Ep#43: Collaboration Fatigue - How to Fix the Most Overrated Buzzword in Business

Has collaboration become a catch-all solution, losing the focus and impact it was meant to deliver?

In this episode, Dr. Dani and Designer Peter unpack why collaboration often feels more like a burden than a boost. They explore how overuse and misuse have turned it into an overrated buzzword and what teams can do to bring intention and effectiveness back to colloboration.

In this episode, you will
• Understand why collaboration fatigue is holding teams back.
• Learn how to identify when collaboration is necessary—and when it’s not.
• Discover actionable strategies to balance solo and group work for better results.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Dr Dani: Hey, Peter. 

[00:00:00] Designer Peter: Hello, Dani. 

[00:00:02] Dr Dani: How are you? 

[00:00:02] Designer Peter: I'm great. Thanks. How are you today? 

[00:00:04] Dr Dani: I am good. What are we talking about today? 

[00:00:09] Designer Peter: Today, Dani, we are talking about when to work as a group and when to work solo during a design project. That's our starting point anyway. 

[00:00:21] Dr Dani: Who knows where this chat would go. 

[00:00:23] Designer Peter: Yeah. 

[00:00:24] Dr Dani: When you say that, there's two things that come to mind for me.

[00:00:26] Dr Dani: One is, does it have to be just within a design project? But this is the design thinker podcast. And the second thing that comes to mind, which I'm hearing a lot from people at the moment is it seems like organizations , in an attempt to be more collaborative, we've created this culture of.

[00:00:45] Dr Dani: endless meetings. 

[00:00:47] Designer Peter: Yeah. 

[00:00:47] Dr Dani: And that leads to, ironically, that leads to less collaboration. 

[00:00:53] Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah. I'm seeing something similar, actually. I see it slightly differently in that don't think the meeting, endless [00:01:00] meetings are, they're connected, but I don't think it's a direct result of an attempt to collaborate.

[00:01:04] Designer Peter: I think what's happened is we've tried to collaborate and we've reverted back to some old behavior patterns, which in my experience tended to be let's have a meeting and endless meetings and some people end up in just meetings back to back and do the actual work after hours. And then just going back to the kind of the conversation starting topic.

[00:01:25] Designer Peter: I'm slightly uncomfortable with the word project because it's slightly limiting and it's not du jour these days is that we don't do projects. We do initiatives or create products. But I guess when I was thinking of what we could talk about that was the first thing that popped into mind. What I really mean is when we're designing or design thinking rather than Thanks And the word project was to describe everything and anything, all the different activities that we might be doing.

[00:01:50] Designer Peter: So I thought it'd be interesting to, yeah, talk about everything. We've just we just brought to life there. In addition to defaulting to going to a meeting, [00:02:00] sometimes We ourselves and other people who hear about doing design or design thinking their mental model is a bunch of workshops and working together all the time.

[00:02:10] Designer Peter: Whereas in my experience, that's not always the best approach for anyone. So yeah, I thought it'd be cool to chat to you about that and see what your experience and let's see where we get to. 

[00:02:18] Dr Dani: Nice. I just also want to point out that we just did some real rapid iteration 

[00:02:23] Dr Dani: On the fly.

[00:02:24] Dr Dani: So it started out as project, but we've expanded to, it's actually in any kind of design thinking, problem solving context. 

[00:02:33] Designer Peter: We didn't get ready. We got started. We actually hit record early. That's all we did. 

[00:02:40] Dr Dani: But it's also a good example of, we talk about. Rapid ideation we actually do the things that we tell other people to do 

[00:02:48] Designer Peter: Yeah, we do 

[00:02:50] Dr Dani: Yes, okay.

[00:02:53] Dr Dani: So let's get into it. In my organizational research One of the things that [00:03:00] people really complain about, particularly when we talk about productivity is I have so many meetings, I spend all my day going from meeting to meeting. And. The other thing I hear is I go to meetings to talk about the work that I'm going to do, and then I get more work to do, and then I have to go to another meeting to talk about the work that I'm going to do, but then I never actually get time to do the work.

[00:03:29] Dr Dani: And I think that's something I, at this point, I feel like. Almost every interview I do in organizations, from a research perspective, that is a theme that comes up. 

[00:03:41] Designer Peter: Yeah, I think that's a given in almost every organization. That's almost more common than the opposite, where people, have time to do their work in between meetings.

[00:03:52] Dr Dani: So now what? 

[00:03:54] Designer Peter: Now what? Let's let's use our structure to figure stuff out, Danny. So what about we do some definitions? Cause we talked about a [00:04:00] couple of things there. I think we cleared up the project thing, but let's talk about The definition of meeting, the definition of workshop.

[00:04:08] Designer Peter: We have done a whole episode, at least one on collaboration, but we can recap on that. And then maybe it'd be interesting to go when we think of this these, this word solo, and then this word group, then what's the kind of, what's the definitions or spectrums there? Does that sound good? 

[00:04:25] Dr Dani: That sounds great.

[00:04:26] Dr Dani: I actually have an evolving definition of. Collaboration that I'll share from research. Cool. Okay, so let's start with, what's the first word?

[00:04:36] Designer Peter: Let's start where everyone wants us to with meeting. What's the actual definition of meeting according to our dictionary?

[00:04:42] Designer Peter: So from Oxford languages, the definition, dictionary definition of a meeting is an assembly of people for a particular purpose, especially for formal discussion. We held an urgent meeting to discuss the response to the epidemic. And definition [00:05:00] two is a situation when two or more people meet by chance or arrangement.

[00:05:05] Designer Peter: The example here is he intrigued her on their first meeting. And being the word nerd that I am. Where does this come from, meet 

[00:05:13] Dr Dani: Germanic, Old English, Dutch. I like this definition from Collins dictionary, an act of coming together and encounter an assembly or gathering

[00:05:29] Dr Dani: from Cambridge, a planned occasion when people come together either in person or online. 

[00:05:39] Designer Peter: Oh, okay. Modern. Using 

[00:05:41] Dr Dani: the Yeah, that's a very modern one. 

[00:05:45] Designer Peter: Nice. I think we're both amused by the words used to define the meeting. They're slightly different to our, to the reality of most meetings or some meetings that [00:06:00] we're a part of.

[00:06:01] Dr Dani: These definitions make Meeting sounds interesting. 

[00:06:05] Designer Peter: Let's try and avoid the absolutes Dani. Some meetings are actually really interesting and useful and productive and worthwhile. They are. Some are. Definitely. But then some are the complete opposite. So yeah. 

[00:06:20] Dr Dani: Okay. I'll take that.

[00:06:21] Dr Dani: I'll go with that. 

[00:06:22] Designer Peter: Yeah. That's truly, that's true. There must be some meetings.

