Run a Collaboration Inventory
Professionalism & Work Habits • Collaboration — Practical Exercise
Run a Collaboration Inventory
Professionalism & Work Habits — Collaboration · ~5 min exercise
This week’s deep dive drew a line between “I did my piece” and “I helped us get this done.” This exercise helps you see, honestly, which pattern shows up more in your recent work — and gives you one concrete way to shift toward the second.
The Exercise
- List two or three recent projects or tasks that involved other people in any way — a team project, a handoff, a shared deliverable.
- For each one, ask: did I share information before I was asked? Or did people have to come to you to get what they needed?
- For each one, ask: did I give credit specifically? Or did contributions — yours and others’ — go largely unnamed?
- For each one, ask: was input gathered before the decision, or only announced after? Notice which side of that line you were usually on.
- Pick one upcoming project and commit to one specific shift. Maybe it’s sending an update before being asked. Maybe it’s naming a specific person’s contribution out loud this week. Choose one, and do it deliberately.
This isn’t about scoring yourself. It’s about noticing the default pattern you fall into under normal working conditions — because that default is what people experience as “working with you,” whether or not it matches how collaborative you intend to be.
Try It With AI
Proactive Info-Sharing Planner
Use this coaching prompt to identify one piece of information you’ve been sitting on that someone else could use right now — and draft the message to send it.
