I have been thinking a lot about collaboration lately.
Not collaboration as a genuine practice that improves thinking, strengthens decisions, and helps organisations navigate complexity together. But collaboration as a label, one that is increasingly used inside organisations in ways that feel less constructive and more controlling.
In many workplaces today, collaboration has quietly evolved into a behavioural expectation that discourages challenge rather than enabling it.
If you question a decision, you are described as “not being collaborative.”
If you challenge assumptions, you are accused of “slowing alignment.”
If you raise concerns publicly, you are encouraged to “take it offline.”
Over time, people learn the pattern.
They soften their language. They reduce the sharpness of their thinking before speaking. They nod in meetings while holding back genuine concerns. They calculate which truths are professionally safe enough to voice and which are better left unsaid.
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