you can add to our upcoming discussion regarding “COMMITMENT” as it would be seen within a mentorship relationship.

Perhaps the following questions might serve as a starting point:

• What is the role of COMMITMENT within a mentoring relationship?
• What does COMMITMENT mean to you?
• How is COMMITMENT developed between the mentoring partners?

We’re looking forward to hearing from you soon with your comments and we’ll be posting a few more details soon!

Just before you view John’s video clip on “COMMITMENT” we’d like to take a moment to mention that we’ve really enjoyed the daily, "Minute with Maxwell" posts that John provides. His free video coaching program succinctly provides insights and clarity to a word of the day, with an opportunity for others to share their comments related to that word. As you view his video, you’ll see that there’s opportunity for you to receive his updates and participate on a regular basis.

NOW ... Here’s a link to the comments on COMMITMENT from our friend, John Maxwell.  Enjoy - CLICK HERE

“Why do we collaborate?” - A Special Post for "COLLABORATION"

We really enjoyed listening to the recorded podcast of July 12, 2013 for the TED Radio Hour. The topic immediately grabbed our attention, as we're sure you’ll see why. 

The title was: “Why do we collaborate?”

We encourage you to read the overview of this session and then listen to the interviews, which include:

1. An interview with Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia – an online collaborative encyclopaedia built through the efforts of individuals who volunteer to lend their expertise to it’s development.
2. Next, Luis Von Ahn describes the unique and creative approaches used in his Duolingo project, teaching students languages by getting them to translate the web. This is something that we found to be fascinating and we've added some additional notes below!
3. Clay Shirky, provides some great ideas on how our free time can be used more creatively to increase civic value.
4. The discussion with Jason Fried may spark passionate argument between those on either side of the flexible work environments debate. Jason explains why the workplace is often so unproductive and proposes an alternative.
5. And then Jennifer Pahlka weighs in on the role that citizens have to not only be consumers of government services, but to become actively involved and pro-active in making desired changes a reality.
   

All of the above interviews can be heard on the NPR Website at:
      http://www.npr.org/2013/07/13/197986218/why-we-collaborate


Foot Notes: 

Louis von Ahn is an associate professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and he's at the forefront of the crowdsourcing craze. His work takes advantage of the evergrowing Web-connected population to acheive collaboration in unprecedented numbers. His projects aim to leverage the crowd for human good. His company reCAPTCHA, sold to Google in 2009, digitizes human knowledge (books), one word at a time. His new project is Duolingo, which aims to get 100 million people translating the Web in every major language.

Quotes by Luis von Ahn

“Before the Internet, coordinating more than 100,000 people, let alone paying them, was essentially impossible. But now with the Internet, I’ve just shown you a project where we’ve gotten 750 million people to help us digitize human knowledge.”

“Every time you buy tickets on Ticketmaster, you help to digitize a book.”

“The current business model for language education is the student pays — in particular, the student pays Rosetta Stone $500. The problem with this business model is that 95 percent of the world’s population doesn’t have $500.”

“The question that motivates my research is, if we can put a man on the Moon with 100,000 [people], what can we do with 100 million?”

Sourced from http://www.ted.com/speakers/luis_von_ahn.html

8) KMC - COLLABORATION (Part 1)

Key Mentorship Characteristics (KMC) ... COLLABORATION
 

Definition - "Collaboration" is the process of working with others in order to develop something, frequently something that is greater than would otherwise have been possible for either party to realize on their own.

We asked:

• What is the role of COLLABORATION within a mentoring relationship?
• What does COLLABORATION mean to you?
• How is COLLABORATION developed between the mentoring partners?

Here are a few related thoughts from our personal experience:
 

If we can truly achieve more by working together, then COLLABORATION is an approach that merits closer investigation, particularly within a mentoring relationship. When you get together, be sure to bring your IDEAS and ENERGY to the table, SHARE them with the other party, and see what you can BUILD together.
 

In mentorship relationships, we encourage both parties to be flexible and adaptive to learn from each other. While one might assume it is the Protégé who learns from the Mentor, many Mentors have also experienced growth within a dynamic mentorship relationship! We'll never forget what one of our past Mentors said when we asked him about WHAT he was getting out of his mentoring relationship. Our good friend Bruce Wiebe said, “Being a Mentor is great! Working with a Protégé makes you think about why you do the things you do. Being a Mentor allows me to share and it keeps me sharp!” In other words, Bruce was saying that he also got great value out of being involved in the mentoring relationship.

Todd Hirsch, with ATB Financial, Leann Hackman-Carty, with Economic Developers Alberta and Jim Ewing

It was great to meet Todd Hirsch, Economist with ATB Financial, and snap a quick photo with Leann Hackman-Carty, Executive Director with Economic Developers Alberta. This photo was taken when I attended the Annual Conference for Economic Developers Alberta in April of 2012 - that's when Jim picked up a copy of Todd's book - “The Boiling Frog Dilemma: Saving Canada from Economic Decline”.

Co-authored with Robert Roach, the authors provide many interesting perspectives on how to approache the challenges facing Canadian businesses. As it relates to Collaboration, the following was in a section called, the New Canadian Entrepreneur, on page 169.  We thought it was very appropriate and equally relevant within mentorship, as well as within entrepreneurship. What do you think?

10) The New Canadian Entrepreneur is a community-builder and networker.

“... the new entrepreneur will be a voter, a volunteer, and a collaborator. She will be at the centre of a strong network of relationships and she will seek out interaction with a wide range of diverse people on a regular basis. She will be a global citizen, but she will have strong ties to her local place and be a proud Canadian. She will know instinctively that you have to give to get and that it is people and communities that make for a strong economy, not just profits and growth.”

Having worked with many entrepreneurs who are trying to advance their business dreams, we believe that COLLABORATION is more important today than it ever has been. The ‘Lone Ranger’ approach of doing things totally on your own is more likely to isolate you in today’s complex world, with security and environmental concerns added to global economic and competitive forces.

NOW - Please feel free to share your comments and experiences with respect to this aspect of mentorship. Also, help us to reach others who could benefit from participating in this discussion. We welcome your 'sharing' this page with those in your circle of contacts!

Questions:
• What is the role of COLLABORATION within a mentoring relationship? 

 
• What does COLLABORATION mean to you? 

 
• How is COLLABORATION developed between the mentoring partners?