A good collaboration makes each person’s contribution easier to hear.

Working together can go two ways. It can blur everyone into an average where no one’s idea survives contact, or it can do the opposite and give each person’s thinking a clearer hearing than it would have had alone. The second happens when people actively make room, repeat a quiet suggestion so the group catches it, and name whose idea something was.

In your next shared piece of work, watch for the point where someone’s contribution slips past unnoticed. Say it again and attribute it. Do this twice and the group starts doing it without you.