Collaboration: What It Is and What It Isn’t

Everyone’s obsessed with collaboration these days.

It’s branded as the magic ingredient to success. But when you strip away the hashtags, Zoom calls, and surface-level nods, what’s left? Is it real? Or just another performance?

What Collaboration Is Not

Let me say this plainly:

Collaboration is not a group chat. It’s not a Zoom call where everyone performs agreement. It’s not tagging five people on LinkedIn and calling it a movement. And no, it’s definitely not attaching someone’s name to a project they barely contributed to and calling it “shared success."

What Collaboration Is

True collaboration is a verb. A risk. A chemistry experiment.

A marriage without the prenup.

It’s when two, or ten people throw their egos into a bonfire and say: “Let’s make something neither of us could make alone.”

It’s less about meeting halfway, and more about building a brand new road, in heels, with no map, and just enough Wi-Fi to make it work.

A Quick Breakdown:

Collaboration isn’t:

• Pretending to listen until it’s your turn to speak

• Agreeing with everything to avoid conflict

• About credit, it’s about contribution

• Safe (and it shouldn’t be)

Collaboration is:

• Showing up messy, honest, and willing to be wrong

• Giving your best idea away without fear

• Understanding that success isn’t diluted when shared, it’s deepened

• Saying: “I trust you enough to build this with me.” And meaning it

Where the Magic Happens

The best collaborations I’ve ever been a part of came from friction, not flattery.

From opposing viewpoints that somehow harmonized, because both people were brave enough to actually listen.

Not just hear.

Listen.

I’ve sat in boardrooms that felt like battlegrounds. I’ve also sat on thrift-store couches with creatives where lightning struck, because no one cared who got the credit.

They just wanted to make magic.

Guess which one I remember?

When It Ends, Let It

Sometimes the best collaborations end.

Because growth doesn’t always grow in the same direction. And that’s okay.

Some collaborations are meant to build empires. Others? Just meant to build you.

So if you’re going to throw that word around, make sure you mean it.

Make sure you’re ready for the discomfort, the compromise, the co-creation.

Make sure you’re not just saying “collaboration” when what you really want is control.

Because real collaboration?

It’s sacred. It’s sweaty. It’s sexy. And it’s never safe.

A Final Question:

I had to ask myself, and now I ask you:

Are you collaborating? or are you just collecting names to sit on the credits?

Because in the end: We don’t need more collabs. We need more courage.