A truly collaborative environment gives all members a voice and the right to be heard, but ensures that no individual's needs are given a higher priority than the needs of the team itself. To ensure this happens all the team members must be wholeheartedly vested and focused on the outcome of the team as a whole. Since this is highly unique and rare, most organizations choose a leader, whose primary role is to represent the interest of the organization at large. Sometimes, this person must use an authoritative approach, especially in cases where there is an emergency, large risk, extreme situation, or when the collaborative approach is not producing any tangible benefit to the team. This truly ensures that all the members are served.

A team which is overly collaborative will often not get to making a decision, because it is so busy discussing each others points of view. In extreme cases, individuals feel so strongly about their point of view that they have to work to defend it or fight for it. Both of these then become political environments, where the benefit of the group has become secondary to the need of an individual. Often this is called the individual's right, but it really isn't because nobody on a team has the right to put their needs above the team's. When this happens, the team or its leader must ensure that the team itself is given the priority and refocus everyone's thinking into what is in the best interest of the organization.

We ensure a healthy balance between the collaborative and authoritative approaches. This allow a truly creative and healthy dialog to occur between people with a common goal, yet unique or different experiences, skills, thinking styles, and roles. This seemingly oppositional environment, when properly structured, provides for an amazingly productive give-and-take, yielding some of the most brilliant ideas in history. Each member of the team knows that they are there for the team's benefit, which will indirectly benefit himself. By putting the team first and knowing that someone will ensure this fairness among all members, each team member can free himself from defensive or territorial thinking and explore new insights from others. When a group of people are free to do this together, amazing things happen.

To launch the CT Young Entrepreneur's Assocation, I beleive I will need at least 50 business owners willing to commit in one way or another. At this point, I only have a handful. While I very much apprecaite those of you who have committeed to helping, I'm going to put the project on hold for now.

Instead, I've decided to put together some writings which are equally dear to my heart. They are the basis for my interest in helping kids own their own businesses. In fact, they are the teachings I planned to start with for the group.

I'm planning on calling them Capitalism for Kids.

Hopefully they can be of use to you or your kids or a kid you know. I intend on compiling them into a book eventually and your feedback is very much apprecaited. I actually think now that it's possible that this compilation might actually be more beneficial for young entrepreneurs than the group.

Look for my blog entries in a new category with the same name. I'm planning to get them up once a week, but may be a bit less frequent depending on my schedule.

Ken.

Please comment on this blog entry, if you're interested in helping with the Young Entrepreneurs Idea I had in any of the following ways:

Sharing business experience

Connecting child-owned businesses with clients, vendors or marketing resources

Helping lead the group

Mentoring child entrepreneurs

Expertise in a specific industry

Donating money

My goal is to find 50 business owners who are willing to help in at least one of the ways listed above. I beleive we can really make a difference to these kids and the world-at-large!