Collaboration is the New Competition

Welcome to the Everyday PM podcast, the podcast where we discussed project management principles for your everyday life. My name is Ann Camthia, I am a certified project manager, having had the great opportunity to work across industries like tech, healthcare, and now I find myself in marketing. I am excited to welcome Priscilla McKinney, who is an author of Collaboration is the New Competition, which I have right here.

Excuse my blurred screen there if you're watching the video, but she is here to talk about not just the book, but really talk about what true collaboration means. And we're going to go into that topic in more detail in just a few minutes here. But for those who have not met you, Priscilla, if you can take a brief moment to introduce yourself to our audience, that'd be great.

Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for having me on. And people, if you're listening in and you love this show, you need to give her a 5 star rating because these podcasts are absolutely a labor of love from all of us podcasting hosts. And you know, if you like what you hear, then this is the way that you can give something back to Anne to make sure that she can keep doing it. But thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.

I know what goes into, you know, creating a podcast and all of the logistical planning, which I, you know, is one of the reasons why I really do love your show. And I think this kind of, you know, this kind of approach, this kind of conversation needs to always be having, you know, with amongst your team. So who I am, I am the CEO here

at Little Bird marketing. We are a content marketing agency specifically for revenue generation for B to B. Now, I happen to heavily specialized in the market research industry, but we we take a lot of clients across the

B to B space. We do everything from writing thought leadership to writing, you know, highly compelling lead magnets to creating digital ads or revenue sprints, to building websites that convert, to showing up at conferences and helping get ROI out of that through video, through a podcasting, through photography. So my team really looks at the whole B to B ecosystem and says how can we take the next step with the client and make sure that they are continually

growing at the right pace? You know, I don't know if this ever happens to you, but this consistently happens to me, Priscilla, in where I bring on guests onto the podcast and I completely just get nervous. And it's because with you, it's because you bring the experiences that I am still trying to create in my own professional journey. You've written and obviously authored a book. You manage a gigantic team and then all the while you are able

to do multiple podcasts. You are so kind in terms of your outreach to other podcasters. So I will just let the audience know that I am a little bit intimidated right now by doing this interview with you. But I am so excited that you are able to join us here on the everyday PM and I appreciate the support that you've provided to me. So without further ado, oh, go ahead.

All we have all been there. And I mean, I had to start my podcast at one time and I do remember way back when, when I started, I remember listening to Amy Porterfield like non-stop on her podcast. And I think about 5678 other people in leadership who have really helped me along the way. And it's no small thing. So finding those people who are maybe at a different place that are further along in the journey

where you want to go is so key. And I have those people for me and I am, I would be proud to be one of those people for you. I feel so much better about just that the supportive nature of, you know, and especially since we're both women as well, I think that's amazing. So I appreciate that the title of your book, it's collaboration, but you also use

the word competition. And I thought that was really interesting because you don't often hear those two words spoken together in terms of how do you be collaborative? Yet there's also this competitive nature that happens alongside that. So collaboration is a new competition when it comes to the book that you've authored.

How do you define true collaboration in the context of the book? Well. First I would say for business I would have to say, first of all, there's really bad news and that is you can't go it alone. And I would also say there's really good news. Guess what, you can't go it alone. You know, so kind of like how you kind of led with that just vulnerability of just feeling like, oh, I'm a little intimidated and I got to go launch my business.

Well, nobody goes it alone. And unfortunately this kind of Americana, you know, Whitesnake, you know, here I go again on my own, kind of, you know, Anthem does not really service and kind of, as you pointed out, it doesn't really service as women either. And yet we keep engaging in it. But the fact of the matter is, is that people who are competitive and who have one, they are also collaborative,

have had help. And so this idea that they are on the opposite sides of a spectrum to me is a fallacy. They aren't. They can go hand in hand. Now what they aren't is a sharing of trade secrets when it comes to business or a it also doesn't mean we have to collaborate for a long time. It could be a very short one. You and I are going to collaborate today for about 1/2 an hour. And then I'm going to have you on my podcast and I'm going to collaborate with you.

