Using Collaboration to Create More Value
By Levina Kusumadjaja
The concept of competition is based on the mindset that says you will run out of ideas at one point or another. This is what we call as the scarcity mindset. It is a way of thinking that says: “there won’t be enough for everyone.” It is based on this belief that growth has a limit and everyone is competing against one another. The scarcity mindset invites creatives to be wrapped in their own bubble, busy protecting what they consider as their expertise and their scope of influence. They think that if they don’t protect, they will run out of clients, work, and ideas. Is this true?
The abundance mindset reminds us that there is more than enough for everyone because there will always be room for growth and innovation.
If you look at the most successful creatives out there, they will tell you there is more than enough to go around for every creative in your industry, in your country, and even in the world. They will tell you that the healthier mindset is the abundance mindset. Contrary to scarcity mindset, abundance mindset reminds us that there is more than enough for everyone because there will always be room for growth and innovation. Even if we don’t always implement something new, there will always be new ways to communicate old ideas and reinvent them to be more relevant for recent times.
Because the goal of collaboration is to gather as many strengths as possible to solve problems, collaboration can offer more value.
Competition is based on the scarcity mindset, while collaboration is based on the abundance mindset. Competition happens because you treat everyone as the same. This is what scarcity mindset teaches, which is to look at everyone’s strengths as a threat to your own strengths and weaknesses. Because everyone is the same, it translates into believing that there is a finite number of opportunities, clients, and money for creatives out there.
However, collaboration is the opposite. Collaboration is only possible because we’re different. Why would you want to work with 100 of the same people? Collaboration is powerful not because it combines 100 same people to work on one project, but it is powerful because it brings together 100 people with unique sets of ideas and skillsets to create one giant impact for the world. You want to collaborate with people from different strengths. You want to collaborate because that’s where you get the most out of your learning experience.
A good example for this would be Chris Do and TheFutur. It would be easy for someone like him to choose to do everything on his own, and to not collaborate. He is very smart and talented, and He could have chosen to be the only star of the show—through and through. But instead, he invites other creatives and professionals to share their knowledge in the platform. He valued the different sets of experience, expertise, and stories and saw how the differences could bring a powerful impact to the world. And that’s exactly what he did, changing the lives of so many creatives through the collaborations and communities formed at TheFutur.
Think about it as spotlighting an object using a flashlight. If you only use one flashlight, you will only see several aspects of it because there’s only so much that one flashlight can cover. But when you use several flashlights at different angles to spotlight the object, there is a big chance you can lit the whole surface area of the object. This is the same with collaboration.
When creatives collaborate, different point of views, beliefs, and experiences come together to solve a problem. It is in this gathering of many strengths and skillsets that collaboration can offer more value than competition. You end up solving bigger problems and creating a bigger impact, together. So, what do you think, which one is better? Competition or collaboration?
Cheers!
Levina
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About the author:
Levina is a writer based in Indonesia. Because of Melinda Livsey, she recognized the power of brand strategy for every creative. She is sharing about her learnings as she goes to help creatives have fun in their growth and journey of building brands. Connect with her on LinkedIn and say hi!