When did you last collaborate on a project or activity with others to achieve a goal? Recently, I spoke with a professional in the corporate sector about their inter-departmental collaborative experience, and the response was not what I had expected. I heard things like, “Never me again!” As I sought specific answers as to what contributed to such a response, the professional stated, “We kept going around in circles…it was as if almost everyone in the room was working on a different radar…and don’t get me started about the communication, whew!” The professional said, “The next time I have to work with those people in that department, I will scream,” then came the “I love what I do and appreciate my company, but working with groups is not for me.”
Have you ever expressed similar sentiments? I know I have! I have had some collaborative experiences that pushed me to tears, and some facilitated an environment where the flow of work and interactions were seamless, contributing to healthy friendships. In both instances, I learned many valuable lessons that sparked my interest in understanding why some collaborations work and others go awry. What factors contribute to healthy and sustained collaborations and enable teams and organizations to work effectively in ways that drive productivity to realize their goals successfully?
Many, if not all, have worked with another person or team where realizing a goal was why the group came together. Such groups may have comprised people from different social, economic, and educational backgrounds and people who think and process information differently. Yet, everyone may have appeared engaged in the process, working towards the goal until unmanaged group dynamics contributed to a stalemate and slowing of the process. Working towards a goal and working towards a common goal is not the same thing. I have been part of collaborative processes where almost everyone had different expectations and conflicting perceptions about the goal and how to reach it.
Collaboration is fundamental to human existence; it can foster healthy relationships within the work environment, enhance human and social capital, and support effective networking when facilitated with care. Psychological safety, effective communication, respect, transparency, and vulnerability are some of the many aspects of collaborative processes. In this article, I share some basic lessons from being a collaborative member, co-facilitating groups, and being an observer.
Collaboration a Process to Strengthen the Pillars of Corporate Culture
A fundamental pillar that strengthens corporate culture is collaboration. It can shape and improve leadership, enhance productivity, and enrich employee interaction while transforming how corporations do business, especially within the communities where they operate. As corporations seek to improve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programs and policies, they must integrate and invest in collaborative skills to build sustained collaborations, as this is a crucial aspect of advancing local and global progress and prosperity.
Collaborative processes can drive more inclusive inter-departmental, inter-community, and interprofessional working to enhance creativity, productivity, innovation, and knowledge exchange. Teams can realize goals more quickly, and positive social, economic, and relational effects can emerge from well-facilitated collaborative processes. Collaboration is not inanimate but a dynamic and transformative process between and among people. Various approaches are used based on situational factors, history, context, people involved, timeframe, costs, and goals.
The Intricacies of Collaboration
People working within organizational teams with differences in work ethic, where the vision is repeated but not made plain, and where ways of addressing challenges differ can experience complexities that make working together a challenging experience. Complexities can be exacerbated when teams engage in interdisciplinary, cross-sector, and cross-border collaborations; such teams can face challenges such as different working methodologies, diverse perspectives, and communication barriers.
An attorney, social worker, psychologist, economist, corporate mogul, accountant, traditional researcher, and local community leader may see the same problem differently. Some people may see differences, while others may see an opportunity to weave each perspective into the solution puzzle. Working together is no easy feat; it calls for self-awareness and social consciousness, professional integrity, emotional intelligence, and a willingness to embrace diversity of thinking, expression, experience, and presence while honoring all voices in the space and doing what is best for the whole and those the group is tasked to serve.
Complexities in collaborations may be further amplified when undergirded by different organizational mandates and visions, opposing work practices, limited contextual knowledge, time frames, competitive cultures, rigid top-down institutional practices, a lack of trust, covert manipulative practices, and unclear goals and visions but also, by not having the people with the knowledge and experience who can bring deeper insight to the work in the room.
However, while complexities exist, they can provide remarkable opportunities for teams to engage in ‘complexity thinking’ and build healthy and transformative systems and experiences. Collaborative approaches can bridge gaps between departments, external institutions, diverse groups, and communities. It is essential for co-developing innovative solutions to address the challenges employees, customers, and community members encounter. Using collaborative approaches requires surveying environments and landscapes and assessing potential challenges and risks.
