A Spirit of Collaboration

Teambuilding is essential to success in any company, and nsquared takes this seriously. This weekend Dr. Neil forwarded me an article by Andrew Pressman entitled It's a very good time to develop your firm's collaboration skills. The article, while a bit wordy and dense, is also informative and provocative.

Pressman expounds the value of teamwork enhanced by trust and a letting go of ego, recognizing that good ideas can be the children of bad ones, and that even misconstrued ideas can lead to more creativity. Teammates can brainstorm without fear when everyone appreciates this, and even take risks by experimenting with ideas outside of their area of expertise. Being respectful of each other, even when you disagree or think an idea is not worthwhile, is essential to building the type of trust that fosters creativity. People coming together can build something greater than one person alone, and such collaborative creativity makes your company stand out from the rest.

We at nsquared have experienced much success in applying these concepts already, particulaly in our recent Tranlsator project. Each person on the team contributed in their area of professional expertise and also crossed over to help each other and learn new things. For example, I, as the technical writer suggested some UI design for aspects of the project while Pierce expanded his knowledge of PHP development and Brendan and Nick, as developers, helped edit the white papers to completion. The project was a resounding success; here we are in our t-shirts!
Finally, in the spirit of collaboration and team building, we would like to welcome Kris Kosmala to the nsquared family. Kris is a former Olympic sailor and a proven teamwork expert. Warm, funny, and approachable, Kris will serve as a performance coach to enhance nsquared's already fantastic team with personal and professional goals, and inspire even further teamwork with overarching objectives that will give us focus and help sustain our enthusiasm. We welcome Kris and look forward to an even more collaborative future.