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Collaboration is about creating value, because if we're not creating value, what's the point? When you start looking at shaving months off product development cycles—in everything from automobile manufacturing to aerospace to animation—that is real, measurable value. And that is what collaboration can deliver.

But perhaps even more important would be the recognition and rewards system of the company. Are they recognizing and rewarding people for internally competitive, command-and-control behavior? Or are they recognizing and rewarding people for collaborative behavior?

And that's the way organizations have been operating: Paying a few people to think, and paying everyone else to carry out orders. But we've learned that just doesn't work any more. Now it's "all hands on deck." There is a realization that we need to come together to make decisions and solve problems and even develop products, regardless of level, role, or region.

Because if everything is being graded on a curve, and we are competing with everyone around us, how are we ever going to be able to effectively collaborate in an organization?

What paralyzes an organization is when management compromises value by failing to tap ideas, expertise, and assets. What also paralyzes an organization is when requests for decisions languish in in-boxes rather than hashing out issues spontaneously. Paying a few people to think and paying everybody else to carry out orders creates far less value than breaking down barriers among silos and enabling people to engage each other spontaneously.

And even in an office space, knowledge can be dispersed and kept in silos. Multiply that potential ten-fold in a virtual work space.

Without a good leader acting as the glue to holding disparate parts together, communications meltdowns will be the norm, not the exception.