Is collaboration all it’s cracked up to be?
I heard a client utter a heresy last week.
A senior manager, within earshot of other colleagues, said this: “You know, I simply don’t do my best work when I have to collaborate”.
The picture above (a stock photo) is the fantasy. Smiling, yet focussed. Close, yet professional. Casual, yet productive.
But this manager’s comment didn’t get gasps. She went on: “I need to think. By myself. And, sometimes, if I’m honest, other people actually don’t come with the best ideas.”
Watching her get nods of agreement, made me wonder: “What are the true costs of collaboration?”
So, without taking away the obvious benefits, I started listing the costs. I got to ten, but here are the top four, in my opinion:
Loss of creativity: Group processes, unless well-managed, can lead to ‘groupthink’ and reduced innovation, with ‘speed to agreement’ being prized.
Coordination takes time: It takes (someone’s) effort to get all those people meeting, and exchanging views.
Poor resolution: Often synthesising the group’s output is challenging, and products become a ‘mash’ of ideas, rather than a truly coherent concept with ‘cut through’.
Introverts aren’t valued: Collaboration benefits extroverts the most, and introverts’ contributions are difficult to elicit, or overshadowed.
Other than these (and six other reasons), collaboration is great!
But even a debate about whether collaboration is good or bad is simplistic and, in fact, pointless. Why? Because we are social animals and, since we chipped away at flints to get tools, it’s essential to any large-scale endeavour.
Yet at the heart of what she said are some truths.
If I imagine that her concerns overlap in part with my ‘costs’ above, I wonder what would happen if she could turn her attention not to removing collaboration, but to improving the design of her collaborations?
For instance, could she set things up so that:
Creativity is prized (e.g., via deliberately created dissonance, so people understand there is ‘no single view’)
Discussions occur efficiently (e.g., via sharp, focussed ‘lines of inquiry’)
Concepts reach resolution (e.g., via exceptional framing and ‘architecture’ of the ideas, with high-quality summarising along the way)
Introverts contribute (e.g., via written or digital response, not just in conversation)
Would these make a difference? There is no silver bullet here but, like in any area where benefits come with costs, there are ways in which the cost burden can be reduced.
Question: What would improve the quality of your collaborations?
Bookstores, not billionaires
Now, I love buying things online, but I do love a good bookstore. With actual paper books. And, look what just opened a few hundred metres from my home and office.
Yes, almost as rare as the Tasmanian Tiger - a NEW bookstore!
This is Terrain, in Fitzroy, Melbourne. It’s a deeply niched store, with this pitch: “We’re an initiative that creates playful physical and digital spaces to remind humans that they are embedded in a more-than-human world”.
Huh?
Well, they sell books on technology, cities, environment, and society. All subjects I happen to love reading about. So, I walked out with six books, including three on circular economies, which are helpful to me on a couple of 2024 projects.
But as I trudged uphill with my small pile of reading, I reflected on this question: “How will Terrain’s niche not be a liability? What will keep them in business, in an Amazonian world?”
I suspect what will keep them flourishing is two things: thoughtful curation (humans choosing and sorting the stock), and to be a place to connect people to these ideas (not just a place to buy books). In fact, they’re already using their space to put on shows, hold meetings, and run educational programs in line with their manifesto.
Question: How can your organisation be MORE than just your services?
London fog
The bad news is that 99% of the world’s population lives in places with poorer than ideal air quality. The good news? 95% of us live in countries that regulate to prevent situations like this.
This is a 1920s London ‘pea-souper’ and thankfully these no longer exist. Even in my home city of Melbourne, I remember 50 years ago not being able to see three city blocks clearly owing to the haze from car exhausts. Today, I can see for a kilometre easily — and I even hear the sound of kookaburras laughing in trees in central city parks.
What changed?
In Melbourne, the same three things as London. We got rid of coal fires. We gave cars catalytic converters to remove exhaust pollutants. And, we moved industry out of the populated inner cities. Now, sandstone buildings in both cities have been returned to their natural golden hue, not the black Victoriana that I grew up with.
Air pollution is of course what economists call an externality: a consequence of an industrial or commercial activity which affects other parties without this being reflected in market prices. And there are many externalities that advanced societies are working on: over-fishing, deforestation, antibiotic resistance, and packaging are just a few. And, even some egregious externalities that, in Australia at least, we have already tackled, and tackled well: cigarette smoke and guns, come to mind.
So, yes, there is a growing trend towards internalizing the costs of externalities in the prices of goods and services. How? Here are three legal and regulatory ways that are growing in prominence:
Taxation: Pigouvian taxes (named for English economist Arthur Pigou, who invented the concept of externalities) tax activities to the level of harm created (e.g., alcohol taxes pay for healthcare costs);
Cap-and-trade schemes: Purchasing the right to create a certain level of negative consequence, which rights can then be traded (e.g., emissions trading schemes);
Extended producer responsibilities: Producers are incentivised to treat or dispose of post-consumer products (e.g., in packaging, electronics, cars, batteries, and pharmaceuticals).
But, such regulatory measures alone won’t work.
Alongside them, we also must create a variety of ‘social spin-offs’. These are the influencing mechanisms designed to curb externalities: they include certification schemes (“Look! We’re doing it! We promise.”); investor pressure (“Put your money somewhere ethical”), and market demand for sustainable products (“Buy something today that your grandkids won’t regret tomorrow”).
But, what does this mean for you, reading this?
I predict that over the coming five years all organisations, irrespective of sector, will need to increasingly internalise costs — and understand the various social spin-offs that will support them to present (and vouch for) their responsible stance.
Question: What are the externalities that your business will have to internalise in the next 5 years?
Wow. What a big year this has been.
Firstly, let me thank you. Yes, for reading, but also for seeding so many of the ideas here, and the questions. My clients are particularly wonderful, and you may be one of them. If you are, double thank you’s, for putting your time, energy — and money — into asking and answering the big strategic questions that matter to you and your beneficiaries.
My work in 2023 has clarified strategic directions in education and research, regulatory bodies and government, environmental sustainability and waste, arts and culture, services across the entire spectrum of need (children, homelessness, disability, ageing) and all forms of healthcare (general practice, specialist disciplines, mental health, prevention). All have added to my understanding of how the world works - and should work.
Every project has shown me that the absolute fundamental questions remain these three:
Why do we exist?
How do we add (even more) value?
What does (future) success look like?
Honestly, if you can answer those three questions, you have a strategy.
You’ll continue to get 5MSM each Friday over the Southern summer, and I’ll be back with fresh stories and questions in February. Until then, enjoy the warm weather (if you’re antipodean), and the festive seasons wherever you are.
Drop me a line anytime, and of course, click the ‘heart’ to send a single byte of greeting.
Andrew
I champion collaboration but also find I'm at my least creative when I'm in a room and the pressure is on to form an idea. Most of my best ideas/collabs "drop in" on a walk/run, or through asynchronous communication (never in a meeting) voice noting with friendtors globally using Whatsapp!
Dear Andrew
Great reading as always. Have a great Xmas. Look forward to working with you in 2024!
Srikanth