I asked a question on our linkedIn group - Co-crafting Innovation
Co-Creation Failures - When was the last time you tried to co-create and it failed? What were the reasons - any thoughts - any factors? Does it requires more than trust, confidence and synergy?
Co-Creation or Co-crafting is the process when two or more distinct actors, choose to build, design, develop, evolve, create or change a system, artifact or a concept together, in a more or less self-emergent and self-organizing way. One of the examples of community co-crafting, of course, is the open source way. However, there may be other ways, that we may have explored and have left as they didnt work out. I would request you to share those examples from your own experiences. I really am looking co-crafting cases that failed.
MY OWN ANSWER
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Most of the times the reasons for my failures at co-creation have been -
(a) Egos - it is about ME not about US
(b) Insecurity
(c) Higher Level - super system impacts - Typically the so called managers have come to the picture and simply shifted the focus to something else to meet some petty political, risk-less objectives
(d) People - even the co-crafter goes into an evaluation mode
(e) People - even the co-crafter goes into MY VIEW vs YOUR VIEW
(f) People - even the co-crafter starts hiding information - which leads to ME mentality and mistrust
(g) Contribution to common operating picture - the open way work should happen for all parties to be aware of everything - becomes a problem as some people contribute to common operating picture whereas some start using the common operating picture but avoiding any contribution to it
(h) People start believing that they have learned enough now - and now they want to get their ROIs - as soon as these thoughts come - learning stops - ROI is a big big problem to learning
(i) I am right and you are wrong - is another problem - it is extremely difficult for people to accept that both of may be right - in fact there is nothing called wrong or right - These are two different ways - or in fact multiple ways to explore the problem
(j) If one person starts getting more credit as a perceived ROI, then also the the co-creation process fails
(k) Emergence - happens by doing things together - not playing the hierarchy - people change over time - initial learners start behaving they now know and that creates a problem
(l) "Let Learning lead" - looks simple, but it is one of most difficult process - as our egos comes into picture
(m) "We are designed to compete" - hence co-creation is an alien process to humans
(n) We have been characterizing Evolution as "survival of the fittest" - thereby the fittest are chosen, whereas we need to look at "elimination of the weakest" where as only those who are weakest - eliminated and rest all move ahead - to get more chances or possibilities.
(o) We like to kill ideas - especially if they are from others
(p) we like to develop ideas - especially if they are our own
