Collaborating Effectively

I have been thinking a lot about the challenges of collaborating. On the one hand, as Rob Cross so clearly explains, we have collaboration overload.  Too many meetings to get organized about meeting, too many people involved to be productive, too many double and triple checks.  It seems that we are drowning in attempts to collaborate.  On the other hand, none of the big challenges can be solved without working with other people. If they can be, please go ahead and get the issue fixed or create an AI Agent to do the job for all of us.  

So if we need each other to drive our business forward, serve our customers and solve big challenges; how then do we learn to collaborate in a better way?  

To begin, let’s be clear what we mean by collaboration. Think of a simple continuum with status updates on the left hand end and co-creation of something new on the right hand end.  In between are all sorts of types of collaboration. Even the typical consultative approach is somewhere in the middle – where I ask you what you think to make you feel involved but I don’t really listen or adapt my ideas. I think we need to crystal clear in every case of working together what sort of collaboration we want to do. Do we want to divide a task into respective parts and keep each other informed? Do we want to exchange ideas? Do we want to co-create together? Each requires a different set of skills, a different comfort level with disagreement and tension and a different understanding of the gains to be made by both of us.  

Assume for the moment that we have a situation that can’t be divided, a new unknown approach is needed and we have to come together to co-create a solution. What then do we need to do to be successful? Here are a few thoughts on what I think is needed.  

A clear, worthy mission – both of us need to understand the desired outcome, believe that spending time to achieve that outcome is a worthy use of our precious time, and that we can do something that moves the needle forward. Without a worthy mission, we won’t make the necessary investments, particularly when the path forward is challenged and it will be challenged. Thanks John Ott for this insight.  

A willingness to admit we don’t know it all – neither of us can solve this problem alone therefore neither of us have a full, complete picture of the context, the nature of the problem, or the plausible set of next steps. Each of our ability to suspend what we believe and entertain that there might be something in this situation that each doesn’t understand IS an essential ingredient of progress. Otherwise we disagree, shout, stop listening and disengage.  

The ability to discuss disagreements without making the other side(s) wrong  -- oh so easy to say and oh so very hard to do, particularly when I don’t like your discipline, or how you think, or what you have done to contribute to this problem. The skill to discuss, be uncomfortable, truly hear, stay engaged and learn moves us forward. Be clear, if there isn’t disagreement, then we are not talking about the most important components of the problem. The best teams have deep, difficult disagreements (see Brad Borkin, It Takes Two or Three).  

Including more voices – Every major problem I have seen always touches more people than anyone thought at the beginning. Finding ways to know what others see, think, need and include their perspective in a way they feel heard often leads to breakthroughs. More voices add complexity. More people attending creates more chaos. When is the right time, who are the right people, what’s the right method – that’s the art of collaboration.  

A bit of luck – I am not convinced that every effort always works out. Sometimes together we do reach a new approach, sometimes we simply learn what doesn’t work.