My answer: Yes.

It’s good if you have a specific benefit that you will gain by leveraging collaboration, such as…

— Increased speed
— Better ability to navigate complexity
— Being able to leapfrog your competition through innovation

It’s bad if you are collaborating merely to be collaborative. More people does not necessarily mean better results. More opinions can slow you down and/or muddy the waters.

Collaboration requires intentionality. Why are we doing this? Who can add value? Who can’t? Do we need another person on our team or can we simply have our current team meet once or twice with that person or department?

Most important, perhaps, is how you collaborate…

When we have differing points of view, who gets to decide? When we need to accelerate our pace, who decides that? Is this a command & control operation, or something more egalitarian?

Don’t just collaborate. Be intentional.