[00:06:28] Dr Dani: Yeah, actually, you're right. Let's not work in the absolute. I'm sure there are meetings out there that are fun and interesting. 

[00:06:35] Designer Peter: Yeah. Okay. So that's meeting. What about a workshop? So the dictionary definition of workshop.

[00:06:44] Designer Peter: So first one I've come across is a noun meaning a room or building in which goods are manufactured or repaired. Not exactly what we're looking for here, but I might come back to that. And then definition two, again, a noun, a meeting. [00:07:00] Oh, there's that word. A meeting at which a group of people engage in an intensive discussion and activity on a particular subject or project.

[00:07:10] Designer Peter: And then it's also a verb, present a performance of a dramatic work using intensive group discussion and improvisation in order to explore aspects of the production prior to formal staging.

[00:07:22] Dr Dani: I also found Miriam Webster. A brief intensive educational program for a relatively small group of people that focus especially on techniques and skills in a particular field. So that's more of a training workshop. 

[00:07:44] Designer Peter: Yeah. 

[00:07:46] Dr Dani: I found this on Facebook. Facilitator school, an interactive meeting in which a group of people goes through a series of activities to achieve, to solve a [00:08:00] problem or work on a project.

[00:08:02] Designer Peter: Nice. That's the closest one to, to me. I think what we were talking about, 

[00:08:08] Dr Dani: I 

[00:08:12] Designer Peter: thought it was interesting. The first one I, or the second one actually that I read out there does define it as a type of meeting and maybe I do, I can buy into that and perhaps that's where some of the confusion in organizations comes from.

[00:08:28] Designer Peter: Okay. Workshop, meeting. One of yours mentioned online as well, didn't it? That modern one. Was that the meeting or was that the workshop? 

[00:08:37] Dr Dani: No, that was in the meeting. 

[00:08:39] Designer Peter: In the meeting, yeah. 

[00:08:43] Dr Dani: But workshops also happen. Online. 

[00:08:46] Designer Peter: Yes, so I was just going to say I think both of those there's in my visual mind there's a little picture forming behind these eyes that is a two by two which is workshop meeting down the side and then online and then I'll call it high [00:09:00] online and face to face in the columns but of course there's a Intersection, maybe there's an intersection in both columns actually, because some meetings are partly workshops and maybe some workshops are partly meetings, likewise, there's an overlap between online and physical.

[00:09:16] Designer Peter: Hybrid. I 

[00:09:17] Dr Dani: think now also our language is changing where we talk about workshop as a verb, we will say, Oh, let's workshop this problem. Let's, is this something that needs to 

[00:09:29] Designer Peter: be workshopped? 

[00:09:30] Dr Dani: All right, that's a 

[00:09:31] Designer Peter: good, yeah, I like that. , almost that's almost for me, that's almost a kind of in case of emergency phrase when we're in a meeting and we're starting to get too much into a meeting and we can go, hang on a minute, maybe We should workshop this.

[00:09:43] Designer Peter: Yes. Actually oh, we could workshop it right now, couldn't we? We could just change our mode. Okay. So we've got workshop, we've got meeting and we've got some dictionary definitions. Do we want to talk about the solo and the group thing now, or should we come back to that? Cause I feel like we could do the [00:10:00] solo and group let's explore that and then get into the whole mixing bowl of meetings, workshops, solo.

[00:10:07] Dr Dani: Let's talk about Let's talk about collaboration first. Oh yeah. I think collaboration is misunderstood like many things, right? It's and we tend to have this happen in our world where we latch on to a word and then it becomes cliche and then everything becomes that word. Collaboration isn't simply bringing a group of people together.

[00:10:33] Dr Dani: That's just Bringing people together. What I have found in my research is that when teams are actually collaborating, what they are doing is they are actually sharing and melding ideas. So they're the act of sharing ideas and taking a little bit from here, a little bit from there, a little bit from here and melding it to create something that cannot be created by an individual.

[00:10:59] Dr Dani: [00:11:00] That is collaboration. So the collaboration is in the work and in the research where I really started to question what do we mean when we say collaboration is when people started to talk to me about Asynchronous ways that they were collaborating, 

[00:11:19] Designer Peter: so a couple of 

[00:11:20] Dr Dani: the teams that I worked with, they were very geographically dispersed.

[00:11:24] Dr Dani: Some of them actually worked in completely different time zones. And when I say completely, when part of the team is sleeping, the other part is awake, but they were still a team. So they started talking about their ways of, Collaborating and it was all asynchronous methods where, the team that was awake during that time of day, they would shape things and put their ideas down and leave notes for the other team.

[00:11:48] Dr Dani: When they came back online, they would, and then they did have moments where they did synchronize their schedule and come together to have discussions. But most of their [00:12:00] collaboration was happening asynchronously. So then I started to question Are we understanding collaboration incorrectly? And I feel like we do.

[00:12:09] Dr Dani: And I think this is where this culture of we need to be more collaborative. So let's get people together is a misguided attempt at collaboration. 

[00:12:20] Designer Peter: Okay. I love that story. It's nothing like a good extreme example to bring something to life. So yeah the people on the team or some of the people on team couldn't be in more extreme opposite time zones and yet they are, and yet they are collaborating.

[00:12:34] Designer Peter: They may not be directly speaking to each other and yet they are collaborating. And coming back to this kind of lightbulb moment when you said that, essentially collaboration is the result of collaboration is something that could not have been created by an individual. So I think that's a really, for me anyway, it's a really nice, simple litmus test.

[00:12:52] Designer Peter: Do we need to collaborate? Can one person create this thing? Yes, they can. We don't need to collaborate. Does more than one [00:13:00] person need to work on this to create it? Yes. Okay. We need to collaborate. And then, like you say, I think often yeah, we can jump straight to that therefore we need a meeting because that means we're all being in the same place at the same time or, sometimes we'll go actually we need a better version of a meeting, a workshop so that we can collaborate, but as you're saying, not necessarily. Okay yeah. 

[00:13:23] Dr Dani: I see it happening. Like a coming together, coming apart, coming together, coming apart kind of effect, right?

[00:13:30] Dr Dani: Yeah. 

[00:13:31] Designer Peter: It's like breathing. It's something breathing, expanding, contracting, expanding, contracting. That's my, I think we're on the same wavelength. 

[00:13:37] Dr Dani: Yes. Because we need time individually, which you've been referring to a solo, like we need solo time to think, to reflect, to pull together the ideas and then we get together and we go this is what I was thinking about this. So there's collaboration. You cannot collaborate all the time with [00:14:00] people. Collaboration also needs to create space to, 

[00:14:04] Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:05] Designer Peter: Definitely. Let's keep going with this. This is what I was hoping we would get into in our conversation today. It's like this idea that, it's. You can't spend all of it. I think we've talked before, like you, you have slightly more extroverted preferences and I have slightly more introverted preferences.

