Imagine living back in the Stone Age, when survival depended on our ability to combat the harsh elements and threats of the natural world. Would you have been able to make it on your own?
Our ancestors instinctively knew that cooperation was crucial for survival. By combining their strengths and capabilities, they not only managed to survive but also to overcome the fiercest challenges they faced.
This early form of collaboration was likely based on trust. It’s hard to envision our ancestors scratching out contracts on cave walls to enforce agreements or measure progress!
As humanity evolved, so did our methods of working together. The industrial revolution saw the birth of factories, and a new type of collaboration. Control began to infiltrate these new working relationships, replacing those simpler, trust-based systems of the past.
Today, a new generation of entrepreneurs is redefining collaboration with an open, transparent and supportive mindset. These individuals share information and work together instinctively. Their collaborations range from short, task-driven interactions to long-lasting partnerships, essential to their businesses. Remarkably, even enduring collaborations often just rely on a handshake and mutual trust.
The spectrum of collaboration ranges from trust to control. At one end, some companies operate with a background steeped in control, often requiring non-disclosure agreements before sharing any information. For these companies, collaboration is governed by detailed contracts dictating terms and expectations. Here, collaboration becomes more about fulfilling specific needs than about mutual support and sharing.
Success and failure in business collaborations occur across this trust-control spectrum. Without trust, collaborations struggle to flourish, if they can at all. Conversely, without control, a high level of trust is necessary for the partnership to succeed.
We’ve evolved beyond the need to collaborate merely to survive. Today, we collaborate for efficiency, growth and the pursuit of goals that would be impossible to achieve alone.
The business world is shifting from control-driven to more trust-driven collaborations. The open, transparent and supportive generations are not just the future—they are already a vital part of the workforce. To establish successful business collaborations in this evolving landscape, we must bridge the gap between trust and control.
Building a successful partnership requires a foundation of trust. However, it is also good to clearly outline intentions and document agreements. Doing so provides a common foundation for the collaboration. In a trust-based business partnership, measuring progress becomes a shared tool, allowing both parties to understand the state of the collaboration and make joint adjustments as needed.
In essence, the balance of trust and control forms the recipe for successful business collaborations in our transformative world.