By Lucas Ofubu

You’re a comfortable young guy or beautiful lady living your life according to your own rules, making strides that you feel are perfect wins until the moment life happens and you realize that you have not been doing something for many years. It’s called “COLLABORATION”. 

After reading this I am very sure that you will become very deliberate in your collaborative efforts and you will achieve more than you expect. 

Collaboration is an active word. To collaborate would mean to “come together” with someone or people to achieve a goal or set objectives. 

It is an alliance , a partnership or call it cooperation. 

This could be active or passive in nature. The truth is as humans, we collaborate every single day with or without our knowledge. We collaborate with the guy driving the car that takes us to our destination, or the banker who helps us to facilitate withdrawals and so much more. 

Let’s pause for a second and let’s analyze what you have been doing all along. So you’re part of Cologeny(A community full of diverse creatives), you ask questions, you interact with people on the forum, you attend conferences and sessions and you gain a lot. Guess who you’re collaborating with —— COLOGENY of course. 

Quick question: What goals have you achieved from collaborating with Cologeny?

If you can’t answer this question, I can categorically say that you have been passive in your collaborative efforts at Cologeny. 

So how do You collaborate? 

Active collaboration is very easy but it must be done strategically and deliberately. It is not until you put pen to paper before you start forming alliances. 

One key thing you must realize is that while collaborating with an organization, the people make up the organization and as such, your active collaborative efforts must be with the people in that organization. 

You should be able to identify individuals who share your ideas and thoughts. Starting Conversations or observing responses to certain types of conversations makes it very easy for you to identify these people. 

So, now that you know the people, you can get to work on starting a cordial relationship with them. It’s as simple as following them on social media platforms, checking on them once in a while, asking for their opinion on certain matters privately or you can even invite them for meet ups and virtual meetings. You must offer value and must be seen from the vantage point of someone with lots of potential. 

After this is done, you can proceed to the next stage which would be getting started on the reason for the alliance in the first place. This can be long term or short term but bear in mind that you’re being human and you will act with a good balance of empathy and intelligence in your dealings with people. 

Begin to leverage on the opportunities that abound in your circles and don’t be scared to collaborate. 

If you don’t get it right the first time, do well to try again and learn from the mistakes you made.