Leadership Briefs

WHY IS COLLABORATION
OFTEN OVERLOOKED?

IT TAKES TIME

Collaboration is an investment of the most valuable resource of your team members: time! It does not replace the need for individuals to do their own work on their own time in their own way. Leaders also encourage workplace opportunities and challenges that require a different way of thinking, planning, and deciding. Collaboration provides a strategic way of working through organizational sticking points by using time, engaging people, and implementing a process to identify creative alternatives and sustainable solutions.

IT’S MESSY

Collaboration is an uncertain journey. The dynamic of gathering a diverse group of individuals who move past typical workplace boundaries creates the potential for chaos. A virtual team adds to the complexity. Rules change when sitting around a table of equals without the interference of roles, titles, tenure, education, past achievement, or team identity. Collaboration introduces a myriad of approaches to reach shared outcomes. The process is never predictable or consistent.

IT NECESSITATES A SKILLED FACILITATOR

The need for flexibility in drawing from the resources of group process requires a skill set in facilitating group dynamics. Knowing the subtleties of what is happening within the group and between individuals demands insightful attention to interpersonal details. Leaders know when to step back and let the process carry itself and when to intervene with a deliberate line of questioning that can synthesize the creative thinking process. Leveraging conflict around competing ideas while keeping conflict from becoming interpersonal is an essential ground rule.

IT BEGS FOR CLARITY

Even though the deliverable outcome may not be clear, the objective and the criteria for evaluating alternative ideas must be clear from the outset. Values guide every step in how teams work together. Each value has behavioral implications. Clear expectations in how teams work together provide a safe context in which every participant can fully engage.