Joinedupness

My personal mission at the moment is to bring people together and build teams that collaborate more effectively to deliver the support and services that our people in our University really need and want. Lacking a better term that goes beyond “collaboration” I often refer to this as “joinedupness”.

Aligned to this is a desire to “mash-up” routine activities with new ideas and ways of doing things. Some people refer to this as “disruptive”; a popular term in Universities to describe positive, transformative change.

Both joining-up and mashing-up is easier working with some people than with others and I am really fortunate to have brilliant colleagues around me in the right positions who can have an impact at the right level.

The transformation brought about by joinedupness is best seen where teams are in very different departments, have different strategic agenda and different management. Making it happen requires effort plus a vision, a bit of leadership, some nudging in the right places and a good supply of coffee.

When it works (everyone says) it all makes perfect sense and looks rather easy in a “why haven’t we done this before” way. So far my joinedupness projects haven’t failed so I don’t know what that feels like!

My recipe for successful joinedupness:

·        Kindness and empathy with your peers in their own leadership roles

·        Imagination, ability to think laterally and to express ideas clearly

·        In-depth organisational knowledge

·        A big network and a certain amount of credibility with these people

·        Influencing and negotiating skills

·        Patience in abundance

·        Resilience and persistence in the right balance that includes knowing when to let things go…