Madness is rare in individuals–but in groups, parties, nations, and ages, it is the rule.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil—
We hear so much about what it takes to compete, but what does it take to collaborate? And while there’s a growing need for true collaboration in our society, locally and globally, just what does it mean to collaborate?
Collaboration involves two or more people coming together to share their collective knowledge, experience, and creativity to arrive at a shared understanding or tangible outcome that none of the individuals could have arrived at on their own. Collaboration is more complex than teamwork, which tends to operate in a sequential fashion to accomplish tasks or to join together to defend against outside forces.
I like what Michael Schrage of MIT has to say about collaboration “…[collaboration is about] the creation of value; a process that our traditional structures of communication and teamwork can’t achieve.”
Today, I’d like to take an unusual approach to exploring collaboration. I’d like to look at what stands in its way. If we were to teach a fish to walk on land, it might first be useful to show it the water that it depends upon. Because this water has surrounded the fish all of its life, it is probably unaware of it. Just as the fish may be clueless about the water in which it swims, there are streams of behavior and belief through which we unwittingly travel that stand in the way of us effectively collaborating. What are they? I share my take on them below. In the spirit of true collaboration, share yours as well and we’ll build on this list.
Habits and attitudes that impede collaboration.
Failure to recognize the complexity of group thought. When we think that communicating and producing outcomes en masse should be just as easy as doing so individually, we tend to negatively judge the slower pace and additional processes required for collaborative activity. These judgments of ourselves, or others cloud and impede our work together. The first step toward effective collaboration requires us to be patient with the process, expecting that while working with a group will be slower and more difficult than working on our own, our outcomes will be worth the investment.
Commingling of task and process. Groupwork is often confused when we avoid separating discussions of task (the group goal), and process (how the group will complete its goal). Discussing process is confusing if done before the task is clear. Yet in this high-speed world, we’re all called upon to do less with more and charge off to “get it done” quickly. When groups don’t get clear about what “it” is, they aren’t focused on the same objective, and they can’t collaborate. Get a clear consensus on task before pursuing it to get your collaborations off to the right start.
Multifocusing. As individuals, we can attend to only one item at a time. Groups can multifocus and this capacity can make it very difficult for all individuals to track what’s going on. This is why effective collaboration requires that all relevant inputs are heard by everyone and recorded for all to see.
Serial communication. Accustomed to simple one-on-one conversations, in groups we tend to listen to others share stories, information or opinions, until a space opens up for us to do the same. What we share doesn’t always connect to what others have said. And seldom do we check to make sure we really understood what was said. This self-centered style of delivering messages does not contribute to a shared understanding, the hallmark of collaboration.
Computer networks that engage in serial communication do something called “handshaking.” After receiving a message, the receiving terminal replies to the transmitting terminal to let it know the message was received and checks the accuracy of what was received. We’d do well to emulate this process in our human “networking” activities more often.
The loudest and fastest get the floor. The most outspoken and quickest thinkers often dominate group discussion. While their inputs may be valuable, they don’t represent all of what the group has to say and often not the best of what the group has to offer. Once again, to effectively collaborate, we must see to it that multiple methods are in place to invite and capture all relevant inputs.
People need to be heard. Many of us felt ignored as children and have a need as adults to make our voices heard in groups. Individuals speaking only to meet their own needs will tax the patience and emotional energy of a group. Challenge participants to speak when moved to speak. Also ask them to perform a self-check before speaking by asking themselves whether what they have to say is relevant, positive, and necessary to the group’s objectives.
Addicted to consistency. People dislike inconsistency and will attempt to eliminate it. When mental conflict occurs because beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information, people will tend to suppress, rationalize, avoid, or oversimplify it away. Help people to hang in there when mentally challenged by new ways of seeing things. Remind them that in order to arrive at a solution that fits with reality, they must be willing to face the full complexity of the situation. Facing complexity can be challenging and facing it as a group, they don’t have to do it alone.
Distractions and Disassociation. Every group encounters distractions from the late arrivals and early departures, to uncomfortable surroundings, to telephone interruptions, poor technical facilities, etc. The coupling of distractions with the difficulty of group thinking causes individuals to disassociate from the task at times to take a mental break. All participants tend to wander from time to time resulting in a short circuit of the group mind. Presume you are losing some members all of the time and regularly summarize and document the status of the discussion.
I’m sure there are more barriers to collaboration in the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that we consider “normal” in our society. Keep your eyes, ears, and hearts open as you traverse the collaborative landscape, looking for ways to point out and heal these barriers in your group work.
Action
What do you see as norms or habits of human behavior that stand in the way of collaboration? Send in your ideas. I’ll integrate them into this article and repost it for you to refer to online. We’d love to hear from you! Just add your comments below to share your questions, feedback, or experience on this topic.