Catalyzing Change Through Inclusive Collaborative Practices
When working with communities, it is vital to facilitate environments where residents are placed at the center of all planning and programs as they are the experts of their communities; they bring their experiences, knowledge, and solutions. Change demands inclusion, and inclusion is an aspect of collaborative processes. Inclusive collaboration, where people are placed at the center, fosters a space where people feel included and experience inclusion, leading to greater buy-in. Individuals can then own the process, their choices, behaviors, and solutions—ultimately enhancing relationships, productivity, communities, agencies, and programs.
Using collaborative techniques to effect change can drive evidence-based social impact, contribute to high investment returns, community stability, and resilience, and foster cultures of anti-fragility and sustainability; integrating inclusion into collaborative processes facilitates environments where people truly experience what it means to be listened to and seen, valued and respected, and people become agents of change while disrupting tunnel visions related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Inclusion is stressed here because it is essential for fostering participation, collaboration, creativity, and progress at all levels of society. Many organizations automatically revert to the same names and organizations they have used for decades during collaborative planning exercises, thus creating development and social change echo chambers that can foster stagnation and show movement without progress. Companies may also reach out to people and groups that manifest the lowest degree of resistance or those they can influence to inform decision-making. At the same time, they covertly hold power, ultimately excluding many actors with brilliant, innovative ideas for change and powerful, transformative ways of working.
Collaboration Across Spaces
Collaboration is not only used within corporate, development, academic, or non-profit spaces. Family members collaborate daily to accomplish goals for stability, social and economic advancement, and well-being. Elements of collaboration are foundational to the sustainability of family structures. These elements can be unique to each family as members work together to support homeostasis and positive family norms. Many individuals first learned collaboration skills in the family environment. Collaboration is a critical feature that promotes families’ security, social presence, and upward mobility.
Collaboration Needed to Address Global Crisis
The Cambridge Dictionary1 defines collaboration as “the situation of two or more people working together to create or achieve the same thing.” The definition further defines collaboration as “the act of working together with other people or organizations to create or achieve something.” Working together to achieve something is connected to our daily lives. Working together can manifest healthy or unhealthy behaviors, relationships, systems, structures, and processes.
We live in a world where the unhealthy manifestation of conflict, violence, and socioeconomic problems overflows into families, communities, institutions, and corporations, exacerbating pre-existing challenges. As individuals and agents within agencies and corporations attempt to make sense of these challenges and identify ways to work together to develop and implement solutions, collaboration is pivotal for addressing global issues, reconstructing systems, corporations, societies, and communities, aiding the co-designing of equitable practices and safe working environments at all social and economic levels.
According to Steve Jobs, “Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people.” The word ‘business’ can be extended to every space within society. Participating in collaborative processes can be complex, challenging, and beautifully dynamic, as the process is not linear. The process can be gratifying, inspirational, and successful when facilitated with care and respect. People coming together make collaboration possible, and “great things” can be done collectively.
When the collaborative process lacks effective facilitation, the manifestation of unhealthy conflicts, a lack of trust, and a breakdown in relationships can be some of the results, including a hemorrhaging of time, expertise, and money. However, when members allow the process to evolve while being well facilitated through an emotionally conscious process of care, the results can be transformative and mutually beneficial while at the same time providing opportunities for learning, growth, and building strong networks and relationships.
Effective Communication and a Psychological Approach Needed for Sustained Collaborations
Henry Ford said, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” Keeping and working together requires more attention, excellent care, awareness, and tailored facilitation approaches using diverse collaboration techniques to enable teams to start and finish strong. Coming together may be easy for some individuals, but the reality for many is that the initial phase can be challenging, even triggering.
