Meeting Strategically: How to Collaborate, But Not Too Much (Inside Out Episode 3)
Episode 3 of From the Inside Out: Achieving Better Development Outcomes through Collaborating, Learning and Adapting was released today! Stream it above or subscribe to the USAID Learning Lab podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to be notified when new episodes are available.
Research says that 20-35% of value-add collaboration comes from only 3-5% of employees. As a result, those high collaborators score low on engagement and career satisfaction. In addition, the lion’s share of collaborative work tends to fall on women, and people of color are often over-burdened by requests to collaborate (citation).
In this episode, we discuss evidence on the negative effects of over-collaboration and reflect on our teams' collaboration. Next, we talk about six strategies for strategic collaboration with examples from USAID programs.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Collaborative Overload - Harvard Business Review
- Two Steps to More Strategic Collaboration - USAID Learning Lab Blog
- RACI Matrix Tool
- USAID/Guatemala's Broad Agency Announcement Process
- Biodiversity Cross-Mission Learning Agenda
- Collaboration Tools in the Collaborating, Learning and Adapting Toolkit
Bonus! We've created a coloring page to go along with the episode. Listen with your team and tweet photos of your colored-in pages to @USAIDlearning.
We’re releasing a new episode each Tuesday in May, so subscribe to the USAID Learning Lab podcast wherever you listen to podcasts (iTunes, Stitcher, PocketCasts) to find out when new episodes are available. You can also find them posted as blogs here on USAID Learning Lab.
The information in this series comes from our effort to build the evidence base for collaborating, learning and adapting. If you’re interested in learning more about this area of work, visit USAIDLearningLab.org/eb4cla.