Sailing the 7 C's?-?Charting a Path for Communication and Collaboration
"Gentlemen, the officer who doesn't know his communications and supply as well as his tactics is totally useless." - General George S. Patton
Collaboration is an oft-stated goal in organizations because of its inherent benefits. It can be a force multiplier (to use military parlance) or an interaction effect (to use statistical parlance; inclusive of quadratic & curvilinear associations). Yet in our quest for collaboration, we often fall short. Why?
The short answer is that natural prerequisites exist for collaboration. Without them, progress is not made. Following is an examination of these prerequisites.
Despite being weaker and slower than many other animals, humans nonetheless exceed and dominate other lifeforms by using our big brains. However, no single mind can develop sufficiently on its own. Our brains develop and adapt in a collaborative fashion enabled by superior communication.
Each human mind requires interaction with others to meet its full potential. We stand on the shoulders of those who taught us language, knowledge, skills, and wisdom so as to reach new heights. We are more powerful in groups, clans, collectives, communities, corporations, societies, and nations. Each generation benefits in new ways from the evolving intelligence shared. Humans make progress together, collaboratively.
What is required for collaboration? In a word, communication. However, more than one word is needed to understand the true flow to the goal. Here I propose expanding the 3 C framework (communicate, coordinate, collaborate)[1, 2] to that of the 7 C’s for understanding how successful collaboration inherently builds and flows.
The 7 C's:
Collaboration often fails or remains out-of-reach when an element in this sequence is overlooked. Let’s examine each step in the flow.
From start to finish, commonalities are needed along the flow toward collaboration and completion of a goal. A common time and place is needed to connect. A common language is needed for communication. A common time reference and schedule is needed for coordination. A common good and vision is needed for collaboration.
Having an individual goal is not enough. For collaboration, others must have aligned goals as well. A sense of a common good is needed. This is one reason why the buzzword “convergence” is frequently used, especially in the tech sector— people trying to sell something will conjure a sense of alignment so as to sell their purported opportunity.
If things proceed smoothly, common achievements are made. This last point is important: the proper sharing of credit for completed tasks is necessary to incentivize subsequent collaborations. This ties to the next item of confidence — can others trust that you will share the credit and/or rewards if they help you?
If we conceptualize the process as climbing a pyramid of collaboration, we climb on a staircase of trust. This can also be expressed as confidence in the path or of the path being credible.
The path to a goal is inclusive of the people, actions, objects, and places involved. Before committing our time, effort, and capital, we want to have confidence in the people engaged, actions required, objects utilized, and places traversed. If there is no path, there is no way forward. If trust is deficient, there is no path.
Before we can communicate, we must first connect.
When my young son is excited and wants to share something, he will often come near and just start talking at me. However, I am typically already engaged in something else (e.g., working on a computer). In such cases, my son’s communication fails because he fails to first connect. To communicate with me, he must first engage my attention.
There is no chance for communication, coordination, or collaboration if we do not first connect (i.e., engage). It is no coincidence that marketing metrics often focus on engagement. This is also manifest in common business sayings such as “timing is everything” and “location, location, location.” They allude to the need for temporal and spatial convergence so as to connect. Only after the clientele is engaged can a business hope to transact. Only after a sheep is snagged can the shepherd shear it. Only after a student is present and listening can they be taught. Connection is key.
Before we can coordinate, we must first communicate.
Once my son gains my attention, his communications can be baffling. Part of his narrative may have passed me by before he gained my attention (I missed part of the context). His narrative may lack sufficient background (he didn’t provide context). He may also reference items and characters (“lapis lazuli” and “Minecraft Steve”) that I am not familiar with. Without the proper context and a common terminology, effective communication will be lacking.
Imagine if I did the same in my job! If speaking to a colleague, it becomes counterproductive to use technical terms which they are not familiar with. The goal is to engender collaboration, not contempt. Purposefully using overly technical terms may help exert your position in the social hierarchy, but that is not the same thing as building alignment and alliances. Two-way communication works best between people who treat each other as equals.
For effective communication, responsibility is needed on the part of the speaker and audience. The speaker should be 100% responsible for making sure that they are understood. Empathy plays a role for effectively anticipating what terminology is best suited to the task when communicating with any particular person or group. Likewise, the audience should be 100% responsible for making sure they understand. Rephrasing and asking follow-up questions should be used to ensure the message was properly received.
This may go without saying, but proper communication involves all its forms: words, tonation, and body language. Proper matchings of words and tonations is necessary to not devolve into counterproductive dynamics [3]. Care should be taken in choosing phrasings which have the appropriate sentiment for any given interaction.
Before we can collaborate, we must first coordinate.