[00:14:21] Designer Peter: Even an extrovert would probably not want to spend all their time working with other people. You tell me that. You can represent all extroverts. What does the research tell us, Dani? 

[00:14:38] Dr Dani: There's the, so extroversion and introversion are on a scale, right? When I the younger version of me.

[00:14:44] Dr Dani: Was super extroverted as I've gotten older, I've gotten less so extroverted. So you would think that for somebody that's extroverted by the time I get to the end of my day and I've sat through eight meetings, I'd be like, yay, life is amazing. It's [00:15:00] not. 

[00:15:00] Designer Peter: Simon Sinek said pocket full or empty of coins depending on, so you'd have bulging you'd have like sacks of money walking at the office, look at me full of energy money.

[00:15:10] Dr Dani: For me, even as an extrovert, if I have spent my whole, my, my whole day talking to people, by the time I get to the end of the day, it is exhausting. I got to the point where I feel like I can't even verbalize a thought. To my husband at the end of the day after that, right?

[00:15:24] Dr Dani: Which he probably really appreciates because he is an introvert. When I'm struggling to speak, it's like a holiday for him. 

[00:15:32] Designer Peter: He doesn't have control of your calendar by any chance, does he? 

[00:15:35] Dr Dani: Maybe there's like a secret plot happening. So so if I'm feeling that way as an extrovert, I can only imagine what that feels like for an introvert, the other thing that happens in gatherings, whether meetings or workshops, there is a lot of pressure to extroverts are really good at externally processing and I'm generalizing here cause I'm sure that there are some, so for me, a lot of times when I [00:16:00] need to process something, I think through something, I need to talk it out.

[00:16:03] Dr Dani: Yeah. It's like verbalizing. It helps me think introverts are not that way. And I, in my experience of introverts is that they need that time away, quietly to think process, get to a conclusion and then come back into the conversation. So one of the things I always question is this hyper mode of meetings that we're in.

[00:16:26] Dr Dani: How many good ideas are we missing? Because the style of our work isn't creating the space for the way for the different ways that people exist, right? 

[00:16:40] Designer Peter: Yeah. That's yeah that, that's for me, that's more than a question. Like I've experienced it, not had a chance to come back to something and contribute ideas because it's been something that's running.

[00:16:50] Designer Peter: I'll describe it as an extrovert kind of style. So yeah, the lots, I think is the answer to your question . But it brings to life a good point, which is. There's [00:17:00] what we're trying to achieve as a group of people. If we've established that this thing is not achievable by one person, then what do we want to achieve as the group of two or more people?

[00:17:10] Designer Peter: So we're aiming , to produce, deliver, improve, et cetera. But then coming back to the what as individuals and as the group, what do we need in order to perform our best in order to create the best outcome that we can. And so there's this. Yeah the, and I think that's part of it, definitely taking into account both our thinking preferences our kind of behavioral preferences, communication preferences.

[00:17:33] Designer Peter: And I think there's also something and, sorry, just pause by the way. I think we're into our next segment of our structure, which is not the definitions, what is this and why is it important? Yeah. And then we'll get onto that. But there, there's something that, there are some activities which almost by definition, you can only do as an individual.

[00:17:51] Designer Peter: Like I can only, I can write down what's in my head. I can't get you to write down what's [00:18:00] telepathy. It hasn't worked yet. Likewise, there's only some, there's some activities that can literally only be done by a group of people. You know that by definition, we need to find the best way and times to go apart and then come together again.

[00:18:14] Designer Peter: Like this breathing that we talked about go apart, come together again. So it's not just a what I'm trying to say. It's not just it's almost like three layers. There's the need that we have the thing that we need to achieve figuring out the best way to achieve it. So that means figuring out what activities to do and then figuring out the best way to run those activities and the answer to that is sometimes going to be solo time, individual time, sometimes going to be group time, and sometimes that individual time will be sitting next to somebody at a desk or a table in a workshop or in a meeting.

[00:18:44] Designer Peter: That's why facilitators ask people just to keep quiet and write stuff down. 

[00:18:49] Dr Dani: I'm very mindful when I do workshops making sure that I create space for people to stop and think. 

[00:18:55] Designer Peter: Yeah. 

[00:18:56] Dr Dani: And jot notes like it is on the agenda. It's how I plan the [00:19:00] workshops because if you don't and you jump from one thing to another thing one and we've talked about this before is this idea of our brains, how we talked about that exercise of you read a paragraph, you close your eyes and you just.

[00:19:15] Dr Dani: Kind of sit there and let it, let your brain rest. It's the same thing, that same principle. And the reason that we do that when we're trying to learn something, that pausing is because it's giving your brain time to process and record and make a record of it in your brain. Principle applies in meetings 

[00:19:33] Designer Peter: and 

[00:19:34] Dr Dani: drops like those quiet moments.

[00:19:37] Dr Dani: And as facilitators, we need to be very deliberate because it's not something that people. Naturally do, as humans, we're oriented towards action. We have a bias towards action. This is also why in meetings I don't know if this has happened to you, if there is silence, it's uncomfortable, right?

[00:19:57] Designer Peter: Yeah, definitely. [00:20:00] As you were talking there, I was wondering whether back in the day when we started to evolve our brains and started sitting around campfires and shared stories like whether, I wonder which cultures had silence that was part of their kind of campfire ritual and which which cultures didn't.

[00:20:18] Designer Peter: But I imagine that, yeah I wonder how much there was. Probably not a lot, because the whole point was to gather around and tell stories. But yeah, there is definitely power. We've talked, we've done a whole episode on the power of the pause and the nano pause. And yeah this is, this may not be a great kind of fact or anecdote, but it doesn't One of Amazon's kind of meeting protocols, if you like, have silence built into it.

[00:20:38] Designer Peter: Doesn't one of them start with everyone reading the memo at the beginning? 

[00:20:43] Dr Dani: Oh, yes. 

[00:20:44] Designer Peter: Having some time built into just, say nothing. And then the kind of the conversation part of the meeting. 

[00:20:52] Dr Dani: Yeah, so I think the idea there is rather than sending out a pre read and we're all pretending that we're going to read it and nobody [00:21:00] does.

[00:21:00] Dr Dani: So rather than that being such a waste of time exercise, what they say is, okay, if we are going to have a 30 minute meeting, there's going to be a 10 minute pre read. So you still show up to the meeting. The first 10 minutes are going to be reading. The pre read and then five minutes to think about it, and then we'll have a meeting for 15 minutes.

[00:21:22] Dr Dani: I'm just exampling that, that may not be the right time frames but the idea is that the meeting starts with an individual activity and then moves into a group space. There 

[00:21:34] Designer Peter: you go. And they're quite a successful organization on some levels. Amazon early. 

