archive: July, 2009

What Promotes Collaboration Inside Organizations?

Without the proper culture and structure, collaboration and all of its benefits will elude even the most determined company.  Stakeholders, organizational structure, leadership style, culture, and mission must all be properly aligned in order to create a model that promotes collaboration and success.  Like creativity, collaboration cannot be forced; it must be cultivated.  It’s a process, and like all worthwhile endeavors, it takes time.

Two of the strongest promoters of collaboration are informality and trust.  Informal settings are much more relaxing.  When people are relaxed they are able to let their minds wander a bit, perhaps even over into someone else’s domain.  There you are able to discuss, ponder, create relationships, and perhaps solve a joint challenge or two.  On-the-fly decision-making takes far less time than chain-of-control decision-making.  Ad-hoc interaction takes far less time than scheduled encounters.  All of this leads to greater efficiency and increased productivity.  When employees are a part of the process and fully engaged they feel as though they are adding value, which translates into taking responsibility.

Trust is one of the biggest factors in promoting a collaborative culture. A trusting relationship is one where the other person’s thoughts and opinions are valued.  When you value the opinions of others and they value yours, then you can discuss anything without judgment and evaluation.  From that point, there isn’t any challenge that can’t be tackled. Trusting yourself is also a big component of collaboration.  Unless you trust your own creativity and ideas you aren’t likely to share them.

There are no magic bullets.  It is simply good old virtues like informality, trust, a united vision, common goals, and the use of agreements as opposed to expectations.  Expectations smack of controlling and invite an air of arrogance that is simply not necessary.  Most people will honor their agreements but few care much about someone else’s expectations that they can’t control.  These are simple concepts that bring powerful changes.

The WSJ recently published an article (REPLICATING CLEVELAND CLINIC’S SUCCESS POSES MAJOR CHALLENGES) that clearly states the overriding quality of cost effective super stars in healthcare like the Cleveland and Mayo Clinics is a culture of collaboration.  As opposed to the independent, ‘every doc for himself’ model that is operated in most hospitals in the US.  It is actually one of the few useful bits of information I’ve seen regarding what can be done to contain health care costs while maintaining the drive for new and innovative treatments.  The article also points out that Medicare aligns better with the ‘every doc for himself’ model than it does the integrated, collaborative approach to caring for patients.  What a brilliant opportunity for change.

People are finding ways to become more connected every day.  You can be a part of it, or watch it pass you and your business by.  The good news is, that if done authentically, creating a culture of collaboration inside your firm and with your customers will actually be a lot of fun and very rewarding.

As I sit here in late July 2009 writing about Collaboration, two very distinct examples are dominating the media.  One is an astounding feat of collaboration and courage that sucked an entire nation into its drive for success.  The other, an embarrassment to that same nation 40 years later as a group of intelligent and caring individuals who hold the honor of leading a nation seem to have lost their way.  Yes, I am speaking of Apollo 11 and Healthcare Reform, which through a random historical timeline, are sharing the spotlight.  Life wasn’t peachy in the 1960’s either, but at least there was one thing that could unite a young country with a bigger heart and a bigger drive for innovation than any other in history.

What is Collaboration?

According to Wikipedia Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Collaboration does not require leadership and can sometimes bring better results through decentralization and egalitarianism. In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources.

Collaboration is not about finding a group of people that think similarly so that it is easy to agree upon the next course of action or the right solution.  To the contrary, collaboration works best with a group of diverse thinkers that tend to come at a problem from slightly different angles and who commit to work without judgment and evaluation.

Why Is Collaboration Important?

We learned from Dr. C (Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), recounted in my post on Creativity, that creativity requires a domain, or an area of interest in which people have knowledge to which creative thinking can be applied. Dr. C also concluded that the best ideas actually live at the overlapping intersection of adjacent domains (think “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter”, and “you got your peanut butter in my chocolate”). He explains that creativity tends to exist where different cultures, beliefs, and knowledge can mingle allowing individuals to put together new combinations of ideas and see different contexts and points of view.  Creativity in cultures that are more rigid and rule-based require far greater effort, and thus will yield a more disappointing result.  Thus, it only makes sense that through Collaboration we can turn up the intensity on any creative process being cultivated inside of any organization.

The bottom line is that your company can either be setup with a structure that promotes internal competition and silos or one that promotes collaboration as a means for growth and success.  The large mega banks are generally structured for internal competition.  Companies like Best Buy, Patagonia, Zappos, Cleveland Clinic, and Google are generally structured for collaboration.

“Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.” ~ F. D. Roosevelt

There are two primary elements that are fueling the demand for richer and more productive interactions within the workplace. First is the economic reality dictating an increase in productivity as the only path to business sustainability in what is now truly a global business forum.  Without question, collaboration increases productivity and efficiency within organizations, especially technology continues to allow us to work in virtual worlds.  Second, is the desire for more meaning in our lives and our work.  We feel much more satisfied as human beings if we are connected to something creative, challenging and bigger than ourselves.  Now, more than anytime in the past, success is predicated on a company’s ability to create a culture of collaboration.

Just look at what is happening with social media.  It is one giant collaboration fest.  Anyone can join in on any conversation at any time.  Companies are actually listening to their customers and collaborating with them on new ideas.  This should be a big signal to everyone that creating connections is a trend that is here to stay. You can either belly-up and figure out how to make it work for your company, or you can continue to try and pretend like it doesn’t exist.  Your choice.

Trends are beginning to emerge that support the emergence of business models that are completely opposite from those used for decades.  Practices such as open source technology and lead user innovation are gaining substantial ground and finding great success.  We are moving away from closed, IP-protected, manufacturing-centered innovation to open innovation often developed by users and free from legal claims.  A clear movement from hording and secrecy to collaboration and connection.