Collaborate like Churchill, start your own war room

[jrineakter]

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Collaboration is important, it is instilled in us from birth. At primary school, projects are organized in which you learn to collaborate. During your studies, you collaborate, and later at work you carry out projects with many people. In short; good collaboration with colleagues is crucial. And just as important, collaboration with customers.


Great things in business are never done by one person. They're done by a team of people. –Steve Jobs

When Collaboration Fails
In 2004, the Iraq war was in full swing. An over-armed U.S. military dominated the amateurish Al Qaeda on paper. Al Qaeda had poor weapons, no air support, no armored vehicles, and poor training for its recruits. The U.S. military should have easily defeated Al Qaeda. Unfortunately, the battle was still raging, with no end in sight.

In the book Team of Teams (aff.), General McChrystal describes how he felt:

We had everything in place: men, guns, planes, ammunition. … We came to realize that our firepower and legacy were failing us, not because of a lack of effort … but because of something in our Task Force's organizational DNA.

Loosely translated, they had the resources, the commitment, but the system didn't work.

Flops due to lack of cooperation
The problem also occurs regularly in companies. The BBC launched the new Top Gear (nicknamed 'Flop Gear') which made old viewers cry. Coca Cola launched 'New Coke', customers algeria telegram number list were so unhappy that the head office was flooded with letters and phone calls. Fidel Castro even wrote a letter of complaint to the CEO of Coca Cola. Microsoft launched 'Zune' to compete with the iPod. And Apple tried to take over Google Maps with Apple Maps, which has serious errors and glitches .

It seems like some companies operate in a vacuum, without feedback from customers or employees who work with customers. How can companies miss the mark so badly? Two components are key: asking for feedback and using feedback.

The solution
feedbackOK, so now we know what not to do, but how do you improve communication between colleagues and customers? There’s good news and bad news. The bad news: miscommunication will never go away completely, and you have to work on it every day to reduce it. The good news: improving communication between colleagues and customers will far outweigh the costs.

The war room, communication between departments and colleagues
This was the problem that General McChrystal faced. Branches of the military were not communicating well. This allowed Al Qaeda to fight between branches. McChrystal implemented (among other things) two changes that you can also implement on the work floor. What you want to implement, that is up to you.

First, the creation of a war room . Just like under Churchill, in Iraq there was a room where all the parties involved worked side by side. About sixty men worked in a common room. CIA, Navy Seals and doctors worked side by side. On the walls were large TVs with relevant information constantly on them. Everyone could talk to everyone. A strategic analyst could spontaneously approach an air force general and ask a lawyer for advice.

Second, a central start to the day. Every morning there was a conference between all departments. The CIA, the military, the FBI, the NSA, and even NASA were ready every morning to discuss what needed to be changed. Everything could be discussed, and nothing was off-limits. The meeting was never canceled. Because of the central start, everyone could bring up a problem that might otherwise be lost. And maybe the head of the commandos, for example, had an angle that the NSA hadn't thought of.