How to Boost your thinking process - collaborating with others toward achieving the team’s goals

How to Boost your thinking process - collaborating with others toward achieving the team’s goals

Say you need to pick up a new skill – how would you go about it? Spend some time figuring it out by yourself or ask someone already in the know to teach you the ins and outs?

If you’re likely to go with the former, it might be time to reconsider.

Whether learning a new recipe, putting the finishing touches on that golf swing or mastering a new piece of software, you’ve got a much better chance of getting the hang of things if you learn from someone with experience.

Collaboration is the mother of innovation – shared thinking trumps solo thinking every time.

That might sound slightly counterintuitive. After all, brilliant thinkers are often depicted as brooding soloists going it alone. But that’s not the case – innovative breakthroughs rarely happen in a vacuum. More often than not, they’re the result of people working together.

Einstein often said that his achievements were founded in the labors of other men. Or think of the work of brilliant duos like scientists Pierre and Marie Curie or musical wunderkinds Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

When people combine their unique talents and ideas, the results can be incredible.
But before you can start working with others, you need to adopt the right mindset.
So what’s that all about?

Well, as the author of How to Become CEO Jeffrey J. Fox puts it, you have to be on constant high alert for good ideas, regardless of how likely or unlikely the source is.

That means dropping prejudices and really listening to people. The next great idea might come from your taxi driver or your children. The point is that you’ll never know unless you’re receptive.

Just as important is striving to adopt a mentality based on collaboration rather than competition. Cooperation happens when your aim is to complete the ideas of others, rather than one-up them.
So next time you’re in a meeting with colleagues, don’t focus on selfishly getting ahead – work toward achieving the team’s goals.