“Alone we can do little; together we can do so much”. A lot of emphasis now days put on collaboration at the work place….right from the recruitment to training to developing the culture of the organisation.
11:30 pm on a Dec 31st night, Ram phone was continuously buzzing. His colleague calling him to check if the work has been completed or not. 31st midnight was the deadline for the submission of the report & everyone in the team has left the office leaving Ram for doing what he was left to do every time—completing other man’s job & submitting the report from their login id’s at the expense of his personal life. Many times he raised concerns to his boss but always receive lectures on collaboration. He has been asked to learn collaboration. He has always been taught in his life on helping people by his father. One of the key values of his organisation is Collaboration. He is trying to help his colleagues one more time & by doing so he may have pushed patience level of his family & friends to extreme.
He reached home around 2 am well after the New Year party. His friends left his house & family were sleeping. Like in office, he found himself all alone at home. That night he didn’t sleep & very next day morning he mailed his resignation to his boss.
Ram- a hardworking, helping & honest employee was forced to leave the organisation in the name of collaboration.
Do organisation really practice collaboration or forced hardworking employees to take up & complete the task of other people who are not only unwilling to collaborate but also not doing their job. If everyone keep doing their job honestly then there cannot be any question on collaboration & is the best way to imbibe culture of collaboration in the company. Organisation needs to make employee accountable for their task & Leaders have to ensure that it is practiced every time.
It seems guardians have closed their eyes & happy as long as their work is completed. I am not saying helping or collaborating is wrong but if someone is trying to take benefit of it then its need to be handled carefully. People who encourage the practice of forced collaborations are not leaders, they are just managers/boss who have the short term foresight & only interested in getting the task completed. It’s a very bad sign for any organisation in an era where cross functional interaction/collaborations is top priority as without which a company cannot fulfil the service or product requirements of the clients.
Organisation who will practice collaborations meticulously will be benefitted & will grow with time but those organisation who will overlook things & practice forced collaborations will become irrelevant in longer run as every next day a key employee like Ram will leave the organisations.