[00:21:40] Dr Dani: That can be debated. 

[00:21:42] Designer Peter: Of course.

[00:21:42] Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Disclaimer, that, that was a carefully worded statement I'm not a fan boy of Amazon in particular. They do some good, they do some bad, but that sounds like a good, that I think one of the things that they are good at is, or it sounds like they're good at from the external point of view, the stories they tell us, protocols or systems or processes or [00:22:00] disciplines maybe is a good word to describe it.

[00:22:02] Dr Dani: And we can take good ideas can come from anywhere, right? Yeah. So I think the point is that seems like an effective. Idea. Why not try that? 

[00:22:12] Designer Peter: Yeah, exactly. And it's a very specifically defined, described meeting. They're not, they're not calling that a workshop, for example.

[00:22:26] Designer Peter: Okay, where are we at, Dani? 

[00:22:29] Dr Dani: We've talked about, we've defined meeting, we've defined workshop, and we've defined collaboration. Okay. We've been meandering into the why, but I wonder if we need to be explicit about. Why is it important to understand is this something that we need to collaborate on or is this something that someone just needs to do

[00:22:53] Designer Peter: my answer to that question is yes, I think we should do that now because I think that in the conversation, I think what I've [00:23:00] started to see is perhaps that's the crux of the whole thing.

[00:23:02] Designer Peter: If we define that up front, then we can start to Build everything else off that. 

[00:23:07] Dr Dani: Okay. 

[00:23:08] Designer Peter: Maybe. 

[00:23:10] Dr Dani: So maybe we start with the don'ts. When do you not need to collaborate? 

[00:23:15] Designer Peter: Okay. Let's do that. When do we not need to collaborate, honey?

[00:23:20] Dr Dani: I think I've made this harder on ourselveS. what are some of the things that we do in the work environment on a day to day basis that doesn't need collaborating? 

[00:23:30] Designer Peter: You know, I was gonna, I was about to say organizing my time, but then my brain caught me. Maybe that sometimes should or does require collaboration, especially if I'm going to be working with other people.

[00:23:42] Designer Peter: Okay. Okay, come back. That's an agree from you right now writing my own emails, writing my own Teams messages. That's definitely thinking less, this isn't a very concrete definition, but if I'm coming up with, a, Let's say a workshop run sheet and I'm in part [00:24:00] way through designing the work, the workshop and I've got some thoughts that I want to share with other people.

[00:24:05] Designer Peter: Then I'll do that by myself, but then I will go and share it with other people to get feedback on it. So the first step I'm doing by myself, what's that triggered for you? What's that? 

[00:24:15] Dr Dani: What's that's triggered for me is this idea of, sometimes we confuse collaboration and communication.

[00:24:22] Dr Dani: So 

[00:24:23] Designer Peter: yeah. 

[00:24:23] Dr Dani: The calendar thing that you said. Is it that you need to collaborate on your calendar or is it that you decide, look, I'm going to block out this time frame in the morning, because I, that's when I need to do my deep thinking, because when I get into the afternoon, that does, my brain's just not there.

[00:24:42] Dr Dani: So then is it that you block out your calendar in the morning and then you communicate to your team, Hey I would like us to have meetings in the afternoon and here is why. 

[00:24:51] Designer Peter: We, the, yes, you've just described what I currently do. And. And the reasons for it but then as I was thinking through that mental [00:25:00] image, I thought, sometimes it's actually more helpful to.

[00:25:04] Designer Peter: Get together. This is, this may end up being circular, but when I'm working with somebody on something, then it's more productive, quicker to sit down with somebody and let's, I can use another C word, let's coordinate our calendars so that we can spend more time. Working individually and collaborating on this thing that we are collaborating on.

[00:25:25] Dr Dani: Let's use our podcast as a good example for this, so you and I sit down like once a month and go, okay, what are the topics? And, but before we sit down, , I'll make a list. You'll make a list. You'll jot down some ideas. I jot down some ideas. Then we come together and go, what are your ideas? What are my ideas? We put it in our shared document. We talk through them, then we go, okay, when do you want to talk about this? When do you want to talk about that? So that is. collaborating, right? We are planning together what we're going to do on the podcast. You go off and do whatever [00:26:00] your prep process is. I go off and I do whatever my prep process is. Then we come together and we record, then we go away. And then I have the responsibility of editing, which is a solo thing. It would be, I can't, we cannot collaborate to edit.

[00:26:18] Dr Dani: It's a one person job. So I do that. I do that editing piece. And then, I guess if we wanted to, I could edit, send it to you, say, Hey, what do you think about this? But we've just. Decided that Dani will edit and that's what we'll go with. 

[00:26:37] Designer Peter: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:26:38] Dr Dani: But if we wanted to keep collaborating more we could, you could have a listen to the editor version and then give me your feedback.

[00:26:45] Dr Dani: And then I go back and do some more things and then we could go through. And I think this comes to another important point about collaboration is actually being delibrate about when have we done enough collaboration that now we can go off and do the [00:27:00] individual activities and get on with work?

[00:27:02] Designer Peter: Yeah and for me, I think the answer to that is have and this is perhaps why sometimes workshops are better for collaboration than meetings because you know the answer to your question is it's when we have when everyone who is collaborating has been able to contribute to the work in the way that they're best they're best able to contribute so they're best able to use their experience, knowledge and skills to achieve the thing that we're trying to achieve when everyone's had a chance to do that, then we've collaborated enough, 

[00:27:33] Dr Dani: but contributing and collaborating are also a little bit different, right? Because so if I, if we keep going with the podcast example, we might decide at some point, you know what, we're going to hire somebody to do the editing. And we could hire somebody to be a third member of the podcast, but maybe this third person's yeah, I don't want to do that.

[00:27:55] Dr Dani: That's not my, I have no interest, no skill, but I want to be in the [00:28:00] podcasting world. But what I could really bring to the table is editing. So then we take to that person. Okay. That is what you're going to contribute to this. Work and so you and I do what we do and then we hand it over to the editor to do their bit.

[00:28:15] Dr Dani: So they're contributing, but they're not really collaborating, but they're still adding value to the final product. 

[00:28:21] Designer Peter: Okay,

[00:28:22] Designer Peter: I think I get that.

[00:28:23] Designer Peter: So because they're not directly Interacting with us or 

[00:28:28] Dr Dani: They are interacting with us, but it's not if we go back to the collaboration being, it is a melding of ideas, right? We put people together and we take little bits of Peter's ideas, little bits of Dani's ideas. And if we say that is collaboration, but in that collaborative form, relationship, there might be contributing play.

