A "Starter Set" for Collaboration

In a recent conversation with one of our clients the topic of collaboration came up. They were struggling with collaboration across business functions and trying a lot of different tactics to break through the barriers they were facing. Eventually we helped them move forward and create a more collaborative environment, however, at the time I walked away with a thought that if there was an instance of a problem for which there was too much advice out there it has to be on the topic of collaboration.

In fact, most of it is great advice based on the actual experience that people have gone through — battle tested advice you could say — but therein lies the problem, the advice is contextual. In these situations, though, I believe that asking the right questions is more powerful by helping us leverage and making sense of all the other great advice that is already out there.

When we diagnose issues around collaboration with our clients the discussion boils down to two main issues: alignment and communication. It is not an efficient collaboration if we are moving in different directions or at different speed, and it certainly not a collaboration if we are not having productive exchange of information.

So, without further ado, here are the main questions that we need to ask:

1. Alignment

• Outcome — What does the result of our collaboration look like? What do you want to achieve through collaboration?
• Vehicle — What is the shared vision for how collaboration is done? If we had perfect collaboration what would it look like?
• People — What are the specific roles of each stakeholder in this collaboration?

2. Communication

• Information — What pieces of information need to be shared to ensure that everyone can work towards the objective effectively
• Tools — How will we send/receive this information?
• Timing — When will these information exchanges happen?

Some of you may think that these are very obvious questions yet how many times did you, or the people you work with, actually discuss these and capture your answers in a structured way? Did you ensure that everyone was aware and bought-in to this direction? For those of you who work in agile environments, I hope that the answer is all the time. After all, this type of definition should be at the core of self-organization for teams. For the rest of us, those who are not working in agile environments, considering collaboration from this perspective might be a little less likely.

Essentially, what you are doing, is defining the rules of the game. Sports team make a great analogy in this case. Before a soccer team gets on the field all of the players have a clear idea of what they are trying to achieve (win the game by scoring more goals than the other team), the vehicle of how they will do it (their formation and style of play), who does what (player positions and roles), and how and when they will communicate with each other during the game.

These are not ALL the questions that need to be asked nor are these all the factors that we need to consider but this will get you 80% there. The focus here is on the structural factors that the organization can facilitate the discussion around. Factors associated with the personality traits of people involved and professional competencies will also play a role but while the organization can have influence on those areas as well, arguably, the way we structure the organization and facilitate the discussion around problems of collaboration will have an out sized effect on the outcome.

As you go down this path, there are a couple of important points though that you need to remember:

• Collaboration is crowd-sourced — a sure way to get it wrong is to tell people how they should collaborate. The job of anyone trying to increase collaboration is to facilitate the discussion and create an environment where such collaboration can take place. It is more about getting the right people in the room and uncovering and refining the existing system of collaboration than designing and imposing a new system. This has knock-on effects of knowledge sharing and shared accountability for the outcome.
• Collaboration takes time — you will most likely not be able to get this done in one meeting, especially if we are talking about collaboration between business units or departments. Especially for bigger businesses with more people who need to collaborate this means there will be more nuances and more intricacies in the communication. There is no immediate solution to all the collaboration ills.
• You will probably fail the first time — this is almost a certainty in life, the first time we go down the path we will trip up and fall. This does not mean that the process does not work, what it does mean is that you are building a new body of knowledge in the organization and pushing the boundaries of what was possible before.

Collaboration entails dealing with other people, and just like every person or group of people is different from one another, the answer to how we can collaborate best will also differ. There is no universal solution or foolproof plan that will work every time. A path to collaboration is messy, and funnily enough, involves collaborating with your collaborators on finding the best way to collaborate. And while we may not know what perfect collaboration will look like for you, asking the right questions, and really thinking them through, will maximize your chances of getting there.