We regularly hear from customers asking for experiential tools that will promote collaboration, "We want our people to collaborate more / better"; it's a request we're happy to respond to, but the first part of that response will usually be a question. You see 'collaboration' is a concept that could look very different depending on where and how it's applied, and our question will be aimed at getting the clarity we need to recommend an experiential approach. This month I'm going to attempt to open up the possibilities that might be hiding behind the term collaboration, what it means and how it may look different depending on whether it's enacted at an individual, team or whole-organisation level.
Collaboration is defined as 'two or more parties working together to achieve a shared goal', and it's the variables contained in this short sentence that help define the questions that arise when we attempt to get some clarity about the nature of the collaboration that is being addressed, e.g.
- Are the parties involved individuals, teams or functions?
- Are they always the same parties, or do they differ depending on circumstances?
- Are they working through representatives or is everybody involved in the collaboration?
- Has the 'shared goal' been defined and agreed by all parties?
Establishing answers to these, and potentially other, questions, helps us to understand specific needs, not least whether what we're dealing with is preparing people for a specific interaction e.g. a particular negotiation, or whether what's needed is skills development i.e. more generally preparing people for the collaborative part of their jobs. If it transpires that the experiential activity is to be preparation for a specific event then the answers to the questions will allow us to be much more targeted in our recommendations and we can supply the tools required and potentially offer some suggestions about how they might be deployed and reviewed. I'm going to set aside these cases as they are unique to each customer, leaving me to use the next articles to explore how experiential tools can be used to develop collaboration skills for the workplace.
The approach I'll be taking in these explorations is to consider collaboration at an individual, team and function / whole organisation level. Of course there's some overlap in the skills required, but there are also differences that are important if we are to give employees a comprehensive suite of skills that will support them in becoming effective collaborators.