[00:28:51] Dr Dani: So you might have people that are collaborating, and then you might have people that are contributing to creating the final thing [00:29:00] that aren't in that core collaborative relationship. But they're still playing a role in getting that product out. 

[00:29:07] Designer Peter: Go ahead. Go ahead. 

[00:29:09] Dr Dani: And the reason I bring this up is I think this is where in organizations, sometimes we tend to have meetings and workshops with a cast of a thousand.

[00:29:18] Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:29:19] Dr Dani: And then we're dragging people into things that they don't need to. Be in. So in the example of if we were to hire an editor to do our editing for the podcast, then they don't need to log in every time we record an episode. 

[00:29:34] Designer Peter: No. Yeah. 

[00:29:36] Dr Dani: But in organizations, I feel like we'll go, Oh, he does that part.

[00:29:39] Dr Dani: So let's bring him into this. And that person sitting there, like, why am I here? 

[00:29:43] Designer Peter: Yeah. Can we do 

[00:29:45] Dr Dani: that? 

[00:29:46] Designer Peter: I said nice before, but not because I like the problem. It's because it's a nice identification, and that's like the next big thing with meetings and organizations and workshops, actually, is that often there's far too many people as the whole source of reasons for that.

[00:29:59] Designer Peter: But [00:30:00] precisely, I think, again, you're shining a light on a particular issue that we're inviting the editor in to listen to the podcast. They don't need to be doing that. So yeah, nice. Okay. So yeah we're crossing off and starting to, crossing off lots of C words cooperation, contribution, coordination communication, coming back to always coming back to our favor, our collaboration though.

[00:30:25] Designer Peter: So yeah, it's this idea of more than one person's ideas joining together and how to help Make that happen in the best way. So then coming back to meetings then, and maybe it comes down to our experience of, and therefore our mental models of meetings, but meetings for me, they tend to be, they're less about it.

[00:30:44] Designer Peter: I don't know, some meetings are about exchange of ideas, but they're often less about that.

[00:30:49] Dr Dani: And sometimes you get invited to meetings and you don't even know what it's about.

[00:30:58] Dr Dani: You get invited to a meeting, you show [00:31:00] up. There was nothing in the meeting alluding to what it's about. And then you're asked for something that you're completely not prepared for. And then you waste all this time going do you think we need to reschedule? Or can we just try to have the conversation and then we get through a conversation and hours gone by.

[00:31:16] Dr Dani: We haven't really accomplished the thing that should have been accomplished because the people that were invited to the meeting had no idea what the meeting was about. And then you spent this time, you spent half the time debating if you should reschedule and the other time trying to muddle your way through something you're not prepared to do.

[00:31:32] Dr Dani: And then there's an hour gone. 

[00:31:35] Designer Peter: Apologies to listeners if that's given you a flashbacks. Reaching for something to drink. That's a very realistic description of a very real issue there, Dani. So I think I distracted us from the why. So yeah, why? And bring us back to the why. 

[00:31:56] Dr Dani: I don't think you've distracted us.

[00:31:57] Designer Peter: No. Okay. To 

[00:31:58] Dr Dani: bring us back to the [00:32:00] why, the why is this, right? If you're not deliberate about when and the types of things that you need to collaborate on, then everything turns into a collaboration and some things just don't need to be a collaboration.

[00:32:15] Dr Dani: Some things you just need to get on and do. So it's being really clear about where is collaboration needed, where do I, is this something I need to communicate? Is this something that I just need to coordinate with somebody else? Or is this truly something that I need to collaborate on?

[00:32:34] Dr Dani: And I think the distinction might be where collaboration is needed is if you're solving a problem, where you don't know what to do and we've got to figure out what to do, but the thing that you're creating for goes beyond your span of control, right? So let's say the problem is that I'm going to make this like really simple.

[00:32:59] Dr Dani: Let's say the [00:33:00] problem is that my laptop cord isn't working. I can just go fix that. I don't need to collaborate on what is the problem? What are the ideas, I know I'm overly simplifying this, but I don't need to collaborate on that, or let's say I'm trying to pull together a workshop and I'm trying to find a time that works for everybody.

[00:33:21] Dr Dani: I don't have to get everybody into a meeting to talk about when we're going to have the meeting. I can just go. I can just send out a message and go, look, it looks like most people are available at this time, Mary, you don't seem to be available at that time. Can you make that work and shift your calendar around a little bit?

[00:33:38] Dr Dani: That is a coordination act, right? Or a communication act. We don't have to collaborate on that.

[00:33:45] Designer Peter: That's where you reminded me where we were on the don'ts. We don't need to collaborate on. Okay. Okay, may, maybe, should we flip into them what we definitely do need to collaborate on and bring it to life with a couple of your, I like your simple examples. They're good . [00:34:00] So when do we need, why do we Definitely, because there, there's always gonna be a gray area between these, where we, not sure if we should or shouldn't but when do we definitely, when do you think we definitely do need to collaborate or should come out, choose to collaborate.

[00:34:15] Dr Dani: So let's say that that you're creating a new office space or a new store where, everybody's going to be we're more people than yourself or people from different areas are going to be. Using the space, right? That's a good opportunity to collaborate. What do you imagine the space to be used for?

[00:34:39] Dr Dani: What would be useful to you? What kind of work do you do that? What kind of desks do you need? What kind of chairs would you need? Because, and the reason that's a good example of way we want to collaborate is because you're the thing that you are doing is impacting. Lots of different people, right?

[00:34:59] Dr Dani: So I [00:35:00] think one thing to look for is the thing that we are trying to do. Does it touch other parts of the business, the organization, the community, wherever your context is. 

[00:35:11] Designer Peter: Yes. And I'd building on that idea. By definition, no one person can be an expert in absolutely everything. And as as the world, the body of knowledge within the world expands almost exponentially, then we end up being more and more specialized in our knowledge so that therefore we need to bring a few people together to make the most of it.

[00:35:31] Designer Peter: And in your example, let's bring together the people who Do you know about, space design and office furniture and ergonomics and human behavior. And let's also bring together the people who are going to be doing the work like the finance people who need big screens with a lot of spreadsheets on and the designers who like nice screens with good gamma, et cetera.

[00:35:52] Designer Peter: And the people who like the scrum masters who need a stand up space to bring people together, et cetera, et cetera. And the facilities, [00:36:00] people who actually know how this thing might practically work. So bring all those people to collaborate rather than set off on a solo mission. 

[00:36:07] Dr Dani: Yeah. But this is the other thing.

[00:36:09] Dr Dani: Collaboration doesn't have to be end to end. Meaning that, so let's say we're designing a workspace in that example, we don't have to bring all those people you mentioned together for every single thing. It might be, we get together and we go let's get an understanding what everybody wants to do.