Nice piece, Steve… I think it is helpful to lay out some of these challenges in this manner. I would like to add a challenge that is implied in your first statement, that we ‘hear so much about what it takes to compete:’
I think a challenge emerges in groups because our culture has reinforced competition and individualization as priority values and that our vMemetic tendencies are towards hearing and recognizing such messages as valid. We tend to think the alternative to competition is cooperation, but (as the MIT quote reinforces) collaboration is a more complex alternative framing of the challenge. If culture reinforced collaboration and a dovetailing of our various ‘self-interests,’ we might more easily address some of the other challenges you have identified.
Excellent point Harry makes. I wonder if this competition glorification has to do with our context in North American culture, as I know we often hear about the teamwork model used in Japanese contexts. Also, I’m wondering if there is a gender dynamic to this as, not to over generalize, but women tend to gravitate toward a more collaborative approach and men more of a status/competition approach to work. I find some of the hindrances to our working more collaboratively are the power structures we have in place and the perception that only certain classes of people have anything meaningful to contribute. Those in authority like to be perceived as being open to a more collaborative approach in the workplace but when the rubber meets the road it gravitates back to the same old same old way of doing things.
Great points in the article. I thought I might be able to contribute by suggesting some tools or strategies to deal with each barrier. As a first time visitor to this site I hope this is appropriate. Thanks for sharing.
Failure to recognize the complexity of group thought.
Understand the four distinctly different styles collaborators bring to the table.
Commingling of task and process. I would add, get a clear consensus on the process as well. Particularly leadership, quality standards, and accountability.
Multifocusing. To this I would add that collaboration also requires letting go and trusting that your colleagues can and will do what they need to do to create a quality result.
Serial communication. Check for understanding by starting to say, “I understand that this is what you just said…. am I accurate,” before you provide your own thoughts.
The loudest and fastest get the floor. Keep the discussions focused in small “huddle” groups and ask for input from the huddle groups not always the large group. Have “quality conversation” criteria
People need to be heard. See above. Have check-ins to take the group’s pulse. Use the “sweep” where you sweep around the room and let everyone (or group) have 15 seconds (or words) to give their thoughts on the current issue.
Addicted to consistency. Encourage the trusting of the process. Discuss what critical thinking really is.
Distractions and Disassociation. Use task roles including “taskmaster” and have a process that allows for the ebb and flow of distraction
I have been in some dreadful competitive meetings of late. They are so demoralising (these are ones I have a choice to attend or not – I usually invoke the “law of two feet” and leave)
I’ve written a couple of posts on what went wrong and the opening remarks I’d give to try to dampen that down. Hope they are of interest…
http://dwighttowers.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/infantile-disorders-and-the-ethics-of-back-seat-facilitation/
http://dwighttowers.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/speech-to-a-room-full-of-burnt-out-activists/
PS Your post is fantastic. I have blogged it and sent it via email to a bunch of people.
I was sent here by Mr. Towers above (thanks, Dwight). I agree, an excellent post.
Kim — I’m intrigued by your ‘females collaborate better than men’ remark. I’m wondering whether this is simply a false impression given by sexual inequity in the business environment. It’s my impression that those higher up the pecking order — irrespective of gender — will be more prone to the ‘status/competition’ behaviour you attribute mainly to those with dangly bits between their legs.
The biggest problem with women, in my experience, is that they always generalise.*
* Spot the joke!
Thank you all for your great comments!
I wanted to weigh in on the emerging gender discussion as I think this is an important issue that ought to be explored openly in talk about group collaboration.
First off, I’d like to start by making the distinction between masculine/feminine and male/female.
Each human exhibits some balance of masculine and feminine traits. For instance, it’s possible for a man to exhibit dominantly feminine traits in his behavior and temperament and vice versa. The reverse being true for women as well.
With that said, if we were to look at the spectrum of masculine/feminate behaviors that contribute to effective facilitation and collaboration, I think a good argument could be made that a many of these traits can be considered Feminine.
I posted an article a few years back that offers a gender spectrum model based on Dainiel Goleman’s “Primal Leadership” ideas. It can be found here:
http://www.masterfacilitatorjournal.com/archives/skill358.html
Also note this article that encouages including more women in groups if you want to enhance the group’s collective intelligence due to women having higher social intelligence: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19530-social-sensitivity-trumps-iq-in-group-intelligence.html
Based on my years of anecdotal experience in life interacting with hundreds of men and women, I don’t need a scientific study to convince me of the validity of that claim!
Good piece, Steve. I agree with the gender discussion – my research on gender tells me that masculine traits include being more agendic and feminine traits include more nurturing. Women tend to collaborate because as a style, especially during conflict, it allows them to keep as many people happy as possible.
I like some of the stuff in The Wisdom of Teams book about challenges for teams at the top. I find that leadership teams – especially senior executives – have more of the compete behaviour and its generally because of limited resources and their felt need to competently run their own siloed department. Finally, Barry Oshrey’s stuff on Tops, Middles and Bottoms is interesting for those facilitating teams in a hiearchy.