What does "Collaboration" Mean Anyway?

I've certainly had many successes and failures in collaboration. I share my experiences to provide insights, not as an expert. In my own Privacy work, it is always collaborative to some degree, because personal data flows throughout an organization and is touched by all.

Collaboration is a powerful tool to unlock the best outcome for a business group, when it incorporates the best analysis from multiple perspectives. "Collaboration" is a commonly used word and meant as a positive thing and a way to benefit from everyone's full potential.

• Where functional, it helps participants feel wanted, needed, and appreciated -- like they are part of something good or even great.
• Where dysfunctional, collaboration can be a minefield, because work happiness and performance metrics can be impacted by negative collaboration experiences.

In various work environments over the years, I've observed a few things, and every project is different, but it is possible to identify positive and negative aspects of every collaborative project. A good goal is to always aim toward the positive, and continually revisit personal behavior and motivations with help of a trusted advisor. Having a trusted mentor or coach is often essential for gaining perspective, understanding what is working and not working, and even hearing the tough feedback that we might not want to hear.

Here are some characteristics of positive and negative collaboration.

Healthy and functional collaboration might look like the following:

• Clear Objectives: Everyone understands the group's goals and their role in achieving them.
• Open Communication: Participants freely share ideas, listen actively, and respect each other's viewpoints.
• Mutual Respect: Team members value each other’s contributions and expertise.
• Efficient Processes: Meetings and processes are structured to maximize productivity, often with agendas or workflows.
• Conflict Resolution: Disagreements are addressed constructively, focusing on solutions rather than personal attacks.
• Diverse Perspectives: The group leverages diverse thoughts and skills, enhancing creativity and problem-solving.

Unhealthy or dysfunctional collaboration might look like the following:

• Unclear Goals: Lack of clear objectives leads to confusion and misaligned efforts.

• Poor Communication: Ideas may not be shared effectively, leading to misunderstandings and frustration.

• Lack of Respect: Team members might feel undervalued or ignored, diminishing morale and productivity.

• Inefficient Processes: Time may be wasted on unstructured meetings or redundant tasks.

• Escalating Conflicts: Disputes become personal, creating a hostile environment and stalling progress.
• Groupthink: Poor decision-making and stifled innovation can result from a lack of diverse perspectives.

How do we get more of the positive and less of the negative?

The most important common factors in whether collaboration is functional or not have to do with clear communication, respect, and appropriate conflict resolution.

Communication

What are our roles and responsibilities in this conversation and work? It can be helpful to communicate a chart of who is accountable for what, who is doing what work, whose input is needed for what aspect, and who signs off. This is often referred to as a RACI (Responsibility, Accountability, Consulted, Informed). While this kind of formality is not always needed, the need for it increases the larger and the more diverse the group and the less clear the lines of authority are.

In order to support the other two main themes below, communication is paramount. Respect is impossible without appropriate communication, and conflicts cannot be resolved positively without it.

Key things to ensure are communicated and agreed in a collaboration:

• Identify who will make final decisions, which may be based upon subject matter expertise.
• How much discussion is appropriate, and who decides when there has been adequate discussion? Is this a one back and forth, a series of meetings, something in between? Ideally, the discussion can be ended when every perspective has been fully heard. This can be particularly tricky when one or more stakeholders have pressing deadlines.
• Who will be accountable for the final work product? When the work product is presented to the final audience, who stands for the group work as a whole, and who speaks to criticism of particular subject matter?

Respect

It is absolutely critical that everyone feels respected in a collaboration for it to work. Unfortunately, no one among us has control over how anyone else receives us with precision, because each person brings their own experiences, motives, and strengths to a conversation. The best antidote for this very human problem is to, above all (despite what we may think -- or even if factually true) never act upon assumptions of other's ulterior motives. If we impute negative motives to another, we do not respect their perspective, and they will sense that and not respect ours. Even if their motivations are fully negative, we are in a collaboration and we are going to have to work together.

Conflict resolution

Conflicts are normal and expected in a collaboration. This is because if we want to harness the value of diverse perspectives, it is logical and necessary that viewpoints will be in opposition.

Effective conflict resolution requires clear communication on decision-making authority, adequate discussion to ensure all perspectives are heard, and a process that makes contributors feel acknowledged before final decisions.

Above all, give each other grace, and be willing to forgive

The reason for the value of diverse perspective is simultaneously a major reason for its difficulty: as humans, we are, limited in our ability to process all perspectives at once.

We always strive for positive collaboration, as we can move mountains together! When this happens, everyone seems to feel great -- like they are part of something greater than the sum of its parts.

Even when we disagree or miscommunicate, offering grace and forgiveness allows us to recover and achieve more.

These are some thoughts, for what it's worth. Naturally, is all easier said than done, particularly under pressure!