Collaboration Is Good. Over-Collaboration Is a Trap.
When I tell clients that they’ve probably taken collaboration too far, it often surprises them. Collaboration is treated like fruit and veg: we need more and can’t have too much.
But it’s not true.
Our projects are often delayed because people who don’t need to be involved self-recruit and then give themselves a veto.
It helps if we set an organisational norm that projects are always run by the smallest number of people needed.
Don’t be offended when that isn’t you.
You’ll value the culture when it’s your turn to get something done.
Take Action
If you’re a leader:
Vocally set the cultural norm that project teams are as small as possible. Make it clear it’s not OK to join a project because you want to. Back your team when they don’t consult people who want to be consulted if there’s no benefit.
If you’re a team member:
Don’t be polite and consult people because they’d like to be consulted.
I don't think I fully agree with the sentiment here.
Over-consultation (to the point nothing gets done sensibly, or at all) is bad, but so is under-consultation.
One aspect of this is that being hidden behind the closed doors (and not allowing anyone in) is comfortable and convenient but not necessarily helpful to the outcomes of a project, including through overly autocratic decision-making (which inevitably results in inadequate risk-taking) and increased stimulus to making the decision-making room an echo-chamber and throwing out anyone who shows any signs of healthy critique or dissent.
Another aspect is that I personally would not have had a decent career in the industry had I asked too many permissions for being in the room I thought I needed to be in. Sometimes I just was there, and sometimes it led to great outcomes that would have otherwise not happened!