Hey, everybody. Chris Cotton, AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching, here.

Today, I wanted to talk about collaboration and what that looks like.

So, when we collaborate or a collaboration is a higher level than cooperation, right? Cooperating, it’s kind of like you’re tolerating the people around you, but collaboration is where it’s at.

So when I cooperate you with you, we work together. But when I collaborate, it’s because I want to work with you. And we want to collaborate with each other in a focused environment, it’s at a higher level, right?

We take ourselves out of the situation we’re in. We go and we collaborate.

I’ve never left a collaboration-type meeting when I didn’t leave in better shape than when I started off.

And when you think about collaboration, I want you to think about 3 things that you should get out of a collaboration or 3 things that are going to happen at your collaboration.

Number one, you’re going to learn something. It’s impossible not to. You’re always going to leave that experience better off. If you’re with a group of people and don’t learn anything, then you’re with the wrong people, right? You want to surround yourself with people that push you. The collaboration is the sum of all of its parts.

Number two, you’re going to pick up creativity. The synergy and mixing of the ideas gives the greatest idea. So you think things you would’ve never thought on your own and great ideas that happen there are the result of a bunch of good ideas, right? The group makes you more creative. So if I’m at 5 creative level-wise and I go and collaborate in a group setting, I’m automatically an 8 or 9. Again, the group.

Number three, the value for the people that you have in the room will be immeasurable. You’re going to share things that you haven’t shared before. You’re going to talk things that you haven’t talked before. Chances are, you’re probably break bread. You’re going to leave these collaborations shaking your head, saying, “Those people are good because you’ve watched them share and you get better together.” You respect those people because you’ve watched them work in the process and you’ve watched them build off of each other. I can’t think of much more in a day or a great day for me would be working with 6, 10, 14 people, teaching and learning at the same time. I really don’t know how as a professional. I could have a better day than that.

So I sure hope you have some people in your life to collaborate with, and I hope you do it soon.