And we're going to use each other's networks to help each other in the way we best can. I can. That doesn't mean now that I'm going to open up my books and share that with you. So just because we're collaborating in this moment, it means we can still compete and can still find her right audience and have them come to her and pay her. And I can find my right audience and have them come to me. So we don't have to have this

mentality of win, lose anymore. I could win and you could win, all while we're both competing for business. I love that, I love that. And as that pertains to project managers, I think that's one of the hardest barriers to break in terms of the mentality when we see our role within a project team, which is so often times project managers will come to me and say, I'm not making any headway on this project. I how can I be successful? It feels like we're all

competing against each other. And it sounds like to your point and what's emphasized in the book is, yes, there's this element of competition that has to happen in order for you to innovate and grow, but that can all be done in a collaborative manner. As you had said, I would never show you my books. You would maybe never show me

the details of your books. But there's something that to be said about us being successful together that basically what you're trying to get at in the definition there. And I think that there's something even further. You bring up this project management and it can get very competitive, like for example, when there's a project manager kind of a taskmaster, if you will, you know, we can get very

checklisty. We work on Trello here and we kind of live and die by Trello. You know, we have to collaborate with with clients all the time. And you're right, you can get in that feeling like, Oh my gosh, I'm lifting all the weight here. I keep nudging them and nudging them. How come you're not getting this done?

You know, these kinds of things are very frustrating, but that's because we have had this abundance of I'm doing my thing and then you have to do your thing and it like as opposed to really understanding how we can collaborate. And one thing I would say about that, it does show us that we do have a little bit of a win lose. Like when we do try one up, someone with like, Nope, I got all those things done at 10:00 at night so that you're basically feel completely

drowned. You know, when you come in, in the morning there you can see some underlying tone maybe of how we work and how we project manage together. But I would say the biggest issue for that is I like to call attention to the fact that working in proximity does not mean we're collaborating. So just because you and I are sharing the same project management board and maybe we sat down together at this meeting, we still could be worlds apart and not be collaborating.

And that is the fallacy. I want to make sure I call out with people. Just because you get on the same project management board with them does not mean you have dealt with the issues that you need to deal with so that you

are truly collaborating. Was there a moment that's that's such a great point. And I'm curious if there was a moment in your professional journey where you had that realization was that you were working with a specific partner and you don't obviously have to name any names or anything like that. But this is not something that you would realize early on in your professional journey.

At least I did not. It took me a quite a number of years and experiences and failures to finally figure out that that is a thing that can happen within a collaborative space is that you still can be very much on opposing sides of the argument. So was there a specific example that aha moment for you of where you're thinking, oh, this is how we play the game in the world of business? Yeah, for sure. My good friend Sarah Kotva from Field Work, she is, had been a client of mine for a lot of

years. But we met at an event where I was speaking and eventually she hired me. Well, we work together for years. We still work together and we have such a great dialogue. But one day she said to me, you came on the market research scene in like 2016 and you just like blew up. Like how? How did you do that? She's like, I've been in this industry my whole life. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. How did I do that? Right.

And I did have an aha moment. What is it I'm doing differently than other people are doing that is getting me further, quicker and really helping me achieve my biggest goals? And I realized I'm bringing a lot of people on that journey with me. I'm collaborating with a lot of people. I'm saying not, hey, can I get you to pay me? You lose, I win. But I'm saying, oh, what are some other things you need? You want to pay me, I win. What do you need?

OK, well, let me get you in touch with this person. I realized that it didn't have to be tit for tat. You don't have to have those kinds of relationships. And so I was doing a lot of things, doing a lot of favors for people who were in exchange doing favors for me. And I was really, more than anything, asking better questions of people I would meet along the way. And I was seeing if I could go a little further with doing them a favor of helping them achieve that next goal they had.

At the same time, when they asked me, well, how can I help you, Priscilla? I wasn't polite and go, oh, don't worry about it. Don't help me. Which is not only what we do in business, but it's very heavily what a lot of women do. Yeah. And instead I said, Oh well, what would really help me is if you did this or this or this is one of those like really easy for you and they would pick one and help me and voila, I got a lot further faster. And so when she asked that to

me, like, how did you do that? I thought, Oh well, I thought that's what everybody does. And I had that aha moment that I had been doing something differently that was intuitive to me, but that I really did have a very specific codified system. I just needed to explain it to other people so they could benefit from it.

Isn't that I you had so many good Nuggets of what you just said in terms of the way that I'm just going to call back to the way that women perceive that type of direction is they always say, I feel bad asking. And so I'm really glad that you called that out in terms of you took that completely off the table and said this is transactional in some ways, but it never was an emotional tie in. It feels in, in terms of the way that you illustrated that

journey of that aha moment. It didn't feel like there was any emotions tied to it. This is just business and this is how you collaborate within the business space. And if we're able to, and I'm just bringing it back to my audience in the project management world, untie those things, I think we can accomplish a lot more. But I think in the journey of a project manager, often times

those two ideas are intertwined. And that's something that comes with experience, maturity, failures, trust, relationships and that sort of thing, that collaborative nature and something that you learn along the way.

And I often felt like I was feeling bad about asking for those things early on in my career, whereas I get it now. I totally get it. Well, when I think about project management, I think a lot of times we are remiss that we don't ask how somebody else wants the project to be managed or what does success look like for someone else. Because for those people who are in project management, listen, I love those people. I hire those people all the time because I love those checklisty people.

