Why Is Collaboration So Hard?

Starting a blog entry with a question is always an interesting approach. It probably implies to the reader that if they read on, there's an answer to the question. Well I have to be honest upfront. I don't have an answer to this one but I have some ideas and I do know it's a really important question for lots of people who are trying to figure out better and more efficient ways to get things done. If I do nothing else here, I'd like to think that people will be better off by just giving some real thought to this question.

It doesn't matter if you're a small business, a large business, a human service agency, a not for profit, a county or a state - the question is one confronting everyone. Deep down, we all know we need to collaborate. In reality we already do to a great extent. It's how we get things done on a daily basis. We talk to other people and entities and we move through this complicated world with joint efforts all the time.

But something happens when we talk about and attempt what I would call real and meaningful collaboration. Barriers go up like shields on the Starship Enterprise. It's pretty natural I would guess. Your thing is yours and there is a need for protection. It's kind of like a survival instinct and that may be a good part of that answer I didn't think we'd get to - it's really hard, first and foremost, because of our own or our organization's need for or perception of need for survival.

So how can we make it easier or what happens in the collaborative process that breeds some level of success. Well for starters, trust is a huge issue. For those shields to come down just a bit, trust really needs to be developed, discussed and practiced. Building trust is a process and it's also based on reality and expierience. People have to be willing to spend time with each other, formal and informal. People have to feel each other out, get to know each other, test each other, potentially get upset with each other and makeup. When we talk about collaboration of any kind, we're really talking about relationships, organizational and personal.

So what else gets in the way besides trust? Cultural differences, beliefs and values are usually big issues for all of us, so they have to be identified and talked about. The idea isn't who's are best, the idea is to understand and talk about these differences. In the discussion people identify what they can or can't change, what they do and don't like, what they can or can't live with and it's all good information to have.

To me though, the biggest issue that confronts and often times stops collaboration is this - ego, ego, ego! Ego of the person, ego of the organization and so on. The first sign is always how personal things are or how personal they become. Who's idea is it? Who's name will be on the idea, program or product? It's mine/ours, not yours. It's all natural. People work for years to identify themselves or an organization and suddenly a collaborative effort takes much of that away or at least seems to. A solution I've seen work effectively is the creation of a new entity so no one's existing organization is threatened. It could be a committee or a more formal organizational model but the point is that it takes people outside of their normal operational mode. The collaborative results come from that new and separate entity. The work is joint work by people in that new entity.

Some of this is funny and we need to keep a sense of humor about it all. I've seen organizations believe in and preach collaboration, have internal meetings on collaboration, come up with plans for collaboration and on and on. But they make one big error, and they don't see it - there are no partners in the room. It's all about what they are going to do about collaboration. Obviously as we stand back and look at it we know it doesn't work but it goes on all the time.

Here's another example. A funding source or an umbrella organization decides it will force collaboration. Lots of ways to do it. Tie it to money or just snap your fingers and make it a policy. Not a lot of success there and we all know it. But these power based organizations want it to happen and they want it to happen now so they move forward operating as they do from positions of power.

I happen to believe strongly in collaboration but this has evolved over a lot of time. I don't believe it's always easy and I know it's time consuming. It can't be forced. I've seen good and bad examples. My best advice is to find people who share your view on the importance of collaboration and start to talk about it. Start the process of building trust, getting to know each other. It's the tip toe, first date, stick your foot in the water approach that we all tend to need. There's a reason we do that in relationships. They can be hard. But in the end we celebrate those good times, successes and feelings.