I’m from London, well not directly, I’m actually South African but I’ve been here so long I pretty much consider myself a Londoner. In true London style I never make eye contact with anyone on the tube, I actively avoid loud conversations in public and I make sure someone else helps anyone in need so I never feel guilty about not helping myself.
Last weekend I attended Glastonbury for the second time. Sure, it rained (well poured) and the toilet situation was far less than adequate, but I loved it. I loved the music, the people, the “vibe”, everything. It’s as if something weird happens to the Northerners, Southerners and multiple other nationalities and cultures, that we suddenly all get on. I mean, when do you talk to strangers in London – you don’t. At Glastonbury if you didn’t make at least one random friend, then you have not done it properly. From the guy who hoisted my friend’s overshirt on his flagpole so it would dry, to the lady from Swindon with her amazing red dreadlocks, I was certainly in a different reality.
It got me thinking; imagine if we could carry through that spirit of collaboration into our everyday lives? Imagine if you could offer someone who looked lost directions, without them thinking you might want something or even want to rob them? Wouldn’t that be nice?
With a talent crisis looking ever more likely, Kevin Green’s article in HR Magazine looks at how agencies, clients and internal recruiters could all work better together to solve the problem. He looks at similarly sized organisations – not competitors – working together to attract graduate talent, but to me this seems a few huge leaps of faith away.
HR teams in some companies have introduced “wellness weeks.” While the initial focus may seem to be on physical wellbeing, actually getting people out of their comfort zones and silos results in increased cooperation. When we look at typical learning/training strategies in business, we are always forced into these collaborative learning situations because learning is a social strategy and we learn more by working together, yet somehow in real life and back in the office this is lost again.
Imagine if we all could have just the tiniest of paradigm shifts. I’m not talking swapping numbers on the tube (although I do know couples who met this way) but just being a bit more open to the possibility that we may learn something from each other or working as a team. It seems down the line we may be forced into being more collaborative so perhaps we should get ahead of the game and get there ourselves!
Kerry is a Senior Consultant in London and is considering chucking it in and living in a commune.
