Tag: collaboration

Designing a Garden, Decision Making Rights, and Intentional Collaboration (6-4-25)

Last week was about bags of rock and not assuming you’re a burden.  This week is about decision making rights and intentional collaboration.

Technically, it is my wife’s garden.  However, she did invite us all to collaborate in certain ways.  She was very clear that she alone was going to decide how to design the space, which included creating the paths, setting up the rock, and deciding which structures go where.  Outside of the creating the space, she invited us in to help populate the space.  We had the opportunity to choose flowers, vegetables, colors, and other potential decorations.  My contribution is this cool cat statue that hangs out in the corner 😉

Let’s connect this to decision making rights and intentional collaboration.  Sometimes, when people think of collaboration, they assume this means that everyone has an equal part throughout every step of the decision-making process.  Have you ever experienced this on a project?  I have, A LOT.  I’d argue that our culture of consensus leads to this as well.  Approaching problems in a manner where there has to be 100% consensus is incredibly inefficient and slow.  The fact is that not everyone has equal decision rights in any given situation.  The fact is that everyone’s viewpoint and feedback should not be equal in every situation. 

Notice what my wife did in our story this week.  She was crystal clear that she was the decision maker on the garden design.  This clarity let the kids and I know not to spend any time there.  My wife was also very clear on where she wanted our input.  As a result, we could focus our time and efforts in that area.  While my kids and I may not have weighed in on every decision, we were still able to contribute in meaningful ways.  We are still proud of our contributions.

The challenge: Will you take the time to outline who has the true decision making rights?  Will you take the time to outline roles and responsibilities when you begin collaborating?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Super Mario 3D World and Working Together (4-6-23)

Last week was about video games and diagnosing the situation before offering any advice.  This week is about Super Mario 3D World and the challenges of working together.

Super Mario 3D World is our latest 4 player family video game.  It’s a cute adventure with Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Peach who work together to stop Bowser.  It’s also an INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING game at times.  How can something so cute and joyous be so frustrating?  It’s all because the actions of the characters impact each other, so it’s easy to get blindsided and knocked off track.  You might run into another character and accidentally knock them off the edge to their doom.  You might go to one side of the screen, making the screen follow you, so no one else can see what they are doing, leading to their death.  You might get lost in all of the chaos and get ambushed by a lowly goomba.  In order to survive, we have to be able to look at our own character and how everyone else is moving.  We also have to spend a lot of time coordinating and communicating.    Sometimes, we even have to pause the game to talk about what we need to do, so we are all on the same page.  This is the only way to capture the flag at the end of each level to advance.

What if work is just like Super Mario 3D World?  Think about it.  You have multiple players with various skill levels who all have their own power-ups and abilities.  Everyone is racing to a goal.  Your actions impact you and others around you and vice versa.  Have you ever been blindsided by actions of a “player”?  Maybe, you’ve been hit by an unexpected process at the worst time.  Maybe, you were trying to zig, while everyone else was zagging.  Maybe, you had a deadline ambush you from behind a corner.  Maybe, you made a decision that had unintended ramifications down the road.  I know all these things have happened to me.  Like my family playing Super Mario 3D World, in order to be successful you have to understand your role AND look at the big picture to see how it all fits together with other players.  You need to spend time communicating with the other players.  Sometimes, you might even have to pause and slow things down to ensure everyone is aligned on the end goal.  That’s the only way to win.

The challenge: How are you integrating with all of the players in your game?  What are you doing to ensure everyone is working together?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry