The five dysfunctions of collaboration

I guess I have pretty high expectations. After working with a truly great team for a number of years the bar for how people work together and what they can accomplish is set really high for me. When it all clicks it’s a great feeling.

That’s probably why I get disappointed when it just doesn’t go well – which always sends me spinning off into trying to figure out why. From the annals of some recent projects, here is what I have found.

Collaboration is a tricky business, you have project needs and goals, personal agendas, not to mention personalities at play. And any one of them can cause things to unravel.

Right out of the gate, you’ve got to have a clear goal for the project. What is the end-game? You can’t point people north if you don’t know that’s where you are headed. And added to that you can’t head north if you don’t know where you are headed out from, so take a few minutes to also set the starting point – otherwise what seems to be north up the mountain might really have you headed for the edge of a cliff.

Goals are great. Everyone is pumped up and raring to go and we have a great collection of individuals with diverse skills and backgrounds who all need to come together to make this thing happen. And, this is where seeds of much later discontent are sown. What are the operating principles of the group? What “values” do you all agree to uphold throughout the good and bad of the project. Respect for each other (tick); communication (tick and more on this later); fun (tick)… etc.

But here’s a tip – don’t just trott out the usual suspects, think about who you have on board and what you are doing and put together a list that might actually help you succeed, and then spend some time understanding what you mean by them. Because if you don’t the Lord of the Flies won’t just be a book you read in high school…

The trickiest part of any collaboration is not the work to be done or managing the timeline and scope. It’s the personalities involved. Impossible to check at the door, they get into every knook and crany of the project and if given free reign will totally subvert not only the goal, but any chances of success – not too mention chew up valuable time like a puppy with a new toy.

Spending a bit of extra time in the beginning, looking behind the skills and experience at the people who have them, can save a whole lot of tears later. What in the beginning, seems like a charming prepensity to look at the details, will over the coming months, become the most annoying overanalytical tendency you have ever had to deal with.

A more recent dysfunction to the party are online “collaboration” tools. A popular one here is called Basecamp. And its quite nifty. You can post messages to the team or just some members of the team, you can share files with people, create different categories of information and run multiple projects from it with different associates.

But (hey, you knew there was one coming), it doesn’t replace a good old face-to-face sit down, and only even works on its intended level when all the players act with initiative and actually look at what is posted to it. (On the really annoying side it can fill up your inbox in a heartbeat as people have conversations about the project and include you whether you need to know or not.)

Which brings me to the root of all evil. Underneath all of the above things – is the failure to communicate!

If I don’t know what you are doing and why you are doing it, it is impossible for me to support you. And vice versa. At a more basic level if I also need to understand what you are saying, not just the words but what you mean by the words you are using, then I can’t even begin to do what you want or have you do what I want.

So what does that word communication actually mean?

The dictionary says: “the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs.” But that is only one side of the equation. I can impart and interchange all I like, but if the people at the other end of that aren’t listening then I may as well be talking to a wall. In our zeal to get our point across we often forget that we learn more and get further when we just shut up and listen.

So here is my summary of the five biggest dysfunctions of collaboration (may they help your next collaboration go forth and prosper):
1. Not having a clear goal for the group to work towards.
2. Not defining clear operating principles for the group.
3. Letting personalities overtake process.
4. Overreliance on collaboration “tools” in place of actual collaboration.
5. Failure to fully communicate (use language that people can understand and make sure you listen to what others say and that you understand them).

See you next week.

Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognize who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.