Collaborative Learning: What I Learned from This Wisdom

Emerson once said: The years teach much which the days never knew. In my career, I’ve had the good fortune of being exposed to many smart people. It never ceases to amaze me how just a few moments of discussion, or sitting and listening to well-thought-out debates, can open your mind to ideas you can’t believe you didn’t think of on your own. The wisdom of collaborative learning and collaborating with others is significant, isn’t it?

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Collaborative learning

I have always found the wisdom of others to be something of a gift: free of charge, limitless of value. Limitless of value because these pearls of wisdom can be connected to some of your ideas to produce something greater than what you might have created on your own.

Before we continue, let me ask you a question. What works best for building collaboration in your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a conversation.

With the advent of the Internet, the number of marketing options available to both budding and experienced entrepreneurs has become staggering.

Related post: How Good Is your Learning from Failure?

In thinking about exploring, imagining, learning, and collaborating with others, the following thoughts crossed my mind:

Imagination is the ability to see what is not there. Creativity is applied imagination. Exploring is being open to and experimenting with, new ideas. And innovation is putting good ideas to work. All are stimulated through effective collaboration. Creativity is not a quality that is only found in the chosen few, but not everyone is as good at finding it as others (though everyone can improve with practice). Do not get branded by your job description. Think well outside those bounds … all the time.

Build on other people’s ideas. Do not knock them down and try not to start on the ground floor. Connect ideas. We are all very busy: personally, professionally, and socially. One of our scarcest resources is time. Time to sit and think. To stretch our own limits. To learn new things. Time to imagine, create, explore, and experiment. Do you experience collaborative learning?

As Emerson said in the quote above, time can often be a teacher. But if you are as impatient as I am, look to your colleagues, your friends, your mentors, and yourself to challenge you to reach new heights. Tap into the parts of your brain you may not use every day. The parts of your brain you may not even realize you can tap into.

Most of all, reach out to others to collaborate. The sum of the team collaboration is always greater than the work of each individual.