Collaboration
'More than 97 percent of senior leaders believed collaboration is needful to success. However, only 30 percent of respondents and 47 percent of senior leaders believed leaders in their society are verily skilled in collaboration. Results indicate leaders must learn to work over boundaries to collaborate effectively in the arrival years.' (Centre for Creative Leadership, 2007)
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Collaboration is a process of participation through which people, groups and organizations work together to achieve desired results. Common factors and characteristics have been identified by investigate as influencing the collaborative process, together with the skills of leadership, communication, sustainability, unity, participation, and a history of victorious accomplishments (Hogue, et al, 1995; Keith et.al, 1993). Borden (1997) has identified four factors: internal communication, external communication, membership, and goal setting.
Borden & Perkins (1999) identified and defined the following factors in the improvement of a easy self assessment tool. This tool can be used by groups to stimulate argument after self rating the collaborative endeavor for each key area. It can also provide an summary of the key factors needful for success in a collaborative project.
• transportation - clear and open with an established process.
• Sustainability - there is a plan for sustaining participation and resources throughout the task together with guidelines in regards to the change of members.
• investigate and assessment - a needs assessment has been conducted, goals are clear and there are measurement processes in place to regain data and enumerate those goals.
• Political climate - there exists safe bet history and environment surrounding power and decision making. Political climate may be within the group as a whole, systems within the group or networks of people;
• Resources - there is way to the required resources. Resources refer to four types of capital: environmental, in-kind, financial, and human;
• Catalysts - the collaboration was commenced due to the existence of problem(s) or the reason(s) for collaboration to exist required a wide approach;
• Policies/Laws/Regulations - the collaboration can function effectively under the existing policies, laws, and/or regulations or these can be altered or created
• History - the group has a history of working cooperatively and solving problems;
• Connectedness - members are associated and have established informal and formal transportation networks at all levels;
• Leadership - there are leaders who promote, facilitates and retain team building, and who can capitalise on diversity and individual, group and organizational strengths;
• Group improvement - this collaboration was mobilized to address prominent issues. There is a transportation law and formal facts channels that permit the exploration of issues, goals and objectives; and,
• comprehension Stakeholders - the collaboration understands the stakeholders, together with the people, cultures, values and habits.
Using the factors outlined above as a focus of argument may sacrifice fragmentation within the group and move group conversation from generic argument to focused dialogue prominent to sound decision making, and action. Open and honest transportation within the group can increase group effectiveness and commitment. It also assists with viewing issues and problems in a holistic manner. Open and honest transportation within the collaboration and with stakeholders is needful to success.
Another key area to be addressed is the setting of direction and focus for the collaboration. Ensuring a clear and understood direction and focus between all parties for a collaboration defines the purpose of the collaboration as what its members seek to create. Setting the direction and focus begins with establishing the vision, mission, values, and principles. Defining the outcome(s) added establishes identity and fundamental purpose. Activities also need to be aggregated to provide value to the collaborative group and to stakeholders. Complicated activities with similar focuses can confuse. Task/role clarity can originate greater involvement, dialogue and understanding. Applying the range of factors above to the processes and contexts of the collaboration results in a greater shared comprehension of what the collaboration stands for, where it's going, the internal and external environment, and how it intends to make its outcomes a reality.
Collaboration as a Continuum Collaboration often means different things to different people, it is beneficial to think about collaboration as a continuum. Parties may think themselves in relationships that vary from lower-intensity exchanges, in which the groups are more independent, to higher-intensity relationships, in which they are more interdependent. In one model (Kaplan, 1991), these differences in intensity are reflected in four Common terms: networking, cooperation, coordination, and collaboration.
Networking Cooperation Coordination Collaboration Lower-intensity' Higher-intensity Independence' Interdependence
1. Networking Organizations have a networking association when they change facts in order to help each society do a good job.
2. Coordination Organizations have a coordinating association when they modify their activities so that together, they provide good services to their constituents.
3. Cooperation When organizations cooperate, they not only share facts and make adjustments in their services - they share resources to help each other do a good job.
4. Collaboration In a collaborative relationship, organizations help each other expand or enhance their capacities to do their jobs. (Axner, 2007)
Trust and Collaboration The improvement of trust in nurturing collaborative relationships is a vital skill for leaders (Tschannen-Moran, 2001). Trust is built on perception and history. How our motives and activities are perceived determines if others will trust us. If we trust, we share. If not, we don't. How other's comprehend us is their reality -outside of our own motives. If we are perceived as promoting our own schedule or trying to originate our own "empire", others are reluctant to become complex and to share. This applies to organizations and individuals.