[00:36:32] Dr Dani: And then maybe we want to bring everybody that's going to be working on this together so they can hear for themselves. Cause that is a useful exercise. But then maybe the next time we get together, it's just. A smaller group of us getting together to plan the next steps, and then it gets to the point where it's probably just the facility people that are just getting on and doing the work.

[00:36:52] Dr Dani: And at that point, maybe they're communicating to everybody else. This is where we are. These are some decisions. Hey, we've got a [00:37:00] prototype build. Would you like to come see it? So collaboration isn't something that is going to happen. There, there's going to be natural points when collaboration is needed, and then there's going to be, and it's coming back to that breathing in and breathing out metaphor, right?

[00:37:17] Dr Dani: There is, there are times to come together and collaborate and then come apart and let the people that need to get the, get on with the work, get on with the work. 

[00:37:26] Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes, totally agree. With one tiny exception, and I know this, I don't know what word to use instead, but getting on with the work.

[00:37:34] Designer Peter: I know what you mean, but like the collaboration activities themselves are also the work or part of the 

[00:37:39] Dr Dani: work. Sorry. Yeah. That was poor choice of words and on my part, collaboration is actually part of the work. What I meant in that specific case is that there comes a point where other people have to step back and let the people that.

[00:37:56] Dr Dani: Like the finance people aren't gonna know [00:38:00] how to physically design the space that is not their job and their part in that piece of work was to go from a finance perspective, these are the things we need. And maybe some budget things, cause that's what they love to talk about but that's what and then the finance people go back to their finance job and the facilities, people now have the input and, they've collaborated to create.

[00:38:25] Dr Dani: A vision of what the space is going to look like and then you let everybody else steps back so that the facilities people can get on with their work. 

[00:38:33] Designer Peter: Yeah, do their tasks to implement the vision. Nice. Thanks. I just have a thing about, people sometimes see collaboration and often workshops as not work because people are enjoying themselves too much and that can't be work, can it?

[00:38:48] Designer Peter: So I just want to. Pick up and clarify. So thank you for that. I have a question around and I thought actually around I think it is really it is definitely related to this, but I'm trying to bring it to life with an example. Maybe I'll get you to do it as I [00:39:00] describe the situation. So let's say.

[00:39:02] Designer Peter: The need for collaboration comes not entirely from the knowledge that one person has in order to, say about solving a problem, for example, but it comes, the need for collaboration comes from another thing that they don't have. For example you're somebody who has quite a divergent able mind.

[00:39:21] Designer Peter: Then that means that you're great at coming up with ideas, but not necessarily always just as great at kind of choosing or moving forward with ideas. I'm loading up the question here because you can probably see where I'm going. Likewise, coming back to the introversion, extroversion thing, like somebody who's.

[00:39:37] Designer Peter: Great at thinking about things internally isn't always the best at communicating those ideas externally. In my personal experience of both of those things, it's amazing to find someone who's the opposite of you and collaborate with them. Often they may have the same kind of body of knowledge as you, but just that complementary thinking styles and skills can lead to a really productive and enjoyable [00:40:00] collaboration.

[00:40:01] Dr Dani: Yes. I'm laughing because I'm, I just keep seeing Tiger and Eyore. 

[00:40:08] Designer Peter: I was just going to say, I've just subscribed to our podcast, haven't I?

[00:40:14] Designer Peter: So I met a meta world of the design thinker podcast. 

[00:40:21] Dr Dani: So I, some of the best collaborations I've had have actually been with introverts. And if you got a group of. Extroverts, and I am an extrovert, so I feel like I can say this. We would just talk the whole time and nothing would, it would just be like, voices over each other.

[00:40:36] Dr Dani: It'd just be crazy, right? And you're right I enjoy collaborating with introverts because it shows me something that I just cannot see on my own. Lots of my close friends are introverts and they're the ones that have taught me to be more reflective, to 

[00:40:52] Designer Peter: take 

[00:40:53] Dr Dani: pauses, not because they're actively teaching me that, but because they model it.

[00:40:58] Dr Dani: And so then I go, ah, [00:41:00] let me shut up for a minute and see what happens. So yes, absolutely. The risk is that we tend to gravitate towards people that are like us, and then that doesn't always lead to good collaborations. We need to also be mindful of reaching out and working with people that are different from us because they're going to bring something to that.

[00:41:25] Dr Dani: And this is where earlier I said the true definition of collaboration is the melding of perspectives and ideas because we have to. But if everybody in the room. Is, thinks the same, acts the same, has the same background, has the same kinds of experiences, went to the same school, like if they're all cut from the same cloth, if you will then that, those perspectives are going to be similar.

[00:41:52] Designer Peter: Yes and Yeah, maybe we're getting into good collaboration versus better collaboration versus okay [00:42:00] collaboration. And yeah, you can collaborate in that group as you just described, but the outcomes will not be as good. Like science has shown that the more diverse group, the better the outcome when you're collaborating.

[00:42:10] Designer Peter: Yes, 

[00:42:11] Dr Dani: yeah. So Where were we going with 

[00:42:16] Designer Peter: this? What to collaborate on. I think we talked about where we're at as we've given, we've had lots of definitions. We've talked about why collaboration, I think we're elaborating on why collaboration is important. Maybe we get into, into the, some good ways to collaborate and perhaps this kind of brings us full circle to that question we started with around individual and solo working and meetings and workshops.

[00:42:41] Designer Peter: How do we collaborate 

[00:42:43] Dr Dani: First to collaborate well, you've got to identify, is this an opportunity to collaborate? Or am I just wanting to create meetings and bring people together because I'm bored? 

[00:42:56] Designer Peter: Or am I lonely and I need friends at [00:43:00] work? 

[00:43:01] Dr Dani: Because sometimes it does feel that way, did this really have to be a meeting? If you cannot articulate for yourself why we need to collaborate in this moment for this problem, for this project, then it's probably not a situation. For you to collaborate. A good litmus test would be when I create this thing and I put it out into the world, how many different groups of people are going to be impacted by it?

[00:43:30] Dr Dani: So doing some of that thinking up front and then being deliberate about who do we need to collaborate with and then at which points along the way, do they need to collaborate? So if you're setting up a big program of work, let's say you're designing a new. Web app or a web app. Maybe you're creating a new sales app and you start thinking about all the different people you need to collaborate with and you know that project's going to take [00:44:00] 18 months.

[00:44:00] Dr Dani: Let's say is everybody going to need to be involved in the whole 18 months? Or is it some people are going to come in, maybe at the beginning you're doing some discovery work and there's a huge collaborative effort. And on that. And then maybe there's small teams that have pieces of work that they need to do and that becomes a coordination activity.