At the same time, for many teams, staying together for the duration of the collaboration can be extremely difficult and, at times, stimulating, filled with emotional ebbs and flows, contributing to the success or breakdown of even the best-resourced teams. Effective communication, which comprises various competencies, is one of the critical components that can strengthen collaborative working. Speaking and listening competencies are crucial to building sustained collaborations.
In a 2019 Harvard Business Review article entitled “Cracking the Code of Sustained Collaboration,”2 Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gino shared findings from her research, including specific tools to assist organizations in training employees to build sustained collaborations.
Gino suggests “that all too often when others are talking, we’re getting ready to speak instead of listening. That tendency only gets worse as we climb the corporate ladder,” findings from Gino’s research further suggest “We fail to listen because we’re anxious about our own performance, convinced that our ideas are better than others’, or both. As a result, we get into conflicts that could be avoided, miss opportunities to advance the conversation, alienate the people who haven’t been heard, and diminish our teams’ effectiveness.”
Gino also suggests that a psychological approach is needed for sustained collaborations as mental attitudes can significantly impact collaborations, colleague dynamics, and the work. Moreover, leaders should broaden their view of collaboration, moving beyond seeing it ‘only’ as a value to cultivate but also as a skill where employers take the initiative by identifying training and development opportunities to strengthen the capacities of their employees.
The psychological approach to collaboration requires checking perceptions, identifying, and owning conscious biases, and embracing opportunities that unearth unconscious biases—establishing boundaries while being open to stepping out of comfort zones, building trust and accountability, and igniting empathy and motivation. The collaborative process can be used by many for either the common good of society or to promote injustice and cause immense harm.
Some other factors that inform the collaborative processes and their outcomes (positive or negative) include collaborators’ goals (individual vs. collective), clarity of vision and its meaning, and various other internal and external factors. Such as the accelerating pace of change, evolving socioeconomic problems, environmental challenges, declining trust in private, public, and religious leaders, and the uptick in violence at the family, community, and institutional levels. The changing nature of work, competing personal and professional demands, and technology-facilitated change all demand that collaboration skills be taught to individuals to address local and global challenges effectively and adequately.
Investing in Research for Sustained Collaboration
Companies and philanthropical agents ought to consider investing in social and organizational research to understand better ways collaboration can positively transform human behavior for the common good of society, develop evidence-based practices to building sustained collaborations, and identify innovative ways that transnational non-governmental organizations and governments can integrate collaborative practices into their work to respond to national and global crises.
Researchers from Warwick Business School (WBS) and the Institute for Collaborative Working (2017) published a report entitled “Understanding The Psychology Of Collaboration: What Makes An Effective Collaborator?”3 The report contains findings from their two-year research project where they surveyed 107 companies. Findings include “Key Individual Attributes for Effective Collaboration” and “Top 10 Attributes of Effective Collaborators.” According to the report’s authors, “Collaboration isn’t a new concept; it has always been a necessity since [organizations] work together. In today’s age of hyper-[specialization], it has become even more important.” The authors also stated, “As firms focus on what is core to their success while serving the broader needs of customers and service-users, firms must become better at collaborating.”
Lessons Learned from My Experiences with Collaborative Processes
By sharing these lessons, I have learned. I hope to ignite more profound, meaningful conversations within government agencies, corporations, communities, civil society, and groups considering broaching the topic of a prospective collaboration or those involved in a collaborative process and want to reengineer it. I also hope that individual members of society and families can see value in these lessons and work to improve their daily interactions to build healthy, equitable, and sustained relationships. I hope stakeholders and decision-makers can invest in research in this area and support the institutional strengthening of organizations at all levels:
- Collaborate Using a Strengths-based Perspective: When considering a collaboration, it is advisable to work from a strengths-based approach versus a deficit approach; unfortunately, the latter emerges automatically in many instances. A strengths-based approach facilitates an environment of empowerment and ignites purpose. Too often, people collaborate and spend time identifying what is not working, overlooking the collective and individual strengths and resources they can draw from to brainstorm and co-design solutions.
