Part 2, Collaboration Definition! Expanded. (Statement 1)

June 17, 2008

“Consensus is the lack of leadership!” - Margaret Thatcher. I am in total agreement with that statement. As a matter of fact, I absolutely love it and have lived by it for many years. Question: Is collaboration simply a way to gain consensus? If so, then is it valid to say that “Collaboration is the lack of leadership”? I say, yes…and no!

Definition “People working together on creative, non-trivial issues that requires deep thinking and an exchange of ideas in an iterative and cumulative manner by domain experts.”

I will try to state this as simply as possible and demonstrate why “Collaboration may or may not be the absence of leadership”.

But first we need to understand teams. So, let’s look at team dynamics (attributes of a team). If you have read any of Jon Katzenbach’s books (The Wisdom of Teams and Peak Performance, as well as Real Change Leaders and Teams at the Top), you will walk away with a better understanding about the various aspects of teams.

There are 3 dimensions to any team.
• The Challenge – Business problem to be solved
• Work Style – Type of work, level of communication
• Leadership Approach – Applying the right leadership style

The type of business problem dictates the work style and leadership approach for the team.

Coordination-oriented Teams.
Is the business problem familiar to the organization, is it based on a known process and is it time sensitive? This dictates a team of highly specialized experts in their domains, working individually on their part of the solution and time is the driving factor. Coordination is key for this type of team. It is lead by a leader that coordinates individual contributions. In this case, the collaboration level is not as deep. It may be a common repository for terms and reference documents as well as the place where final deliverables are held and project plans are maintained. Often times the implementation of this level of collaboration is tactical – the company sets up a base set of collaboration features for ‘any team’ – its just the standard corporate collaboration configuration.

In the case, collaboration is simply a minimum level of service offered by the organization - a strategy set awhile ago. Here, consensus may in fact be the lack of leadership; as the type of business problem and work style demands a high degree of individual leadership. Here the leader needs to be the main broker of communication; keeping track of the project’s schedule and deliverables. Here the leader would make decisions (of course a good leader always seeks advice). I would agree that on this end of the spectrum, collaboration may be the lack of leadership. In this case, poor leaders may fall in to the trap of allowing the group to lead.

Collaboration-oriented Teams.
However, if the business problem you are trying to solve is unfamiliar to the organization, it is likely that your team will need to invent new processes. In this case, while time is certainly a factor, the best solution takes priority (implementing a poor solution in this case is disastrous). For these team attributes, collaboration is key. This type of team often shares in the work and often rotates leadership responsibility as domain experts lead discussions. Here the team is mission lead. All team members work collectively and share information at a high velocity. In this case, the collaboration level is deep. It may have custom designed work flows and voting/survey tools. Each member is available via online chat. Document management with versioning and edition features are enabled. There is a high velocity of meetings handled by web conferencing. Also the use of wikis and team electronic calendars are priority 1 – so that the mission continues!

In this scenario, collaboration is tactical – it is deployed because the business challenge demands a high velocity of collective work – a high degree of communication and thought sharing. In this case, the role of the leader rotates as people. Here collaboration is not simply gaining consensus, rather here collaboration is leadership!

I have painted both ends of the spectrum. The truth is always in the middle. Keep in mind that during the different lifecycles of a project, your team dynamics will ebb and flow from individual coordination to team collaboration. The trick is to choose a level of collaboration that will scale to your need! More to follow! Click here for my 13 points regarding collaboration.