[00:44:25] Dr Dani: So you have to really think about what is the scope of work to do? Does it require collaboration? And then if yes, then who and then when. One of the things that I'm hearing in organizations is that as human centered design is getting more and more prevalent, people are feeling exhausted because they're like, everybody wants to come talk to me.

[00:44:48] Dr Dani: Everybody wants my input. It's, collaborate this, collaborate that. And people are just exhausted and they're like I have a day job, but I also sit on 19 projects that I'm collaborating on. [00:45:00] So the more that we lean into human centered design, we have to think differently about what collaboration could look like.

[00:45:07] Dr Dani: And some of that collaboration, think about can we do this asynchronously? 

[00:45:13] Designer Peter: Yeah. As you were talking there, I think that's a really great point. The example of where we can unintentionally people harm really by, we, we want to be inclusive and we want people to contribute, be able to contribute.

[00:45:28] Designer Peter: We want to collaborate with them because we need their knowledge and experience or skills or style. But we also need to recognize that they don't necessarily want to or need to collaborate with us. What I love about how you're structuring things there, Dani, is just taking some time to think carefully about all the who, the starting with the why, but then the who and the what and the how and the when and for some people, and your story about the team on two opposites sides of the world showing it's absolutely [00:46:00] possible to To collaborate asynchronously, just be sending messages to each other over the world wide web and I'm picking them up hours apart, I imagine that the team probably did, do like zoom calls or, teams calls occasionally as well.

[00:46:12] Designer Peter: It wasn't just Morse code back and forth. 

[00:46:15] Dr Dani: They absolutely got together, but by the time they got together, they had evolved and iterated. And what they talked about in the research is that when they got together It was very meaningful and the things that they were getting together on were things that they could not So you know what they described is like initially they were everybody was just throwing ideas on the on a virtual whiteboard And then they were sorting the ideas and they had of all their thinking to a certain point And then they're like, okay.

[00:46:44] Dr Dani: I think we need to actually Get on a call and talk through this and narrow this down and make some decisions And then they would do that and then they would agree on actions Then they would separate go out and do it and then come back and then go out and do it, you know So that's [00:47:00] how they worked.

[00:47:00] Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah, so 

[00:47:01] Dr Dani: It's not complete isolation 

[00:47:04] Designer Peter: Yeah. But it is very, it's very deliberate, considerate and thoughtful. And it sounds like they were communicating really well. So even like having that, again, that word that meta conversation about how are we going to have conversations, like how are we going to decide what we collaborate on or what we don't collaborate on or how yeah, I think that's that can be really powerful.

[00:47:22] Designer Peter: And it's one of those things that if you spend a little bit of time up front doing, then actually the time to to good outcome. It's actually shorter than otherwise would be like, we can fall into the trap of thinking that we don't have time to do some of the important prep work because we think we need to rush into and get on with the work because we fall into the trap of believing that will get us to our destination quicker.

[00:47:43] Designer Peter: I think we'll get to a destination that way, but more often than not, it's not the right destination. It's not as good to destination all around as it would have been if we just spend a little bit of time up front doing some of this prep work and thinking,

[00:47:55] Dr Dani: and the prep work is, I'm going to bring it back to our podcast.

[00:47:59] Dr Dani: Imagine [00:48:00] how messy it would be if you and I were trying to do the prep work for the podcast. Collaboratively. 

[00:48:06] Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah. It 

[00:48:07] Dr Dani: would probably just be Dani talking for an hour and Peter going, how the hell do I get out of 

[00:48:14] Designer Peter: this? Yeah. We're going, sorry, can't 

[00:48:17] Dr Dani: hear 

[00:48:18] Designer Peter: you. Sorry for the listeners. I just lifted my headphone up.

[00:48:22] Designer Peter: Yes. It would be something like that. I'd be like turning the volume up on my noise cancelling headphones. Give me some peace. Yeah. Let me think. Yes. Great. Great example. Okay. I think we're we're getting somewhere we're meandering towards the to end of this conversation, Dani, but I often say that in real and you come in with, actually, we've got a couple more things.

[00:48:43] Designer Peter: So is there a couple more things 

[00:48:45] Dr Dani: I wonder if it would be useful to talk about. some alternative ways of of collaborating that, cause there is this idea that collaborating means meeting or workshop getting [00:49:00] together. So what are some other things?

[00:49:04] Dr Dani: That we could be thinking about if the idea, if the concept of collaborating is melding and bringing together different perspectives and ideas, what are some alternate ways to do that? 

[00:49:15] Designer Peter: I've tried this both physically and digitally, but an interesting one to try is having a. If it's physical than having a whiteboard in a building and it could be in a shared space and we set up an activity that's been pre agreed and predetermined and everyone understands what the activity is, but then the time available to do the activity is rather than, let's say, an hour during a workshop day, then that's actually any time people have available to themselves during a week and they can.

[00:49:49] Designer Peter: Do the task by themselves and add their contribution to the whiteboard during the week. And then at the end of the week, everyone gathers around and sees where it's [00:50:00] got to, of course, but you can do that just as well. If not slightly easier on digital whiteboarding these days where you set the task up and then time box it for a long duration, a longer duration than normal and let people take their own time to make that contribution.

[00:50:17] Designer Peter: So for me, that's a that's a good. Asynchronous way of collaborating and. I think it's helpful because it avoids the if you do a similar thing by teams in my experience that can turn into or teams or slack or whatever, turn into, notification hell when you're focusing on something, trying to do some work and somebody else is.

[00:50:38] Designer Peter: doing their ideation and you're just seeing it all ping up in front of you, I think the alternative whiteboard version can avoid that. 

[00:50:45] Dr Dani: So I I've done the physical whiteboard like you have. I've also done it on a virtual whiteboard, so not like Teams or Slack, for the same reason, because it, Would just it like every two seconds, [00:51:00] you'd be looking up.

[00:51:00] Dr Dani: What I've done is I've set up this thing called a self guided workshop. 

[00:51:05] Designer Peter: Oh, okay. Huh. 

[00:51:06] Dr Dani: So set up the mirror board. Very explicitly with arrows, like start here, explain the activity, this is what we're doing. This is what's happening. You can also embed in one example, I embedded a video of myself talking about what it is that we're looking to do.

[00:51:22] Dr Dani: And so we're talking to people And then people could, work their way through the board and leave their thoughts. And then we carried that out. So then. When we got the feedback and then we did the next step, we created another Miro board and put it out there and said, look, this is based on all the feedback, this is what we've iterated.

[00:51:44] Dr Dani: Have a look, have we missed anything? Have we captured it? How might this work for you? What don't you like about it? Those kinds of things. And people left their cards. So we did about three iterations of that. And what we did To support people to driving to that is through Slack and [00:52:00] teams to, we made this announcement that this is going to be happening, please help.

