Collaboration is a huge part of successful design and innovation. I don't need to quote stats or point to case studies to support that claim. Some outcomes come out better with coordinated effort, diverse perspectives and teamwork. Some outcomes and processes don't, but many do.
I don't know if it goes against human nature or where we've evolved to as "business humans," but we have to work at it. Bob Sutton had a post a while ago that suggested that some version of working together was the natural order of things as "human humans."
I was thinking the other day about what collaboration is, and I started to think about what it isn't.
Collaboration isn't...
... oversight.
... delegation.
... divide and conquer.
It's messy. It's hard. It requires lots of respect and taking personal risks on behalf of a greater good (kind of flying in the face of both the "tragedy of the commons" and the theory of self-interested individuals).
Collaborating with people that have talent and vision and conviction isn't easy. Especially if you see yourself that way. I think one of the tricks is to understand, as a leader and as a team member, when and how to collaborate.
Collaboration means with. You have to emphasize clarity of communications and interfaces as much as components or piece parts.
Collaboration means give. You have to give twice as much as what you'd expect to take away.
Collaboration means together. You have to give yourself over to a greater good or shared purpose. Someone might be accountable at the end of the day, so you have to be willing to support that person either explicitly or through agreement of some shared purpose.
Do you have to trust in order to collaborate? I don't think so. I think collaboration breeds trust, not the other way around. In fact, a fixation on trust or respect before collaboration could set you up for a long wait. Sometimes people ask for trust as a prerequisite for collaboration. As in, "we need to trust each other." I think some of that is just lazy collaboration.
So if you want to build trust give productive collaboration a try.
(Image of a well-secured collaboration from Mar00ned's Creative Commons fueled flickr stream.)
