Since I started to be more visible on my point of view through blogging, I have had a few alumni partners reach out and provide me credit to contributing to their success in the coating business. They have shared how our on-boarding, meeting rhythms, processes had helped them establish their own company structure, effective their career growth positively and help them adopted our best practices in their business. It feels amazing retiring from an industry but leaving a major impact on so many peoples professional lives.
Shout out to all the great industry workers that work hard, are always up against the odds and always doing what it takes to deliver! Collaboration with colleagues and competitors has always lead to mutual benefits and fosters innovation. Here are some effective ways we collaborate with both:
Establish open lines of communication: Create a culture that encourages open and transparent communication among colleagues and competitors. Foster an environment where ideas, feedback, and concerns can be freely shared. I can’t remember how many time I would call a competitor to give them a heads up or support their project difficulties. From a small outfit to some of the top five largest coating companies.
Identify common goals: Find areas of alignment and common goals with colleagues and competitors. This shared purpose can form the basis for collaboration and promote cooperation rather than competition. The most powerful part of my leadership was simply asking what the staff partners goals were. It was amazing to align their personal goals to the company goals to get huge results. Seeking win-win solutions: Collaboration is about finding solutions that benefit all parties involved. Look for opportunities to create win-win situations where each party can gain value from the collaboration.
Share knowledge and expertise: Exchange knowledge and expertise with colleagues and competitors to tap into collective insights. Collaborative learning can lead to new ideas, improved processes, and better outcomes. I learned more from my staffs knowledge and expertise than I did from books. The estimating team was great at take off surveyors, as they were educated in architecture and engineering. So my collaboration with them helped me gain strength in my own estimating abilities. Also some of the great vendor partner collaboration to introduce the correct coating system to the solution. I had a wealth of knowledge and expertise share with me.
Embrace diversity of thought: Recognize that different perspectives can bring innovative ideas and solutions to the table. Encourage diversity of thought by inviting input from individuals with varied backgrounds, experiences, and skill sets. I had team members like Viktor who would absorb the information and when he finally shared his point of view it was very though-out impactful opinion.
Leverage technology and tools: Utilize digital platforms, project management tools, and collaboration software to streamline and enhance collaboration efforts. These tools can facilitate communication, document sharing, and real-time collaboration regardless of location. To be honest we were an IT company that operated a painting service. We create a digital Interface, enterprise resource planning (ERP) a software system called UDS that assisted us in automating and managing core business processes for optimal performance and we connected our entire IT infrastructure thru API to ensure all our system and software worked together. It really was state of the art for what we were doing. It really made us efficient and allow us to scale 10x.
Establish partnerships: Consider forming strategic partnerships with competitors to combine strengths and resources. These partnerships can lead to joint ventures, co-management. This gave us the ability to do the impossible. I’ll never forget the day we need to turn over the Shaw Cables head quarters downtown Calgary, the weekend before the owners moved in, with a collective and join effort to bring 70 guys to complete the final touch up and service to the prime contractor schedule. Without the collaborative attitude we couldn’t have made this happen. Come Monday there was no sign of us and the owner took possession of the skyscraper with a complete painted project.
Promote a collaborative culture: Foster a culture of collaboration by recognizing and rewarding cooperative behaviors. Encourage teamwork, cross-departmental collaboration, and knowledge sharing within the organization. This was my favorite part of our organization. Our town hall meeting that we called “white parties” was a mix of all of the above. Employee partners, independent partners, subcontractor partners and their crews and competitors were all welcomed. The way we looked at it we were just a bunch of painters working together to make a living and capitalize on market opportunities.
Build relationships: Invest time in building relationships with colleagues and competitors through networking events, industry conferences, or informal gatherings. Building rapport and trust can strengthen collaboration and create a more productive working relationship. We realized that we were more than a coating company, we were construction workers. It was so important to work with prime and subcontractors as we realized we have a high impact on the project as a finishing trade. We spent more then 15 years collaborating throughout our local construction and paint associations. We kept a pulse on what was happening in our industry and influenced the market. We noticed how our competitors would mimic our processes and best practices. We knew we were making an impact.
It’s important to maintain proper ethical boundaries when collaborating with competitors to ensure compliance with laws and regulations regarding antitrust and fair competition. I wouldn’t be lying if I told you we were tempted more then a few time to break our ethical boundaries from a few competitors, that tried to organize project price fixing. Unfortunately our refusal to cooperate didn’t make us the favourite among some of the companies we competed with, but ultimately our only concern and focus were our clients, the family’s we were responsible for providing work to make an income and our own values.
To summarize everything, collaboratively efforts with all stakeholder allows you to fly high with the eagles rather then fight and compete with the vultures!
Your Friend
Danijel Slisko
