The collaboration approach: a complete mindset turnover

I was recently having a post-meeting discussion with a Latin America CIO on how the collaboration approach is changing the way we interact personally and do business.

A long time ago, it was common not to have information about something. Only the rich could afford information. Sharing? I would guess the dictionaries from that time did not have this word (joking, obviously). Did anyone imagine that one day this would change?

Nowadays, we experience the opposite. We have so much information coming from everywhere that there is no way to catch up with everything. Twitter, for example, was made to be instant. Checking the tweets that you have received just at the end of the day is too late. By then, it’s old news.

But how can someone work, go to meetings, sleep, go out, study, and still be online? This is the challenge that “non-Digital natives” are facing right now. This does not seem "normal" for most older people (and to a certain level I include myself here). There is no going back. We are all connected.

And in my opinion, the biggest change happening is that the idea of collaboration is shifting from…

 “…If I share information on what I know/experience with others, I might get information when I need it.”

To…

“…I share because I know I will get help when I need it. I share to pay off the innumerous times that I found an answer on search websites. I share because I want everyone to benefit from the outcome of my struggle or my research, simply because I also got these benefits at some point and time”.

Have you ever thought that this can be seen as “online volunteering”? The information you share may help someone who is struggling with their phone, or trying to figure out the past participle for “run”, or wondering if a certain movie theater is good. The possibilities are really endless. There are no boundaries for collaboration.

Because we, as current and prospective IT professionals, tend to be more into what is going on online, we need to be key players in this process: not only showing examples of how sharing can help everyone to be more productive, but leading by example!

At GE, we have our own tool, GE Connect, ready to be filled up with content in a blog manner. GE Connect is an online portal similar to Facebook that allows for group interaction and collaboration. As IMLPs, the business looks to us to share the benefits of this tool and others.

Here in Brazil, the Welcome Week (onboarding) for new leadership programs (LPs) happens with all programs together, because there are not that many individuals in total. Thus, we also end up being very close friends to the FMPs (Financial Management Program), CLPs (Commercial Leadership Program) and OMLPs (Operations Management Leadership Program), which is amazing! We have used these connections to promote the use of GE Connect.

Check out some of the things the LPs have done to promote collaboration:

• We created an initiative called “LP Living Tips” where we share useful tips about the cities where we are rotating: where to live, sightseeing, restaurants, bars, parks, and anything else potentially valuable to others;
• We have a session named LKS – LP Knowledge Share, where each group of LPs teaches interesting topics on their particular knowledge area. In our first session we had:
  • IMLPs: Productivity tools
  • CLPs: Marketing
  • FMPs: FX and the impact on the Balance Sheet
  • OMLPs: Theory of Constraints
  • We have a LatAm LP Community where all the information is gathered:
    • Events Calendar;
    • Business information;
    • Programs manuals;
    • All LPs profiles
    • FAQ (links to data classification standards, tips, etc.)
• We are currently discussing the possibility of creating a GE Connect for the LPs in Latin America to share random blog posts (with any GE subject that others would comment about, for example). 

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