Collaboration means sharing economic risk and reward with clients, not just executing tasks. When you take on downside risk as a contractor or designer, you earn upside too, and everyone gets better outcomes.
What does it mean to collaborate over delegate? I think a lot of this boils down to saying that the two of you realize that there's risk involved in the engagement because whenever you're doing contracting or agency work or what have you, you are exposed to the creditworthiness of the client, to the ups and downs of the business, etc. It also says you're just taking on a more serious senior responsibility in terms of the economics of the engagement. And I find this just leads to much better outcomes for everyone. I would totally encourage taking the approach of being a partner, taking on some of the risk. That way you as the employee type, the technical person or designer, what have you, gets a piece of the upside because you darn sure are taking on a piece of the downside in terms of the risk. Collaborate, be a partner to each other, help each other more than delegate. This is not an up-down.