Oh look, good Lord, they run my life, you know, and they make me look really good. But sometimes that's exhausting. And so when we think about a project, my team is also in tune enough to say, OK, do you want me just to run this list? Like just exactly. And I'd be like, yes, Oh my gosh, don't even ask me about it. Or they might find that I go, Oh no, this one is so dear to me. Can we just talk about a little bit and let's nuance this.

Let's put a, you know, put some kid gloves on and, and deal with this client. And this is where I'm thinking we could go. And they know that I am not the same person every day when I approach every single project. And so in, in terms of project management, if you want to collaborate with people, you also, in my opinion, have to learn how to collaborate with yourself. What do I stand to win and lose if I do this approach? Like you need to be a little bit awake and alive to what you're

holding onto so closely. And so that's, that's that kind of like true, you know, self talk. I'm coming at it from this perspective. Let me be honest about the perspective I'm coming from. And it really is that introspective work that you have to do on yourself as well. I love that you're calling that out even though you've never held the role of project manager. As far as I'm concerned, I feel like you would be the perfect fit for that role.

If you like checklist Priscilla I. Do no joke, we live and die by it. And I mean for all intents and purposes, I'm just a glorified project manager. I just happen to be managing projects of revenue for multiple companies at the same time. So you do have to have a lot of checklist, You do have to have a lot of organization. You just can't live and die by

them. You have to really come at it and say, well, in this particular case, how could I best collaborate with this client for this goal, but with these personalities as well? Yeah, that emotional intelligence piece is often something that's not spoken of. You kind of just learn it along the way as well. And I wanted to call back to the, the, the cover of your book and I know that I'm kind of in a blurred screen for those that are, are maybe watching this video.

But you talk about kind of the beehive mentality or the, the dynamics of a beehive and you're able to draw parallels between collaboration and a beehive. So can you talk a little bit about that with our audience in terms of, you know, how that idea came about? And what is it about beehives and the dynamics of that that make you think about

collaboration? Yeah. So first of all, I'll let you know, we have tried to be beekeepers. We have been incredibly unsuccessful at my house. So please know I cannot do this in real life. But as far as the collaboration is concerned, of course, all the things you're thinking about bees, there are a lot of people doing the same, you know,

project achieving more together. There's a lot, you know, so we get that busy bee, like we get all that mentality, but there's more to it. And one of the things I call out in my book just and I'll just get into just this one point is that there is a hierarchy in a beehive.

Okay, So what I think when people come into collaboration and indeed when they come into project management is they act like, oh, we're all equals here and we all have to have a, but if we're going to collaborate, then we all get to have the same say no, that's not how it works. I'm the CEO and when I create a project, the project manager needs to manage it, you know, and they don't get to then, you know, say, well, I did it this way because I decided that's no, there's a hierarchy.

Now, unfortunately, in our society, we have really equated hierarchy with abuse of power. And so immediately when I say, Oh, no, I'm in charge, everybody goes, oh, that's so bad, That's not bad, That's great. There's a hierarchy. I understand what it is. The queen bee has a particular role. This is what she does. You know, you have worker bees. We understand all of this. This is like fifth grade science, right?

I think when people get in business and they want to collaborate, all of a sudden they get this idea like it's just altruistic. Let's just come around the fire and sing some songs and we'll collaborate. That is not what collaboration is. Collaboration is hard. It is, it is a way of competing and it is about, in my opinion, three things #1 knowing what you have to lose and what you have to gain.

And I don't think you should get involved in collaboration with anybody who does not have both yourself and the other people. You've got to have both. And the second thing is you have to be willing to show your cards. Now, I'm not saying all your cards, not your IP, not your books, not anything you have to show your cards about. What is it I'm trying to get out of here. So for example, I reached out to you in a collaboration.

I have something to gain and I have something to lose because what I asked was and you have a podcast. I have a podcast. Let's collaborate, right? So you let me on your show, I'll let you on my show. What do I have to stand to lose or to gain? Maybe you come on my show and then you never air mine and I air yours. OK, I have that to lose, but what do I have to gain? I can make a significant connection with you. We could build a network as

women in business. I could be on your podcast and somebody from your audience ends up working with me. I have a lot to gain. So I have to have that in mind. And I have to be willing to let you have both of those too, you know? And then the next thing is showing your card. So you be honest about what you have to win and what you have to lose in that moment. And then the third thing is you need to work with people who have a will to win, and I mean a will for themselves and for

others. And I again, I'm going to come back to this women in business. So often people say, oh, what can I do for your Priscilla? And I say, well, you can do this, blah, blah, blah. OK. And then I say, what can I do for you? Oh, no, don't worry about it. I don't want to collaborate with that person if they don't have the will to win. The verb, the energy, the drive in their own business. I don't expect that they should do that for me.

