{"id":15931,"date":"2017-01-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/is-your-enterprise-collaborating-or-just-conversing\/"},"modified":"2022-04-11T13:06:19","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T18:06:19","slug":"is-your-enterprise-collaborating-or-just-conversing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/is-your-enterprise-collaborating-or-just-conversing\/","title":{"rendered":"Is your enterprise collaborating\u2014or just conversing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Mark Twain once said \u201cthe difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter; it\u2019s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, if Twain could see today\u2019s business world \u2014 where instead of Huckleberry Finn navigating the Mississippi River, we have cross-functional teams navigating complex projects \u2014 he might be inspired to swap his analogies from lightening bug and lightening, to collaboration and conversing.<\/p>\n

\"conversing
\nYes, at first glance collaboration and conversing may look the same. You may even find a thesaurus that pairs them as synonyms. But in the context of business communication, they\u2019re certainly not interchangeable\u2014and a belief to contrary is a big reason why many enterprises think that their collaboration challenges are rooted in \u201cpeople not conversing enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, the problem is usually the opposite: people are over-conversing instead of truly collaborating! That\u2019s why the work landscape is riddled with countless emails, chats, posts, calls and meetings. There\u2019s an excess of conversing, but a scarcity of collaboration.<\/p>\n

However, enterprises need to tap into effective and focused collaboration and not rampant ad hoc conversing \u00a0to ensure that investments and initiatives deliver on expected business goals. To that end, enterprises to need to:<\/p>\n