Create the right mood for collaboration: not everything is "love"

In a previous post, I explained what are, in my experience, the main challenges organizations face in the process of implementing Open Innovation and introducing the “3 dimensions of Open Innovation” framework. In a later post, I explain the first dimension “Strategy” exploring the variables involved in the Open Innovation Strategy and its connection to the overall company strategy. Later on, I talked about the second dimension “POP K”, related to an internal analysis of the organization and the contribution to fulfilling the strategy, not only from the structural point of view but also from the human, motivational and collaborative perspective.  

Now it's time to talk about the final dimension - Mindset Alignment. It aims to identify the right partners and collaboration schemes and to create awareness of the differences in culture, values, objectives that will shape the results of the collaboration. Here it’s included also the materialization of the collaboration strategies by means of the contracts and policies for topics such as Intellectual Property, revenue share, and other assets distribution.

When thinking about all the elements that make this magic happen, I always end up thinking about human nature. Even if we're working in the most technologically advanced of innovations, collaborations relly in the cornerstone of the human values of those involved. Human relations shape the collaboration. That's why it's so important to anticipate and actively manage changes of players or representatives on the teams involved in the collaboration project.

Collaboration and values

In the first dimension - Strategy -, we talked about aligning the brain and the heart. In POP-K we wanted to make sure that each organ, each system in the body is working properly and contributing so the body can reach its goal. In this dimension, we can visualize our body, our Self, ready to connect with others. Inevitably a simile comes to my mind: the dynamics of love (see the amazingly insightful vignette by the Awkward Yeti illustrating this post). What might seem to our heart as pure love, is on one hand the work of hormones and chemistry work of the brain and body, but it’s also the practicality of finding the right partner and the proper connection mechanisms with them. 

Following our simile, the same happens when you’re looking for a partner: it might be just dancing in a party or maybe a serious relationship. All is OK, but the important thing here is to be transparent about the intentions and make sure that all of the involved are on the same page. Once you’re ready to move forward, it’s time to make an active decision about the money arrangements and collaboration dynamics. And even further, when you’re ready to tie the knot, draft the right kind of contracts with the right kind of clauses. 

In the collaboration dynamics, human traits are present: emotions, motivations, drivers, values… In my own experience, there needs to be a set of values in place for collaboration to work. Values of open innovation shared by those involved in the process.  So, what makes a good Open Innovation practitioner? What values are underlying the collaboration process?

In my own experience, and following the 3 Dimensions I propose, we have the following:

• For Strategy, Congruence & Soundness: The strategy must be congruent with the organizational mission and goals, and with the strategy. And it needs to make sense to all the involved.
• For POP K - Generosity and Care: Regarding Care, Inma Puig says in her book “The emotional revolution" that if you take care of someone you’ll have a well-cared, nurtured person, and if not, then they deteriorate. There’s a lot of anguish when someone feels not cared for. In the process of collaboration, we need to care about the others, be empathetic of what they need to archive and do. To do that, you need to do as Inma says: “Follow your biology: we have two ears and two eyes, but only one mouth. We need to listen and see the double of what we talk”. And this is the basis for Generosity. With generosity within the organization, silos begin to break naturally, by establishing optimal paths for knowledge to flow, and this inevitably leads to growth: for the individuals, for the organization, and for the business.
• For Mindset Alignment - Transparency & Integrity: Here we have values that affect our relationship with others during the collaboration process. The collaboration can be with different kinds of players, with one or many, for a specific project or long term. But always we will try to have this collaboration in a way that promotes and cultivates trust. And as I explain in the following chapter, to get trust we need to have transparency and integrity.

The mystery of Trust

Discussions about collaboration frequently end up focusing on trust. One can hear phrases like “the key of collaboration is trust”. But trust is a consequence and not a cause. 

With transparency and integrity, there will be trust. Strong reliability in the other will increase the possibilities of success. In the end, we’re solving “The mystery of trust” where we want to make sure that “what you expect” and “what I expect” can coexist during our collaboration, and ultimately in the long term.

The “Collaboration Mapping” Canvas

Following the methodology I’ve presented in the previous dimensions, I introduce you to the final canvas (at least at the moment!). The “Collaboration Mapping” Canvas is an Open Innovation management tool that allows us to analyse, reflect, discuss and understand the organization's intentions while looking for collaboration partners, bringing forward relevant aspects such as equity involvement, the direction of innovation flow, time frame and needs.

This framework looks to bring forward to the first moments of the collaboration the right kind of questions. We've seen many collaborative initiatives fail, and many of those could've been prevented by aligning intentions and perspectives from the very beginning: what are our expectations with this collaboration? Is there intention to invest or have any kind of equity involvement? Do we want to absorb knowledge or share it? What's the timeline for the collaboration? These and many other questions are the perfect ground for internal insights and to ask the other parties involved to make sure we are all aligned.

If you want to know how to use this tool, take a look into the detailed post in my blog and share with me your thoughts and ideas. As always, innovation is better in collaboration!

**The “Collaboration Mapping” Canvas (Version 2.0). You can download the PDF here. 

*Creative Commons Licence: The “Areas Involved in the OI Process” Canvas by Marisol Menendez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on a work at marisolmenendez.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at marisolmenendez.com.