Can you define collaboration
Stumble It!perhaps but it won't help you produce it in your team!
Wikipedia makes an attempt at defining “Collaboration”. It comes from the Latin 'co' meaning 'with' and 'labore' meaning 'to work' and means 'to work together'.
Trying to define collaboration
However wikipedia neatly sidesteps the questıon by suggesting that more research ıs required to answer questions like:
- How does collaboration differ from cooperation?
- What qualifies as a collaboration?
- What are the defining principals or elements of this process?
One of the barriers to collaboration is the very word itself - in many places, such as France, the UK and Ireland, the word is loaded with negativity from its wartime meanıng of "traitorous cooperation with the enemy".
So it seems to me that a definitional approach to collaboration is unlikely to help us much in trying to produce good collaboration in our teams.
What about good and bad collaboration?
Perhaps it is more useful to identify what is good and what is bad collaboration.
In another article, When collaboration goes bad, I review work by Harvard Professor David Perkins on his idea of 'organisational intelligence' which when lacking in a team or group leads to 'coblaboration' instead of collaboration.
Perkins also suggests three tests for coblaboration.
It is sometimes easier to see the symptoms of collaboration
Another approach is to try and understand collaboration by looking at contrasts in a number of domains:
At one end of the spectrum how do things look if collaboration is absent?
And at the opposite end of the spectrum how does the situation look if collaboration is present?
- Doing Things
Absent: Solo with collaboration on review
Present: Group scoping and development - New Ideas & Innovation
Absent: Linear and Incremental approach
Present: Non-linear and Quantum - Conflict Resolution
Absent: Formal, slow and late to be spotted
Present: Informal, fast and raised early - Problem Solving
Absent: Symptoms only addressed for quick resolution
Present: Causes examined even if disruptive - Conversations and Communication
Absent: Non-disclosive and safe
Present: Disclosive but risky and messy - Opportunities and Business Development
Absent: Narrow focus/ direct-interest only
Present: Broad focus / mutual reciprocity
So its perhaps better not to try and define collaboration but to ask yourself to what extent you see evidence of its fruits in these (and other) domains of your team's operation.
If you assign numeric scores to each of these six domains you can easily create a quick 'collaboration signature' for your team.
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What teams can learn from wolves
If you think that there is not much human teams can learn from nature think again! Temple Grandin in her amazing book Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (p303-307) puts forward the incredible theory that early humans only became today’s successful homo sapiens because they learned to act and think like the wolves they co-habited with.
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