[00:52:05] Dr Dani: And what was really interesting is that we got more feedback than had we set up. Workshops. 

[00:52:16] Designer Peter: Nice. That's a nice a nice surprise. 

[00:52:18] Dr Dani: Was a, it was testing and learning on my part, but the challenge that this organization was having was that they wanted to collaborate. They wanted to bring people into the fold.

[00:52:28] Dr Dani: But they, their organization had a lot of shift worker, they were 24 hour business. So it made it really difficult. So how do we still keep the spirit of how do we actually collaborate with people when they're not available at the times that were available? 

[00:52:42] Dr Dani: And I'm not, I'm not suggesting like by no means should.

[00:52:46] Dr Dani: This be a signal that we need to now, all of a sudden, everything's going to be asynchronous collaboration, but it's more being mindful about one. Does it need to be a collaboration or am I just making more work than it [00:53:00] needs to be? And then two, is there a better way to do this than what we have been doing historically?

[00:53:08] Designer Peter: I love that. Yeah great example. And I think A lot of people's challenge in organizations is looking to deciding that you do need to collaborate with a small group of people going to Outlook more often than not looking people's calendars and going, when I need to start this sooner than three weeks time, which is the first available time in everyone's diaries when we get 15 minutes where we can talk about this thing.

[00:53:35] Designer Peter: Thinking more creatively about how you can. Collaborate asynchronously and I like the calling it a self guided workshop is a nice framing. Yeah, cool. Yeah, any others Dani or 

[00:53:52] Dr Dani: . There's also, different ways of getting feedback that doesn't require, Particularly now where you can have shared documents and things like that.

[00:53:58] Dr Dani: So [00:54:00] you could if you're putting, if you need to put a PowerPoint together as a team, because you're doing a team presentation, one person can be responsible for pulling it all together. And then you can, share that document and everybody can go in and do their bit. So there's rather than everybody jumping into a meeting and trying to do it together everyone can work through the document.

[00:54:20] Dr Dani: Asynchronously together. So there's also activities like that. 

[00:54:23] Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Thank you for that. In particular Microsoft, they've definitely improved the collaboration features across their software in the last few years. Definitely. 

[00:54:32] Dr Dani: As much as it pains me to give Microsoft a compliment.

[00:54:38] Designer Peter: In particular for that. Thank you. But some other improvements still to be made elsewhere. Thank you. Yeah, cool. That's a nice, obvious one. Actually, we talked about collaboration as though, we need to be doing something unusual or different, but more often, sometimes just in the good old let's put a Word document together, a PowerPoint presentation can be the answer to move us forward.

[00:54:59] Dr Dani: The reason this [00:55:00] conversation has been important is that one of my concerns is collaboration is an amazing thing. I'm a big believer in collaboration. It's the center of how I work and for you as well. It's the core of. Our work, right? 

[00:55:13] Designer Peter: Yeah. 

[00:55:13] Dr Dani: The concern that I have is 

[00:55:15] Dr Dani: we don't seem to be thinking very well about what requires collaboration, what doesn't require collaboration. And I think that puts collaboration at risk. 

[00:55:25] Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Yes, 

[00:55:26] Dr Dani: because. If we're not doing it mindfully and we're not using it where it can be the most helpful, then it has this it's going to get tarnished and nobody's going to want to do it.

[00:55:36] Dr Dani: And I feel like that's where we're almost at in most organizations. 

[00:55:41] Designer Peter: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that's probably why this idea about having a conversation bubbled up is this kind of conflation, confusion of Shops collaboration, not collaboration. And we were at risk of ending up where we go back to cubicle and get fed work instructions to [00:56:00] create outputs.

[00:56:00] Designer Peter: And yeah, you're absolutely right. I place a high value on collaboration because I a fundamental belief in the power of groups of people getting together to do the work together. To make things better so yeah, the more you and I and everyone else can do to get clearer on collaboration and dispel some myths, then the better.

[00:56:21] Designer Peter: So thanks for the 

[00:56:22] Dr Dani: What are you taking away from this? Oh, I beat you to it. 

[00:56:28] Designer Peter: I was all I was about to say, I've quite enjoyed being a slightly more in the driving seat in this conversation. Don't even notice if the listeners notice, but start almost got in there first. What am I taking? Yeah, maybe just a reminder and being able to say it like, I value place a high value on collaboration, and it's because, the power off the individual human mind is incredible on underused.

[00:56:52] Designer Peter: So when I know from experience when we get together, that can be exponentially free. Amplified. That's a nice [00:57:00] reminder. And then I think just you're going back to your litmus test question about can this be created by an individual or not? It's that's going to help us.

[00:57:08] Designer Peter: Decide whether to collaborate or not. So there's my thank you for those. How about you? And by the way my takeaway action is I'm going to look at a couple of pieces of work that I'm doing and where I'm encountering the diary friction and go. Maybe I need to rethink how we collaborate together and do it asynchronously.

[00:57:24] Designer Peter: So 

[00:57:25] Dr Dani: nice. 

[00:57:26] Designer Peter: Thanks for the takeaway. What about your what about yours? 

[00:57:28] Dr Dani: I love when our conversations lead to a real world change for us as we were talking about this, what comes to mind for me is I could probably do a better job of asking the question, does this require collaboration or pushing back And even on an individual basis, 

[00:57:45] Dr Dani: just pushing back to go, actually, do I really need to be at this thing? Or is it, is it, am I just a nice to have,

[00:57:57] Dr Dani: and also just also making sure that [00:58:00] people don't walk away from this thinking that. We need to stop collaborating, right? But it's we need to treat collaboration as a special ingredient and it's knowing when to use it. It's like salt, right? Salt can make everything amazing. But if it's, but if you overdo it, it's not very pleasant.

[00:58:20] Dr Dani: It's about what's the right notes that you need to hit with that salt. 

[00:58:25] Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:58:26] Dr Dani: And I think collaboration is that way. So that's my takeaway. 

[00:58:31] Designer Peter: Yeah, don't over season. 

[00:58:33] Dr Dani: Yes. So collaboration is like the special Himalayan pink salt That you've got to really be deliberate about where and how much of it you use 

[00:58:46] Designer Peter: Yeah, and constantly be, tasting a little bit checking in to see how it's going.

[00:58:50] Designer Peter: All right. Yeah as Robert Henry Van Winkle III would say, sometimes you should stop, [00:59:00] collaborate and listen. But he didn't say, always. 

[00:59:05] Dr Dani: Like that. On that note, maybe it's time we stop collaborating. 

[00:59:13] Designer Peter: Yeah. I'm going to get my record deal signed up very soon.

[00:59:21] Dr Dani: Thanks Peter. Thanks everyone for listening. Bye. 

[00:59:24] Designer Peter: Take care everyone. See you next time. Bye. 

Bye.