In its essence, coordination addresses dilemmas of common aversions [4]: inefficiencies, disadvantages, and vulnerabilities. These aversions are often resolved by coordinating protocols and standards: time zones, SI units, traffic rules (auto, air, radio,?…), boundaries (neighborhood fences, exclusive economic zones, no-fly zones, demilitarized zones,?…), and so forth.
Coordination inherently implies a time and/or location dynamic, yet there are other details needed as well. Proper communication will address all of the questions needed for coordination: who, what, where, why, when, and how.
Coordination is the core of logistics, and logistics are essential to all business operations. Many of these details end up prescribed as performance guarantees in binding legal contracts due their critical nature: how much will be paid for work done when, where, how, and by whom.
It is said in the military that “amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics” [5]. While tactics are deployed in realtime, logistics allow for setting the competitive landscape in advance with preferable terms. Great logistics can preempt the need for tactics. Logistics also play a massive role in maintaining morale by providing comrades/coworkers with the tools and supplies needed to perform their roles… especially food. As is said, “an army, like a serpent, goes upon its belly” [6].
Coordination comes in different flavors depending on the hierarchical dynamics. If one party is clearly in a dominant role, coordination can be as swift as a submissive party following the mandates of the dominant party. If the parties involved have more equal status to each other, then more communication may be needed to find agreeable terms… a collaboration that then iterates back into a coordination process.
Sometimes the communication phase flows directly into a collaboration of ideas (seemingly bypassing coordination). Even so, coordination will still be essential if there will be any collaboration of actions.
“Many hands make for light work.”
Collaboration enables us to overcome formidable tasks and speeds up rudimentary tasks. Collaboration can also address dilemmas of common interests [4]: cooperating while preventing cheating, promoting mutual disarmament in lieu of mutual armament, etc.
Regarding formidable tasks, many objectives in the modern day cannot be met with individual efforts alone. Whether simply large in scale, multidisciplinary in nature, or both, it is impractical for individuals to tackle certain ambitions on their own. Collaboration is essential for making these large objectives manageable.
Even before we start a task which we are capable of performing solo, we often benefit from the guidance of mentors and subject matter experts (SME’s). There is no substitute for experience, especially when it comes to avoiding blunders. Once we complete a task, it behooves us to seek out a peer review. Either missed mistakes or valuable additions may come to light in the process. Even when we can go it alone, collaboration offers substantial gains.
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In more extreme cases when large dangers loom, the refrain rings out that “united we stand, divided we fall.” In the face of extreme threats, natural or political, it may only be by banding together that crises can be survived or averted. Many are familiar with the stress responses of fight, flight, and freeze. There are also the stress responses of tend and befriend, and these are critical in overcoming larger challenges. Tend and befriend naturally bring us into a collaborative mindset necessary for facing large challenges.
From an economic perspective, specialization and the division of labor offer massive efficiency and economic advantages despite any person or group’s inherent absolute advantages [7]. These efficiency and economic advantages can only be harvested through exchanges which manifest forms of collaboration — via a trade of services, by barter, facilitated with fiat currency, or otherwise. The luxuries of modern life have been made possible by industrial-scale (and often global) collaborations.
An important point to keep in focus is that collaboration is not the end goal. Simply collaborating (or coordinating, or communicating, or connecting) is not the same thing as action.
“Talk is cheap.”? “Walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk.”? “Facta, non verba.”?
The final tier of this schema is to complete (i.e., achieve) an objective, and that requires action.
Some of the action needed is taken care of in the coordination phase with logistics. Some is taken care of in the collaboration phase with tactics. Yet no one should ever get to the phase of collaboration and then think they are done. Completing the end objective should always be kept in mind.
One of the main challenges encountered is the knowing-doing gap: the time delay between acquiring knowledge and taking action on it [8]. Especially for individuals who are detail-oriented, there is a desire to learn most if not all of the relevant information prior to taking action. This is done to mitigate action-related risks, but does not necessarily address the risks which arise from not taking action.
There is also the complication that the torrential inflow of new data can exceed our ability to absorb it (a futile “scrambling up the technology mudslide”). Hence, an insistence on integrating all information can quickly lead to “analysis paralysis.”?
Moments come for us to take leaps of faith — trusting that we have learned enough to warrant action. Our willingness to take these leaps to action should be balanced by the severity of the risks involved. Some risks may be warranted if one might only lose a client, but cannot be justified if there is a risk to life or limb.
In some situations, the knowing-doing gap could be reclassified as the talking-doing gap. It is not that knowledge is lacking, but rather that it is ignored or taboo. In the absence of informed action, schedules become filled with meetings, discussions, and hollow procedures such as TPS reports [9]. After all, workers must be seen as doing something to earn their keep. At the root of such issues are inadequate accountability & incentive structures.?
