Collaboration by Design

There would hardly be an organisation today that doesn’t want to be more collaborative, whether internally, externally or both.

When collaboration is used interchangeably with co-operation or teamwork, it seems obvious - after all an organisation is a group of people working together.?

However, in a fast changing, uncertain world, organisations are realising that old management systems of control do not bring about Innovation and Agility - essential capabilities to remain competitive. And it is in this context that Collaboration has acquired a higher and elusive quality.

How does one make Collaboration happen? The immediate and obvious candidate is ‘Culture’ - that secret sauce which outlasts business models, strategies, individuals, disruptions etcetera etcetera.?

But can a Collaborative Culture be cultivated, and how can one go about it?

While theories and best practices abound, this is an attempt to decode a few essential elements which may serve as a frame to ‘design’ systems and practices which make Collaboration emerge, hopefully in a more human, natural, ‘un-corporate-ish’ way!

Meaning - “is it worth it?”

As the mental model of organisation as a machine is past its sell-by date, the expectation of ‘meaning’ in and from work has increased.

If the org resembles more of an ecosystem or a social network than a machine where ‘knowledge and expertise’ are no more defined by number of years of experience and hierarchy, which of the two images below do you think impute more meaning to its members!

Purpose - “why do I exist?”

We can either live in our own bubble content with our created ‘meanings’, much like the blind people in the above image, or feel frustrated of our individual meaningless-ness or we can engage in collective sense-making to reveal a bigger picture and connect our little dots, giving us a higher purpose.

However, a quest for Meaning and Purpose alone may not bring about Collaboration, as we come face to face with another fundamental question. That which has tremendous potential to both destroy and create.

Identity - “who am I?”

It seems like Identity can delude even the best of us with its deep hard-wiring in our minds.

However, it’s also a choice. And this choice can put your organisation along a spectrum - an exclusive ‘cult’ at one end to one which brings multiple identities together, to a vision which is all encompassing including even non-sentient entities.

I believe it is this trifecta of Meaning - Purpose - Identity which interact with each-other to influence an emergent culture, which in turn influences these very elements back.

Think of someone whose Identity is rooted in being a parent. For this parent, even the most frustrating tasks and experiences of raising a child are full of rich meaning. These individual meanings coalesce into a higher Purpose making their life revolve around their off-spring. This Purpose, in turn, helps them find meaning even in little trivial things about parenting, reinforcing their identity as a parent!

And when similar identities become prevalent in a society, it creates a Culture which ‘values’ those identities, and which imparts the lives of its members with specific meanings and purposes.

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If you are wondering how to apply the above frame to an organisation and its practices (I don’t blame you!), here are a few questions to ponder upon:

• Has your organisation explored its core identity? Who you are and what you stand for?
• Have you shared this identity with the world? What is the nature of this identity? What kind (and if there IS a kind) of people is it attracting?
• What do people in the org find meaningful (and what they don’t) and why?
• Have you created spaces (formal or informal) which allow people to add their own meaning, their own little piece to the jigsaw puzzle, their own stories to the collective identity??
• Does your organisation bring people, across nooks and corners, together for collective sense-making? Do you allow curiosity to flourish, making people connect with each other and share their mental models?
• Is the big picture Purpose a static lifeless artefact locked in a corner office only to be paraded ceremoniously once in a while, or is it a living, changing, breathing entity felt by all parts of the organisation?
• Do people wonder and explore collectively on these 3 questions: Is it worth it? Why do I exist? Who am I?

[This article is an abridged version of my talk on Collaboration by Design at International School of Business & Media for their event HR Share '23]