A few months ago, Sally and I saw Dar Williams play in the city. Dar’s a wonderful musician (“One of America’s very best singer-songwriters,” The New Yorker once wrote, but what do they know?), and she’s had a fascinating career. She’s performed solo and in groups, championed environmental causes, and even wrote a book about rebuilding small towns in America.
When we saw her, she talked a little about what she learned from the book. She said, and I’m paraphrasing here: I’ve been to a lot of towns across this country. I know our country is divided. But the opposite of division isn’t unity — it’s collaboration.
Dar was talking about political division in this country, but I’ve been thinking a lot about that quote in the context of the modern workplace. So many offices seek to present a united front — a “we’re all on the same page” mentality. But it’s not enough to know what else other teams are working on. The best work comes from getting incredibly smart people in the same room, asking great questions, and looking to discover new things from one another. Or, as Dar once put it: “Where does magic come from? / I think magic’s in the learning.”
That’s where the best stuff happens: When teams aren’t just working in parallel, but start working together. That’s where you go beyond being aligned on goals, and start building something truly special.