I hear the word collaboration a lot in L&D and if there is a more misused word in workplace activity, I haven’t found it yet.

Collaboration should mean people working together to achieve shared objectives. I hear of collaborative learning, collaborative approaches, and collaborative problem solving. What most people say though, isn’t what they mean.

If we’re collaborating, we are working to achieve the same thing. We might be doing different activities but we’ll be checking in and making sure the thing we wanted at the start is still the target.

If we’re co-operating, we’re more likely than not working towards ‘slightly’ different objectives. There will be crossover between what we do, but our targets are fundamentally a little different.

If we’re co-ordinating, we’re doing different things for different reasons, with different expected end results.

If you work in L&D you should be collaborating. Your aims should be fundamentally ties into the business. Your effectiveness should be measurable by the performance in the business. If you’re not, you’re just co-operating, or even worse, co-ordinating.

Co-ordinating learning activity, which shows how busy you are but doesn’t make any difference to the bottom line, is the nadir of modern L&D. We’d love to prove our worth but are afraid it might prove it’s less than what people think it really is. So we keep doing what we’ve always done with different channels, content, and shiny technology in the hope people will engage and buy it.

If you REALLY want to see how to collaborate, please do get in touch to discover how to really prove impact and move your learning to a collaborative successful activity.