For example, if a decision manager undergoes scrutiny for trying something new but has no scrutiny for maintaining the status quo, then they are unlikely to entertain contrarian views, open data silos, or greenlight novel initiatives. Organizations with such cultures may end up rigid and wide-open to risks from new technologies which might supplant them… the risks of not taking action (a.k.a. the innovator’s dilemma [10]).
Once we cross the gaps and take action, the results may or may not meet our expectations. An important step then becomes to collect and integrate information into our knowledge base. To reiterate, this is the nature of the post mortem: to collect information, integrate it into our knowledge base, and transfer lessons learned so as to improve future iterations of our work.
Last but not least, we need to share the credit and/or benefits of success when we finally meet the objective. It is truly rare for a met objective to satisfy all of our present and future needs. Therefore, the networks of talented, capable helpers we engage with will likely be needed again to meet future objectives. To maintain our credibility and strengthen relationships, we need to make sure to credit and reward our collaborators. For example, if one of the graphics in this article is borrowed for use elsewhere, then I as the author should be cited. Doing so not only honors my contribution, but also shows all those who see it that you are willing to share credit where credit is due. Members of the audience are then more likely to be available for collaboration.
If one is facing a challenge which requires a group effort, then one will need to cultivate a process of collaboration by tending to each element of the 7 C’s and in the correct order. Neglecting commonalities and credibility (other’s confidence in you) will undermine one’s ability to connect. A failure to connect will preempt one’s ability to communicate. Communication will have to be intelligible to coordinate. Coordination is needed to lay the groundwork for collaboration. Collaboration is essential for making many large objectives manageable. Finally, action is needed to complete the objectives.
Some iteration and looping is inherent in the flow, so it is not a purely linear process. Also, many of the cultivated elements are put into place with the expectation of repeated use for multiple objectives.
The value of the 7 C’s schema should now be clear. It adds to the 3 C’s model by:
This article also seeks to illustrate the dynamics of elements within the framework with personal examples, common wise sayings, and axioms (teaching devices which engender trust due to their familiarity).
The world is what we make of it, and it needs to be smarter. If you benefited from this article, please share it with others.
Addendum
The focus of this article is on achievement through collaboration. Only those alliterative elements critical to completion were included in the 7 C’s. Care was also taken to keep each element of the 7 C’s distinctive from the others.
The 3 C’s framework has been adapted before, by others, for various social and business use cases and with a variety of C’s appended (e.g., convergence, community, collective, collegiality, commitment, contributions, contexts, content, creativity, cognition, critical thinking, et cetera, et cetera… in 4 C or 5 C schemas) [11]. Some of these other elements are implicit or will inherently manifest if the 7 C’s are aligned.
Some elements are excluded herein since they are not always necessary. For example, if a solution already exists for a problem and simply needs to be implemented, then creativity might not be needed. If a solution can be found through persistent trial and error, then critical thinking may not be as essential. Collegiality, while helpful, may not be necessary so long as other incentive structures bond people to a common cause (e.g., “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”). Convergence and community can both be simplified as connections and/or commonalities.
Acknowledgements
This article and many of the enhancements therein were inspired from conversations with my spouse of many years — a MBA-wielding professional with an exceptional array of talents. She first introduced me to the 3 C’s upon which this builds. Her peer reviews provided many welcome improvements as well.
References
[1] Ellis, C. A., Gibbs, S. J., & Rein, G. (1991). Groupware: some issues and experiences. Communications of the ACM, 34(1), 39–58.
[2] Fuks, H., Raposo, A., Gerosa, M. A., Pimentel, M., Filippo, D., & Lucena, C. (2008, April). Inter-and intra-relationships between communication coordination and cooperation in the scope of the 3C Collaboration Model. In 2008 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (pp. 148–153). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/CSCWD.2008.4536971.
[3] See the book Games People Play by Eric Berne for an introduction to Transactional Analysis.
[4] Stein, A. A. (1982). Coordination and collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World. International Organization, 36(2), 299–324.
[5] General Robert H. Barrow, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, 1980. (The quote is also frequently misattributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, Omar Bradley, or other historical figures.)
[6] Carlyle, Thomas (1858). History of Friedrich the Second, Called Frederick the Great.
[7] Smith, Adam (1776). The Wealth of Nations.
[8] Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. I. (2000). The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action. Harvard Business School Press.
[9] Office Space. (1999). [Movie] 20th Century Fox.
[10] Christensen, C. M. (1997). The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Harvard Business Review Press.
[11] A multitude of prior 3 C’s citations and adaptations can be found with a search on Google Scholar.?
President at Riverford Exploration, LLC
2 年Well done, Andrew.