- Adopt an Ecological Approach: Such a perspective helps collaborators analyze the layers of a system and the people who engage with the systems at various ecological levels to identify causes, problems, consequences, and solutions at multiple levels; using such an approach reduces the impact of suboptimization and individualistic system perspectives. Issues are not disconnected from the systems they thrive in, and people’s ideologies enable systems.
- Be Open to Recognizing New Talents and Skills: Building a robust collaborative culture requires diverse perspectives. Companies shouldn’t avoid bringing in new talent to support their teams during the collaborative process, which can help accelerate growth, bring new perspectives, and drive innovation. While experienced consultants and other professionals provide valuable knowledge and experience, repeatedly using the same consultants or professionals across various projects can result in stagnation, lack of new perspectives, and reduced impact.
- Establish a Culture of Psychological Safety: When individuals feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to engage deeply with the process. Think creatively, share learnings, and promote organizational citizenship. Psychological safety fosters a culture of resilience, accountability, care, and well-being as people are centered throughout the process. Safety provides opportunities for individuals to authentically engage with the process and those involved.
- Pre-collaboration Assessment: An assessment is necessary for successful collaborations to articulate the process’s purpose, objectives, and key stakeholders. It helps institutions to consider scope, timelines, strategies for sustainability, and how resulting products and services will be maintained and by whom. Ultimately, an assessment clarifies the “why” of the collaboration, ensuring alignment with the vision while strengthening goals.
- Roles, Responsibilities, Expectations, and Boundaries (RREB): Naming roles and responsibilities, clarifying expectations, and identifying boundaries are pivotal for shaping the experience. Roles support the development of an agreed-upon decision-making method that best suits the group. Responsibilities enable clarity of work and hold people accountable. They also help manage expectations and realize goals. Boundaries support a respectful culture, clarify responsibilities, and reduce burnout. A collaborative process without RREB can impede the group’s progress, reduce work quality, and contribute to a demoralized team.
- Embrace Setbacks: Setbacks (often termed failure by many) can dishearten even the most resilient and optimistic team; however, they can be a catalyst to spark innovation and unlock valuable learning and growth opportunities that strengthen relationships and drive productivity. Equipping teams with the tools and environment where they do not see setbacks as “failures” or dead ends but as opportunities for exploration, thriving, and reframing “failure” is critical. It’s not about working with failure in mind but using it to your advantage. Effective collaboration centers on collective ownership of setbacks. Collective ownership fosters a supportive environment where teams can share knowledge and experiences openly, minimizing an environment of blame and shame. However, balancing collective and individual accountability with personal responsibility remains crucial to the collaborative process; it is a delicate professional dance that ensures lessons are learned and progress is made.
- Reduce Ambiguity: reducing ambiguity calls for sharing information in a transparent, relevant, and timely manner while communicating in a way everyone understands. Avoid assuming everyone in the room understands the terminologies, jargon, abbreviations, or the language level. Clarifying the vision, goals, and objectives at different points during the process helps reduce ambiguity. I have seen many teams or coalitions go around in circles because those leading did not clearly define the vision, goals, and objectives. Information was not shared transparently or in a timely manner, contributing to a lack of buy-in and mistrust. It is an act of violence to use language beyond the comprehension of most people in the space; thus, understanding the composition of the group always works.
- Leadership Framework: Consider the leadership framework the team will use to guide the collaborative process, evaluating options such as co-leadership, vertical or horizontal, and centralized or decentralized models based on the scope and needs of the project. It is essential to distinguish between the leadership frameworks chosen for collaboration as these will differ from individual members’ leadership styles and approaches, as well as organizational leadership structures and cultures. Remember, every person has leadership abilities, and using individual members’ leadership styles will complement the leadership model selected.
- Foster Growth and Recognition: Successful collaborations enable a culture of team development and individual appreciation. Determine team members’ strengths and areas where they can improve their skills and explore professional development opportunities to fill those gaps. Allocate resources for professional development training, including recognizing team members’ contributions. Recognition could include anything from tokens of appreciation and training stipends to public acknowledgment of individuals’ innovative contributions and achievements to financial rewards.
