How Smart Collaboration Works

Business cases for smart collaboration abound, yet genuine creative collaboration in business is remarkably rare. Harvard Law School distinguished fellow Heidi Gardner, Ph.D., has researched collaboration, people need to work together across a variety of specialisations as well as personal and cultural differences for them and their businesses to garner the dividends of smart collaboration.

What’s needed is both the logical business case and the interpersonal skills to work effectively with people different from yourself – as well as organisational structures that support collaboration and reward collective work products.

What struck me in Gardner’s research was how strong the business case is for collaboration. She made the case clearly and backed it with solid data—true cross-silo collaboration in professional services firms can grow the number of business units serving the client, and when an individual departs, collaborative teams have triple the client retention rates of lone rangers.

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What stops most organisations from actually reaping these collaboration benefits?

Many would-be collaborators set out with great intentions, and then crash on the rocks of negative group dynamics before they or their organisation really get the multiplier effects of breaking down the silos. Gardner identified some of these barriers—for example, blame or the assumption of blame—that arise when the people you are collaborating with look, feel, behave, and think differently from yourself. This is a good example of in-group and out-group behavior, where people inside are viewed positively, and those outside are viewed negatively.

It shows up as irritation with some of what makes others different. Yet those in the out-group often also carry the valuable difference needed for collaboration to be creative. People start talking about how “they” (the different others on the would-be team) have their priorities, facts, ideas, culture, and values wrong, or how “they” don’t really listen properly to “us.” Working in a monoculture can be attractive because it is soothing to be among people who think and act like us.

Would-be collaborators across silos need more than just a business case to get past these barriers to collaboration. Many need to vent about the above frustrations first. Once they get that off their chest, they need support to open up to the value of those different perspectives, priorities, and ways of being from the other silos. And for sure, they need to be convinced that those “others” are also listening to them in an equally balanced way.

The good news is that the relationship systems skills needed to collaborate in diverse teams can be learned. Leaders need these skills to grow their businesses and reap the diversity and collaboration dividends Gardner articulates so clearly. I’m part of a global network dedicated to building greater relationship systems intelligence among leaders and their teams, and it works.