Affect- based trust are feelings of emotional involvement and sincere caring for each others welfare. Cognition-based trust is the confidence that others are competent and responsible. Both of these forms of trust are the foundations for collaboration in organisations (McAllister, 1995). Interpersonal trust is also viewed as a key to facilitating and enabling coordinated communal interactions (Coleman, 1988).
Learning to Lead Collaboration people can tend not to collaborate, this may be caused by issues of understanding, time, our work environments or politics. Collaboration is a relatively new opinion and is unfamiliar to many people. We were taught in school to compete and that the world is survival of the fittest. Collaboration can seem to run contrary to what we were taught to do and be. If people are used to finding knowledge as a scarce reserved supply (and through proprietary of knowledge it can originate increased power for the individual or group) people may be less inclined to engage in open idea change and collaboration.
Innovation needs to occur in an environment of experimentation. However, if innovative ideas are to be effective, they need some structure to allow for consistency. The environment should take care of both innovation and standardization.
Politics and bureaucracy also need to be addressed and understood within the organisational context and the context of the collaborative effort. Good ideas aren't always the ones that are implemented. Ideas that are associated to the right people in the right positions can often gain acceptance fast and easily. Who has power? influence on key decisions sometimes rests outside of formal processes. Sometimes, people on the "outside" have a profound impact on key decision makers. Ignoring other stakeholders can sink new ideas and innovations.
Tools for Collaboration The It industry has recognised that collaboration and communal networking is the way of the time to come and there is a strong move to originate products which seek to enhance productivity by virtualizing communications and firm processes. people and organisations are finding at ways to connect with each other virtually and Web 2.0 products are being designed to fill those needs. However we already have easy way to tools such as video and tele conferencing, chat, bulletin boards and email - easy tools which enable groups to communicate. Many tools are effortlessly ready as open source software or at low cost making them accessible to all sectors. There are also more industrialized products such as regain instant messaging, screen sharing and other groupware tools. These types of tools enable geographically dispersed teams to come together for virtual meetings allowing for time and cost savings, less travel, and improved communications flow.
Conclusion Trust, collaboration, sharing, free time of ideas, are expressions of confidence systems and culture. When we consider the role of collaboration in an organization, we are debating our views of how the organisation as a whole should be organized, power distributed, diversity allowed, and decisions made. Collaboration reflects a point of view: that by working together partners, formal or informal, can bring different perspectives to bear to solve a question and bring about change. In order for collaboration to occur successfully within an organisation there needs to be a supportive culture and work environment, encouragement from senior managers and a rewards law which reflects the significance of collaborative practices. For collaboration to be victorious between organisations there must be clarity, direction and dialogue.
Resources For more facts about collaborative software go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_software
References
Axner, M. 2007, Promoting Coordination, Cooperative Agreements, and Collaborative Agreements Among Agencies. The community Toolbox accessed 17/12/07 at [http://ctb.ku.edu/tools/en/sub_section_main_1229.htm]
Borden, L. M. 1997, community collaboration: When the whole is greater than the sum of parts. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. (Quoted in Borden & Perkins, 1999)
Borden, L.M & Perkins, D.F. 1999, Assessing Your Collaboration: A Self assessment Tool. Journal of Extension, accessed 17/12/07 at http://www.joe.org/joe/1999april/tt1.html
Centre for Creative Leadership, 2007, What's Next? The 2007 Changing Nature of Leadership Survey, accessed 17/12/07 at http://www.ccl.org/leadership/pdf/research/WhatsNext.pdf
Coleman, J.S. 1988, communal capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology 94 (Supplement). 95-120.
Hogue, T. Perkins, D. Clark, R. Bergstrum, A. Slinski, M. & Associates, 1995, Collaboration framework: Addressing community capacity. Columbus, Oh: National Network for Collaboration.
Kagan, S. L. 1991, United we stand: Collaboration for childcare and early education services. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1-3.
Keith, J. G., Perkins, D. F., Zhou, Z., Clifford, M. C., Gilmore, B., & Townsend, M. Z. 1993, building and maintaining community coalitions on profit of children, youth and families. Michigan Agricultural Experiment center investigate narrative (529). East Lansing, Mi: originate for Children, Youth, and Families.
McAllister, D.J. 1995, influence and cognition - based trust as foundations for interpersonal cooperation in organisations. Journal of Occupational and Organisational science of mind Journal, 38: 24-59
Tschannen-Moran, M. 2001, Collaboration and the need for trust, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 39 Iss. 4.
The Role of Collaboration in Organizations
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