Great Collaborations Make an Impact on the World
By: Paul Myers Mba
Tags: Business, Collaboration, Productivity, Creativity, Innovation

Collaborators

So who are some of the great partnerships we know, partnerships that became household names:

Jobs and Woz — Apple

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield — Ben and Jerrys

Wilbur and Orville — The Wright brothers

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard — Hewlett and Packard

Gates and Allen — Microsoft

Paul and John — The Beatles

Larry and Sergey — Google

These individuals found their counterparts and their combined skills set in motion a recipe for success.

Some were relatives, long-time friends, or classmates from the outset. Others didn't even get along and still not amicable today, yet despite or because of their differences collaboration proved key to their achievements.

Their fusion was driven by self-awareness, recognizing their limitations, and acknowledging what the other brought to the table, to start and sustain their partnership.

Liftoff

The Wright brothers weren’t just lucky, they were unique. Samuel Pierpont Langley, a physicist, astronomer, inventor, and mathematician, was also a pioneer in aviation. He was given a $50,000 grant from the US War Department to finance his project yet the Wright brothers got there first.

Wilbur and Orville had an intellectual appetite, spanning maths, mechanics, biology, and art. Their airborne conquest drew upon this accumulation of knowledge fuelled by a vision, imagination, and bravery.

Their success was the result of courage, curiosity, and dedication. In fact, their bicycle repair business financed their painstaking invention. Wilbur even studied the anatomy of birds to understand their flying control to mimic their movement to build their first prototype.

Photo by Daniel Eledut on Unsplash

Invention

The byproduct of great partnerships is invention. Even solo inventors have collaborated in the past. Exposure to mentors, diversity, and experience of how others work were influencing factors.

In his early career, James Dyson collaborated to design the Rotork Sea Truck, a hovercraft. His bagless vacuum idea arrived when he saw industrial sawmills creating cyclones to suck up sawdust. His engineering brain kicked in to find a way to replicate this feature on a smaller scale. Some five thousand prototypes later he introduced the world to the first bag-less vacuum cleaner.

Triggers

Events like war and pandemics create an urgency, a purpose that demands game-changing thinking, business-as-usual is out the window. The team at Bletchley Park is thought to have ended World War II, saving millions of lives.

The fruits of Bletchley Park led to the world’s first programmable computer. The genius of Bletchley Park was how it brought together an eclectic supply of multi-disciplined code-breakers from top universities to work alongside military experts. It formed a melting pot of talent, facilitating creative collaboration.

Mission impossible

During World War II the US wanted to build an aircraft to counter the Luftwaffe dominance and so in just 180 days. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation took up the challenge, secretly building a high-speed fighter jet to counter the growing German threat.

For many reasons, the assignment seemed very much like mission impossible: №1 — The jet needed to be ready in 180 days; №2— It was expected to fly at 600 miles per hour — which was 200 miles per hour faster than the current Lockheed P-38 propeller plane; №3— There was no floor space left for the project, as all the facilities were accommodating Lockheed’s 24/7 production of current planes; №4— The team had to work on a shoestring budget. (business.tutsplus.com)

Lockheed’s top designer, Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson, hand-picked a team that was up for such a radical approach to aircraft design. “He designed the speedy P-38 Lightning, which pummeled destroyers and intercepted enemy fighters”. His team completed the mission in just 143 days (lockheedmartin.com).

“A diverse mix of voices leads to better discussions, decisions, and outcomes for everyone.” — Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google

Some years later, Lockheed produced the Blackbird, America’s first supersonic jet fighter, that traveled three times faster than the speed of sound.

Aside from building an incredible aircraft, Johnson also created a radical group of innovators, something that could not have been achieved within the confines of traditional business thinking.

Urgency was the catalyst, “the mother of all invention.”

Bypassing bureaucracy is the modus operandi of successful innovative groups. This practice created great groups during the course of history. They did not conform to expected norms, rather redefined them.

Motivation

An existential threat or another time-sensitive collective mission tends to produce physical manifestations beyond what was previously considered to be impossible. Both elements motivate a narrow, yet focused approach with high energy to deliver a clearly defined output, one that matters greatly to an organization or even civilization.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Another organization that has frequently produced innovative teams is NASA. In decades past, NASA struggled to maintain its relevance. Today is somewhat different as it has greatly transformed its role and remit compared to when it first put a man on the moon.

Traditionally, NASA worked on classified projects, but in recent years the organization embraced crowd-sourcing to unlock solutions. This approach recognizes the huge potential that lies outside an organization, rather than within the confines of its walls.

NASA and indeed many other organizations regularly host crowd-sourcing challenges online to tap into the collective intellect. This strategy enables organizations to engage and collaborate with the ultimate group. Talented minds, spanning multi-disciplined practitioners, across generations, and geographical locations.