Hello, my name is Vivas Kumar. I am currently an MBA student at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. However, before I became a graduate student, I worked for several years as a supply chain manager at Tesla, which is one of the world’s most innovative electric car companies. 

One of the reasons why I was compelled to submit this audio today was because I was asked to speak about the topic of collaboration, which is one of Longitude’s core values. And collaboration is something that goes hand in hand with solving a problem or a challenge that is as complex as the one that Tesla is solving.

Building a car is tremendously detailed and difficult challenge. We had to source thousands of parts from hundreds of suppliers from six continents in the world, in order to make our cars.  And this is true of every car company, or every company that is making a complex and highly engineered technology that is being used by people around the world every single day.

Whether it be the phones that we use to make our calls and run our lives, the planes that we use to get from location A to location B, or of course the cars such as those that we were putting out at Tesla.  The reason that collaboration matters so much is to me is because there is no one person that can be responsible for sourcing these thousands of parts or for building hundreds of thousands of cars that a factory like the Tesla factory put out.  Also important to note is the fact that our suppliers were spread out all over the world. Collaboration, keeping in mind the unique cultures of people whom we were working these geographies is very important.

The bedrock of this collaboration was communication. Communication, tactically via phone calls, and emails, but also most importantly, through in person interactions.  That, although may not have been asked frequent, because of the large geographic distances that separated us were very vital when they did happen.  Communicating needs and expectations, and desires, as well as our feelings about our work, and the importance of the mission of bringing sustainable energy to everybody was a core pillar upon which we operated as a company with our suppliers. It was inspiring to see suppliers get on board and want to collaborate with us due to the shared mission. And like I said, all of the tough challenges in engineering but also in society, in business, and law, can be boiled down to many groups of people who have similar and shared values, working together for a common good, and collaborating as teams, as companies, and potentially even as nations.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak about my experiences, and I look forward to seeing what Longitude program leaders do in the future.

After hearing Vivas’s insights on collaboration, I was instantly reminded of group projects that I had taken part in as a student. At the beginning of high school, I absolutely dreaded group projects, especially those in which I had to work with people whom I didn’t know too well. It was almost always difficult for me to get my own ideas across, to share my honest opinions about others’ ideas, to contribute meaningfully. Consequently, many of the group projects that I worked on often lead to a much different outcome than I had envisioned, causing me to wonder what would have happened had I simply spoken up, had I simply used my voice.

As time went on, I learned that passively allowing a new idea to replace or accompany an older one without fully discussing it was counterproductive. I realized that having a clear focus in mind, a shared mission as Vivas mentioned, perhaps, is essential to collaboration because it sheds light on what’s necessary at any given time. In other words, when everyone in a group aims towards the same target and is aware of that shared target, they gain a much better sense of what ideas are needed and what ideas can be modified. Collaboration is where communication, or lack thereof, can make or break work-in-progress. To achieve successful collaboration, everyone’s voice must be heard. 

By allowing thoughtful and transparent communication within collaborations, multiple ideas can coexist or better yet, improve upon each other and lead to achieving a common goal. After all, many goals, whether they revolve around finishing a group presentation for a class or releasing the next big social media app, are achieved through diligent and honest collaboration. All it takes is at least one idea, some careful analysis, and a voice.