And so to me, when I think about like, you know, the beehive and that kind of stuff, there's a hierarchy you need to see. You just need to understand it. It doesn't mean that you're less valuable than someone else. It means you have a role in it. And once you understand that and you quit putting all these weirdness things over the hierarchy, you can get down to business and collaborate. And that's how you can get what maybe I would call, you know, parity or equity.

It does not have to be hierarchy, right? And that's how a beehive works. That's you've described almost every company that I've had an opportunity to work for. And even if they've promoted themselves as a collaborative environment where we listen to everybody's thoughts, you know, I'm thinking Apple for example, which they do, they try to set it up that way. But to Priscilla's point, ultimately, there is somebody at the top that is going to have to

make a decision, right? And let's not forget that that is actually very critical in order to move business forward in order for projects to be successful. We can collaborate until, I don't know what the right phrase is, but we can collaborate until we're exhausted and still never come to an alignment of the direction we want to go in. And so all of that of what Priscilla just outlined.

Is very, very useful in terms of how project managers can lead projects to success while still introducing this element of collaboration and also being very honest about the competition that still needs to have to happen.

I mean, your book has key elements. It has a framework, it has strategies. Is there any kind of imparting words? Obviously, I want the audience to pick this book up, so I'm not trying to give away all of the elements of what's in the book. But is there anything else that you want to kind of call out, whether specific to project managers who might be listening to this or just to the general audience around your book? Collaboration is a new competition.

Yeah, I would love to give more value to specifically to project managers. And one thing I would say is that I find that a lot of people who take that kind of role at a company, they usually get very heads down, right? They're they're doers. Like I said, I love these doers, but often they don't pick their head up to look at the larger world. And one of the things I would offer in this book is the reminder that you need to be networking. You need to be out after your

own good. You need to be building your personal brand, you need to be building your influence online as a as a business professional, you need to be taking care of yourself. And to that end, you need to

collaborate with other people. So just because you're a good worker bee and you put your head down and get things done and you might be the absolute best project manager, but that might not mean anything to you five years down the line if you fail to really take opportunities to collaborate.

And I mean, in very tiny ways or in very large ways collaborating, meaning maybe meeting with five other, you know, women in your area or you know, for, for business ideas or meeting with other project managers and saying, how do we need to upskill? Or hey, who meeting with 10 project managers and saying, hey, who's using what tech?

You get 5 minutes to talk about what tech you're doing, like find interesting ways to collaborate with people that are is meaningful to you, that grows your career and really gets you out of your, you know, your day-to-day grind. Yeah, that's fantastic. Priscilla, I appreciate your time joining us on the Everyday PM podcast today. From businesswoman to businesswoman, I completely see you as a boss lady that I am just completely enamored with.

And I really do appreciate you reaching out to me and then inviting me onto your podcast as well, which I'm very much looking forward to doing that episode with you as well. So if folks want to continue the conversation with you, where can they find you online? A couple of places. First of all, I teach social influence on LinkedIn and so therefore I have a very big presence on LinkedIn. Very easy to find me, I answer it myself. I also for my book have priscillamckinney.com.

And then if you're in marketing or in the realm where where I live and work, Little Bird marketing.com is a great site. But I'm telling you, Slash Resources has so many free resources about taking the next step with your own life and, you know, bettering your stance in your own career. So we are not weird salesy, you know, people download what you want from there. If you're not interested in our services, you can unsubscribe. It's no big deal.

Like we are not harassing salespeople, but there are some really great resources that we have created, you know, with an award-winning teen over the last 12 years. They are very valuable. And I just kind of say shame on the person who doesn't reach out and say, look, this person's further along than I am, So what do they have to offer?

I certainly have learned from some of the best pros in the industry, and just that graciousness with which people put their best and brightest ideas out there is something I really appreciate and I looked to emulate. This has truly been an honor having you on the podcast. I myself have worked through your resources and just again, enamored by the way that you brand yourself, present

yourself. I've been on the on the website, I've gone through some of the resources already because I myself find that myself in that place of wanting to learn from others who have had those experiences. So I highly encourage our audience to not just pick up Priscilla's book, but also check out the resources on their website. I'll make sure all of the relevant links are attached to this in the audio and video

formats of this podcast. So Priscilla, on behalf of the Everyday PM audience, thank you so much for your time today. I'm Ann Campia, you can also find me on LinkedIn if you'd like to collect, connect further, and I look forward to speaking you all on the next episode of the Everyday PM Podcast. So that will do it for both of us. Thank you so much for joining.