- Embrace Healthy Conflict as a Catalyst for Growth: Conflict is an intrinsic and neutral aspect of human life. Because individuals have different conflict styles and respond differently to conflict, unmanaged conflict can become disruptive, jeopardizing the collaborative process. Collaboration thrives on open communication, and healthy conflict can catalyze positive change. A conflict transformation plan fosters a healthy culture and helps constructively anticipate and address potential disagreements. It promotes a safe space for healthy discussion while minimizing the risk of destructive conflict.
- Recognize Biases and Power Dynamics: Effective collaboration requires self-awareness and self-regulation. This includes recognizing conscious biases, welcoming opportunities that reveal unconscious biases, and seeking opportunities to challenge them personally or collectively. Furthermore, it’s crucial to identify, understand, and acknowledge the power dynamics within collaborative settings. Developing strategies to address and manage these dynamics, both individually and as a group, is essential. Failure to recognize biases can perpetuate unequal power relations, contributing to instability. Unbalanced power dynamics can destabilize any team, ultimately hindering its effectiveness.
- Self-awareness and Leading with Flexibility: Leaders must develop self-awareness skills crucial for the collaborative process—enabling them to identify and strategically adapt to presenting situations. Leaders must engage in introspection, which requires knowing when to take charge, lead from behind, and allow others to lead. Leaders should identify if their actions are hindering progress, causing stagnation, or fostering healthy collaboration practices. Simultaneously, group members should also be self-aware, understanding when to take the initiative, when to follow, provide support, and allow room for others to lead.
- Evaluate the Fit: Individuals, professionals, and organizations should carefully evaluate whether a collaboration aligns with their goals and resources. Before joining any collaborative process, prospective team members should consider factors such as the purpose, required time commitment, expertise, potential conflicts of interest, and financial investment. Carefully weigh the opportunity cost of time to ensure the collaboration aligns with your values and provides a strong return on your investment; return on investment should not be seen only as financial benefits. Evaluating the fit also helps individuals to identify how best they can contribute to avoid overextending themselves.
- Embrace Active Listening: Collaborators should integrate active listening techniques to humanize processes and honor the voices and presence of persons in the space. Many individuals talk over each other or fail to be mentally present (physical presence is not an indicator that a person is mentally present) and open to listening to the speaker. Other times, individuals are preoccupied with formulating their responses while others speak. This tendency can devalue others’ voices and experiences, neglecting diverse perspectives, and people can miss out on incredible opportunities to listen to different ideas and ways of seeing a situation. Implementing active listening techniques fosters the development of more inclusive and sustainable teams. It enhances communication effectiveness, aids in conflict transformation, and cultivates an environment conducive to power-sharing, reciprocity, and mutually respectful relationships.
- Collective Principles vs. Individual Values: A principle-based approach keeps collaborators centered on the issue and the work. Instead of getting bogged down in disagreements about personal values, teams can focus on their shared goals. For example, imagine five organizations collaborating on the issue of quality and affordable healthcare for all. This core principle would guide their discussions, even if individual members have differing personal beliefs about who should have access to specific aspects of healthcare. While personal values are essential, a collective approach focused on core principles can minimize disruptive conflict and streamline the collaborative working process toward tremendous success. By agreeing on guiding or core principles, teams can manage emotions objectively and respectfully, focusing on problem-solving. Remember, personal values and principles are interconnected, and self-awareness remains paramount as successful collaborations benefit from shared foundation principles.
- Harnessing Technology for Impact: Research and implement technologies that can enhance the collaborative process. Leveraging user-friendly technologies can support the group’s efforts, allowing members to use their time in ways that increase their productivity. Technologies can significantly improve the group’s work, promoting objectivity, facilitating clarification through questioning, and fostering a culture of openness to learning, research, and skill development. Using technologies can streamline communication, support information sharing, and promote transparency. For example, AI can be used ethically to generate an outline for a report (not write the report), supporting creativity and helping teams save time during the writing process; it can also help individuals enhance their writing skills with greater clarity.
