The Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce recently discussed collaboration and success during a team meeting at its office.

Todd Sanders, CEO of the Phoenix Chamber, said collaboration was the key to success in the region, touting the chamber's collaboration with the City of Phoenix, Maricopa County, the Arizona Commerce Authority and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“The ideal pro-growth environment features collaborators offering tools to help businesses grow and navigate challenges, institutions providing the precise education and training employers need and advocates promoting a pro-business regulatory environment at all levels of government," Sanders said in a recent blog post about the meeting.

Sanders said a successful team has several talented members that have unique talents and abilities working toward the same goal.

“While I encourage everyone in the business, education, political and nonprofit communities to consider the value of collaboration throughout our region, I also challenged our team to step (figuratively, of course!) into each others’ shoes during our discussion,” Sanders said.

Many of the topics during the discussion were based on Stephen R. Covey’s book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," Sanders said.

“Hearing individual interpretations of our organization’s mission and the methods we use to achieve it proved to be a valuable eye-opener for the staff, myself included,” he said

Sanders said he felt the chief habit of highly effective organizations is collaboration.

“Collaboration isn’t a mere buzzword that sounds good to throw around during executive board meetings," he said. "It’s a proven method of operation that produces results.”