DailyPost 1607
ARE YOU A COLLABORATOR?
Whatever might be the arena of democratic governance and life, there is a single common denominator that would define its success – the persona called collaborator. He is the bedrock of democracies the world over and if this genre fails, then fissures keep surfacing in those parts of the democratic processes. If it crosses the point of equilibrium, it has the capability of degrading the democratic mechanism from its optimum delivery. Collaborator is a citizen in democratic life and process, positioned at decision making / execution levels, who has the skills to bring people together for a purpose, in the interest of the community and the state and makes a success out of it.
Democracies operate on programs and projects and only way you can make a success out of it, is by being a collaborator. Democracy has not been designed to be a one man show. Collaborator is the kernel of not only democratic delivery but also of ease of living and peace of life. If the collaborators come together in a program or a project, that is when you feel both the spirt and the fire working through the project. Firstly, it brings life to the project, a necessity given the complexities of big projects and second is that all the nuisance and non-sense that gets associated with the democratic projects can be warded off.
How do you locate a collaborator? You go to any project, any program or govt department, a public company or a service organization that is successful, they would be very visible. If you ask the employees, they will tell you who are the people at differential levels, having all the prerequisite skills and are extremely conversant in professional interpersonal relationships to pull off phenomenal success. They are the personas who cut across barriers of hierarchy and levels, with whom people are happy to collaborate, go an extra mile and deliver the project. The collaboration enables to share a vision and see success on the horizon, much before it has actually been achieved.
Collaborators are neither born nor can they be visibly trained. Some families impart this trait, which they inculcate as they grow up. *Very subtle is this learning. It’s very difficult to make out whether this trait has been learnt or not, till the time it is exhibited and that too over and over again. The second is the organizational culture. All successful organizations give a premium to this trait and work tirelessly to achieve it. The clarity of purpose and may be of conscience, which helps the employees to learn this trait and then fearlessly practice it. The percentage of collaborators are directly proportional to the success of a democracy in every department of the game.
COLLABORATE OR PERISH IS A TRUE DEMOCRATIC MANTRA.
Sanjay Sahay