- Measure and Learn for Continuous Improvement: Effective collaboration flourishes on continuous learning, so work with your team to establish a monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) plan. Agree upon what defines success for the group; defining success during the initial stages helps ensure everyone is working towards the same goals. Identify clear milestones, metrics, and methods for measuring progress. Capturing key learnings supports the innovative and improvement process. Evaluating the process and engagements is not just about documenting results; it’s about informing future collaborations, reporting best practices, measuring company growth, and identifying areas for improvement. It helps teams understand what worked and why and what did not work and how to avoid future errors.
- Embrace the Journey: Collaboration isn’t just about achieving goals – it can be an exciting, inspirational, fun, and rewarding journey. The process can enhance collaborators’ intrinsic value, fostering a sense of accomplishment and shared purpose. View setbacks as an opportunity for growth, celebrate milestones along the way, honor individual and team achievements, and identify growth opportunities. Having fun during the journey, you’ll enable a culture to unlock members’ full potential. Collaboration can be a fun, rewarding, learning, and engaging experience, but only for those who embrace it as such.
- Before Commencing Work, Interact:
- Acquaint yourself with the individuals present and capture what motivates them.
- Walk alongside team members to learn their strengths, obstacles, and unmet needs, especially when collaborating with community members.
- See individuals as peers and engage with them as such, recognizing that people always remember how others made them feel.
- When engaging with others, exercise self-regulation, compassion, and care.
I’ve observed where external stakeholders manifest resentment toward community members who propose alternative pathways and solutions to address community challenges or, worse, covertly isolate group members. Always remember that community members are the foremost experts in their communities, as they intimately understand the daily realities and unmet needs of residents. Similarly, most employees are the experts on their company operations.
Collaboration: A Path for Sustainable Development
As the global community faces pre-existing and evolving challenges that impact the social, economic, and political pillars of societies, institutions, and governments are tasked with exploring new ways to address the accelerating problems they encounter. Exploring innovative ways to collaborate, teaching collaboration skills to foster sustained collaborations, and having well-equipped collaborators are critical to responding to challenges effectively. The survival of societies is linked to realizing sustainable development goals and collaborative efforts.
Investing in research to gain deeper insights into the social psychology and economics of collaboration is equally important to cultivate evidence-based collaboration practices. The cost of not incorporating and working towards sustained collaboration can be astronomical at the community and broader societal levels, especially in a technology-driven age. Although collaborative processes are challenging, they are also one of the main connectors required to address the complexities of our global problems.
Collaborations provide opportunities to explore transformative solutions to drive change. It is not static but rather an ever-evolving human-centric process. That requires individuals and corporations to enter at the speed of trust, with great care, curiosity, empathy, authenticity, and purpose for the common good of society. Collaboration may be referred to by different names based on the group, context, language, and culture. All partnerships have an aspect of collaboration, but not all collaborations end in partnerships.
The purpose, vision, environment, and people define sustainability, success, or failure of the collaborative process. It is imperative that private, public, and civil society organizations revisit their collaborative processes, invest in collaborative training, and reframe how they see collaboration to ensure local and global problems are effectively addressed. The world is at multiple crossroads, and sustained collaboration is needed now more than before to help steer the path toward equitable and anti-fragility systems and institutions, thus changing the global trajectory through reengineering systems, institutions, communities, families, and societies using collaborative practices.
- https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/collaboration ↩︎
- Gino, F. (2019 ). Cracking the code of sustained collaborations: Six new tools for training people to work together better. https://hbr.org/2019/11/cracking-the-code-of-sustained-collaboration ↩︎
- Chakkol, M., Johnson,M., & Finne, M. (2017 March). Understanding the psychology of collaboration: What makes an effective collaborator. https://instituteforcollaborativeworking.com/resources/Documents/understanding_the_psychology_of_collaboration.pdf ↩︎
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