Improv and the Collaborative Economy to Save the World
Photo by Marie Steinthaler @marmarlade
I just saw Robin Chase speak at The Crowd (#crowdforum) to a packed audience in London of some of the top internal big company sustainability experts in the world. What she was talking about thrilled me. She was challenging us to use the process of the Collaborative Economy to save the world - to accelerate the evolution of how institutions, individuals and companies work together - as has been done by her creation Zipcar, and others like AirBnB and Uber, but to specifically speed up the manifestation of interactions which address the monumental climate challenges facing us. She pointed out that the processes (which are vastly and rapidly outperforming linear ways of doing business) can be used for any type of business - so why not use it en masse to create organisations and interactions which are going to help us all to thrive.
During the Q&A, I asked her what skills are needed in organisations to engage properly in the Collaborative Economy. She mentioned two:
1. Leaders need to accept that the answers to their problems probably reside outside of the organisation.
and
2. Leaders need to understand that learning how to do things in a new, deeply collaborative way will take time and many iterations. We need to allow for some things to fail and others to succeed as part of the process.
During her talk, she also spoke about the need to trust customers as collaborators and remove the traditionally adversarial way of engaging with customers. Contrary to what some might fear, most people are very trustworthy - and the tiny minority of ‘bad apples’ can easily be removed. The loyalty gained from being transparent and with trusting pays off in more human and engaged interactions.
In terms of skill sets and mindsets, I can’t think of a better practice than that of applied improvisation to help large and small companies to engage fully with the Collaborative Economy. At its core, it invites people to engage with each other in interactions which are both highly productive and enjoyable, it engenders trust quickly, and sets everyone on a level playing field. It also helps people to be nimble with complex, rapidly adapting circumstances and to collaboratively innovate new ways of being.
If you want to explore how your organisation can develop the skills necessary to engage in the Collaborative Economy, contact us.