Proud to be the Gate Keeper

A fellow classmate stated it quite simply in their blog post about collaboration:  "do I have to share??"  I could not agree more.  I commented by describing the kind of work to which environment I belong.  I have been working for my company (a textbook publisher) for almost about 5.5 years.  When I started, we were closely aligned (in business-terms) with our Editorial group, who supplies the production department with manuscript to turn into books.  Soon after I was hired, the production arm was pulled away from the Editorial team and we became very "silo-ed".  We were Production and there was everyone else.  Our goals were different and our lines of management was different from anyone else in the company.  This proved detrimental to how we worked with each other within production and how we worked with everyone else in the company.  It even pitted us against our other production department locations around the country.  We took pride in the fact that our books that we worked on were so different from everyone else and we hoarded our information and barely shared with each other within our own group, let alone with anyone else.  Since then, our executive management have tried their best to dictate how to be collaborative, but creating a "TWiki" site, which no one used, and later Inside (via Microsoft Intranet), which people are reluctant to use but has since endured.  We're still so reluctant to share what we know with everyone else.  We're so worried about letting go of OUR information that we lose sight of the benefits to collaboration with other people.  We fail to recognize how we might make our jobs easier knowing what other people are doing, who do our same exact job.

We recently acquired an online learning solutions company and had them move into our office building almost a year ago.  We piled into our tall-walled cubicles and clambered into our little caves and barely spoke to one another.  On the same floor, but on the opposite side of the building, existed the younger and more vibrant company we acquired.  They epitomized the "online start-up" mentality.  Their work spaces are glorified school desks, sitting next to one another.  They're grouped together with people, aligned with similar projects.  They can look a few inches past their monitors and chat easily with their group members.  There are open-air conference tables for people to brainstorm.  They're always talking.  I know when we all moved in together, our group would look over at their brightly lit work area and ask "Why?"  I know deep down I wish that my group was as collaborative as the "younger crowd".  Of course, to them, we look like a bunch of fuddy-duddies.

As soon as I started reading Kelly's article, "Corporate Culture, Not Technology, Drives Online Collaboration," I saw my department at my company all over it.  I think that each of us in our group, myself included, feel that our position at our company is safe as long as we know more than someone else.  We keep our "secrets" safe, so that only the individuals benefit, rather than sharing what we do best and benefiting the department as a whole.  While we have a management which seems to preach collaboration, they don't help facilitate collaboration that well.  I know that even if I tried pushing collaboration for my coworkers, it would be met with hesitation from everyone around me.  I see the benefits of collaboration, but within the confines of a company who has been doing what they do well for the last 40-50 years, changing a culture will take a really long time.