This is my second blog in a multi-part series.  In my first blog, I introduced insights from Cisco’s Collaboration Work Practice Study and how people value collaboration in the work environment.  In today’s blog, I discuss how building relationships helps foster collaboration.

At its very core, collaboration is about people. This isn’t a new concept. Humankind has been coming together for centuries to collaboratively solve problems, and in that respect, today is no different. What has changed are the ways in which people collaborate.

One of the things we discovered through the Cisco Collaborative Work Practice Study is that people desire relationships and strong partnerships with the people with whom they work. Building relationships and networks that lead to trust is a fundamental element of successful collaboration.  Nearly every participant in the study Read More »

Tags: Cisco Collaborative Work Practice Study, collaboration, leadership, organizational culture, research

This is the first blog in a multi-part series. In upcoming posts, I delve deeper into the study and how technology is changing the way we work together.

Collaboration. It’s defined as “the act of people working together to reach a common goal.” Simple, right? But today’s technology era brings new dimensions to how we work together. We collaborate across time zones, across cultures, across personalities and behaviors, and all across a multitude of mobile devices, from smartphones and laptops to tablets and more.

And the scope and reach of technology will only get bigger and become more complex. As technology essentially makes the world smaller, the value and impact of collaboration increases — from the amount of projects you can undertake, to the productivity of employees, to the speed of implementation.

Collaboration has always been a core component of our culture at Cisco. And just as we use and optimize our technology to solve challenges and bring business benefits to our customers, we study our own organization to better understand the human behavior of collaboration and how it affects employee productivity, workplace efficiency, and business results.

We recently completed the Cisco Collaboration Work Practice Study, a qualitative, ethnographic, global research study that provided us with insight to how we collaborate at Cisco. Our findings  Read More »

Tags: Cisco Collaboration Work Practice Study, collaboration, culture, leadership, research

When everything seems focused on numbers – dollar signs, production output, development timelines – some organizations focus even more tightly on digits. It’s a logical reaction, but a risky one if it’s at the expense (so to speak) of human aspects like employee engagement.

Employees are consistent when asked what contributes most to their satisfaction, according to research from BlessingWhite: Among eight options, nearly 50% put their top two choices as “more opportunities to do what I do best” and “career development opportunities and training.” The lower their engagement level, the higher they rank “greater clarity about what the organization needs me to do,” which supports related findings, including:

• Trust in executives appears to have more than twice the impact on engagement than trust in immediate managers.
• Executives have to demonstrate consistency in words and actions, communicate often in depth, and align business practices and behaviors throughout the organization.

Read More »

Tags: collaboration, collaboration use cases, employee engagement, leadership, online training, teleworkers

Last night, Cisco was honored by the World Affairs Council of Washington, D.C. for its leadership role in worldwide education. Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers received the “Global Education Award“ in recognition of Cisco’s “worldwide commitment to social responsibility, knowledge transfer, learning, and education.“

Tae Yoo, Cisco’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs, accepted the award on John’s behalf. Tae leads Cisco’s social investment programs in education, healthcare, critical human needs, and economic development.

Dr. Steven Knapp, President of George Washington University, presents the World Affairs Council Global Education Award to Cisco Senior Vice President Tae Yoo on behalf of Cisco Chairman & CEO John Chambers

More than 1000 guests attended the Global Education Gala award ceremony, including 60 ambassadors from the Washington diplomatic corps and White House; cabinet and Congressional members; business and civic leaders; and students, parents and educators.

Read More »

Tags: Cisco, global education award, john chambers, leadership, world affairs council

Organizations of all types enter 2013 with one key priority:  how do they move faster and execute with greater agility while still remaining flexible and adaptable to the rapid changes in markets?

CEOs around the world are looking to collaboration as their top strategy to increase the speed of their organizations. Why?  Because collaboration eliminates the friction that slows organizations down — whether that friction comes from people or processes.

The amount of friction in your organization is directly proportional to your ability to speed up your team.  Friction is sometimes purposeful, such as passive-aggressive behavior.  Other times friction comes from processes that create decisions without any clarity or a clear definition of success.

Here are four New Year’s resolutions for all leaders to Read More »

Tags: collaboration, culture, leadership, Ron Ricci Blog, strategy, The Collaboration Imperative