How to Build a Culture of Strategic Collaboration
Projects are great barometers of the strength of an organization. There are reasons high school team projects are terrible and it is not because students are dumb. It is because they know the worst they are going to get is the result of their strongest classmate on their project.
Work teams do not work the same way. The worst you can do in a work collaborative project is the worst of a department. The worst of a division. And it is, can be, and continues to cripple teams.
Dale Carnegie called it “How to Win Friends & Influence People”. Richard Shell called it “The Art of Woo”. Whatever your preference and type of book, there is something out there about building great collaborative teams.
Hint: It isn’t through including everyone and it can not be done through intimidation or fear.
The art of collaboration is built on the backs of a shared vision. If the gasoline is a problem to solve, then the match is putting the right people (and only the right people) in a room to discover a desired solution.
According to a report from KPMG, project managers reported that the largest culprit of project failure was a lack of clear goals (37%). This is followed by inadequate stakeholder engagement (25%), ineffective risk management (23%), and poor communication (21%).
In my experience with organizations large and small, collaboration fails for three basic and wholly preventable reasons:
Too many voices. (The loudest ones are rarely the right ones.)
The team is not empowered to act. (Decision-makers only, please!)
Roles are not defined. (This is why #1 is so treacherous.)
To build a strategic culture, you need three things, in this order, to find success.
The goal of any collaboration needs to be clearly defined.
The team needs to be given authority to make decisions. (Based on research and feedback, of course).
Feelings must be left at the door.
It never fails that the above rings true. I once was working on a digital transformation review team and after weeks of meetings and to do items, it was clear we were spinning our wheels and instead of moving forward, we were getting our wheels lodged deeper and deeper into the mud.
We were having round-about discussions about what couldn’t be done and rehashing old fights. Off on the side, a few of us gathered and instead began to formulate a plan. We tossed out the rule-book and instead, aligned on the problem and within 45 days, presented and began implementing MVP ideas.
That is successful strategic collaboration.