Part 3:  Increase Collaboration

It’s been said that two heads are better than one.  This idiom makes the point about the value of teamwork.  Teamwork is neither new nor original.  It can even be seen in nature. A flock of birds has a greater flying range in formation than a single bird has on its own.  When it comes to business, though, teamwork – specifically collaborative teamwork — has become critical to business success more than ever before.  Why?  An increasingly complex world means increasingly complex problems. The types of problems that businesses have to solve today are more diverse, complicated and intricate than ever – whether its finding ways to properly secure digital data or deciding whether to pursue a new business venture or developing new products or services that will resonate in today’s ever-changing marketplace.

To solve such complex problems requires input from diverse skill-sets, viewpoints and methods.  Left-brain and right-brain people.  Visionaries and pencil-pushers.  Soaring idealists and stubborn realists.  Traditionalists and non-conformists.  Bean counters and free thinkers.  Only by bringing together and cultivating assorted ideas, personalities and talents can the best solutions for the toughest problems emerge.  That is collaboration.  But throwing a mixed bag of people and problems together in a room does necessarily produce collaboration.   Collaboration doesn’t just happen on its own.  In fact, often when teams, departments or divisions think they are collaborating, they actually aren’t.  It is important to understand what collaboration is (and is not), and then prepare and plan for real collaboration.

What Collaboration Is and Is Not

It is a business reality that periodically companies will be faced with a problem or challenge that requires teamwork.  2014 will be no exception.  The team will be assigned to accomplish something beyond what they currently do or have done before. It might be a sales goal such as targeting a previously untapped segment of referral business.  It might be an HR challenge such as hiring 10% more staff but accommodating them within existing space.  It might be an R&D initiative such as the creation or launch of a new product or business venture.  It might be an operations directive such as implementing a series of new government regulations.  It could be an IT issue such as finding a hacker-proof way to secure customer data. The possibilities are endless.  The unifying thread is that people in a team, department or organization should work together — each with their own responsibilities —to achieve a common result or solve a collective problem.

Such situations call for collaboration.  It is usually collaboration that will produce the best results.  By best, we mean the fastest, most effective, most creative, most innovative, and / or most economical outcome.  When all players can look at a problem from all sides, it makes sense that collectively they will come up with the best idea, approach or solution.  Unfortunately, more often than not, group projects will employ teamwork – but not true collaboration.  Instead, less effective forms of teamwork are used.

1.  Collective Teamwork.

There is collective teamwork.  In this scenario, each group member independently responds to the challenge by taking action in her own area. Every person on the team complies with the need to do something, but they do it without ever really working together. The requirement, goal or problem is met, but there was likely a better way.  It is like building a house where each component of the home is built independently of one another with just a set of plans.  Roof.  Walls.  Cabinets.  Flooring.  Doors.  Windows.  Etc.  Then, all the pieces are assembled to create the house.  In reality, many of the elements would have to be adjusted for issues that the plans did not take into account about the interplay between materials and elements, such as the dishwasher door and cabinet doors bumping into one another when opened at the same time.  Collective teamwork can produce a home, but probably not the best looking, functional, cost-effective or cohesive home.

2.  Cooperative Teamwork.

Then there is cooperative teamwork.  In this scenario, each person in the group develops and implements his or her own plans, but shares what he/she is doing with the group. While there is some joint discussion, the process of deciding what to do and how to do it is still based on individual ideas, not a collective strategy.  Each person knows what the other is doing and can give feedback, but no joint strategy is created to leverage the combined resources, ideas, and talents.  This type of teamwork often falls short of the most robust and effective outcome.  Using the same home building example, all the pieces of the home would be built independently but each member of the team would share with the others what he/she is doing.  This would produce a more cohesive home, but the cost and process is not likely to be optimal.

While there isn’t usually a conscious decision not to collaborate, most people do what comes naturally… work either completely or partially on their own. That’s because true collaboration is more difficult than working alone. That brings us to what collaboration is.

3.  Collaborative Teamwork

Collaboration requires subordinating individual goals to collective achievement.  When collaborating, team members engage in tough, emotional give-and-take discussions with colleagues about strategies and ideas.  Ideas are considered on the basis of merit.  Position takes a back seat to contributions.  Strong personalities must be sublimated to allow for the common good.  In collaboration, people are forced to work in new ways that may not be comfortable or easy. Thus, while many companies, divisions, departments or teams may talk a good game about collaboration, few actually collaborate.

While collaboration is harder to do, it is worth the hassle.  Remember that most innovation comes from combining ideas and perspectives that have never been combined before.  Collaboration makes this happen more efficiently.  It takes a variety of people to fill in the skills and knowledge gaps, and to spot when something is completely off base. Collaboration is a critical skill for any organization wanting to actually innovate.  However, real collaboration doesn’t just happen.

Seven Tips to Encourage Collaboration

To collaborate well, the people in a team must have opportunities to connect and bond with one another.  Collaboration requires trust and respect.  Here are some ways to help prepare a group for collaborative work.

1. Help build camaraderie.  Give people opportunities to share about their professional and personal backgrounds.  What may seem like ‘small talk’ and ‘wasted time’ actually helps connect people.  Trust and empathy blossom when there is even a slight emotional bond, not just a professional one.
2. Create work spaces where teams can work together continuously, all sitting together.  This creates opportunities for collaboration.  If team members have individual workspaces and conference rooms must be booked far in advance and vacated after an hour, then a key tool for facilitating collaboration is missing.  Some companies adopt completely open workspaces with no offices or cubicles.
3. Mix disciplines. Don’t segregate departments or divisions. It needs to be easy for people to absorb one another’s perspectives and see how work and disciplines intersect. Mix levels of seniority together for the same reason.
4. Bring remote team members together periodically.  Not all members of a team have to sit together all the time in order to collaborate well.  Technology helps to bridge the gap of face time.  It is important though to get members together when the team is launched, again around the midpoint of the team’s work, and again when the work has been completed.
5. Accept that collaboration sometimes causes conflict.  It is important to understand that the collaboration process is not always smooth or calm.  It can generate some conflict, which when managed correctly, can generate more creative solutions.  Perhaps that’s why it’s been said that politeness is poison to collaboration.
6. Reduce or minimize employee turnover.  It takes time for a team to build trust and respect.  New team members disrupt the bonding process.  While a new person might bring new ideas to the table, there is often a considerable learning curve before a person knows enough about a company, its products or services and its challenges to be able to really contribute insightful ideas or solutions.  This is true for any type of team, whether it is a basketball team, a string quartet, or a product development team.  Teams that stay together longer produce better results.
7. Control team size.  While two heads are better than one and four are probably better than two, there is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to team size and collaborative results. Small teams are more efficient and less frustrating.  Excessively large teams are one of the biggest hindrances to effective collaboration.  The larger the group, the higher the likelihood of freeloading, and the more effort it takes to keep members’ activities coordinated. The optimal size for a collaborative team is five.

Once attempts are made to collaborate on projects, get teams to talk about what worked and what didn’t work with their collaboration. Get people to think consciously about what collaboration is and how and why past efforts to collaborate have or haven’t worked.  Collaboration is not based on chemistry or magic.  It is a process that may need to be tweaked to work best.

Collaboration may not seem like the most important skill for improving a company’s bottom line.  But given the challenges of today’s business environment and the increasing pace of change, it takes the collective pool of talent in a company to find and capitalize on opportunities, generate innovation and solve problems.

Quote of the Week

“As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” Amy Poehler

© 2014, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.