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.
