Darwin to Dilbert, Contextualizing Top Collaboration Quotes
17 May 2010 Tweet In the context of the current state of collaboration, I would offer my views on the Top 10 Collaboration Quotes compiled by Ronda Levine of Bright Hub. Many thanks to Ronda for doing the hard work of finding and selecting great quotes and providing her insightful commentary.
"It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." - Charles Darwin
Collaboration is not a new phenomenon, as we know, so why all the fuss as of late? Studies suggest that collaboration is a top priority today for senior executives. Collaboration is experiencing a growth in impact and importance in the enterprise. Numerous driving forces are responsible, which include: trends in globalization and outsourcing, workforce demand for flexibility, critical need for rapid innovation, co-creating value with vendors and customers, technology and tools enabling a networked world, and behavior and expectations of Gen-Y.
In our recent study, Assessing the State of Collaboration: Return to Essentials, 45% respondents said that collaboration is Essential Across the Board for business success TODAY and 77% believe that collaboration will be Essential Across the Board in the FUTURE.
How would you rate the value of collaboration to the success of your business?
;)
"Politeness is the poison of collaboration." - Edwin Land
Effective collaboration requires transparency and openness. Politeness is a great trait but not when it gets in the way of participating actively and expressing true opinions. While personal disposition contributes to it, politeness is also be caused by structural reasons. For example, organizational hierarchy can make one uncomfortable in disagreeing with a superior’s opinion. Flatten the hierarchy, and then walk the talk!
Another reason is the cultural norms. Our recent study, Assessing the State of Collaboration: Return to Essentials, found that 3/4th of collaboration efforts go beyond a group/department.
What was the scope of your ONE recently-completed collaboration experience?
;)
In such efforts, collaborators may be in different locations, even across several time zones. Work norms vary not only by location within the enterprise, but they may vary dramatically as we go across to suppliers, partners and customers.
Now include the societal norms. Some societies are traditionally more hierarchical than others. Linguists have found that some languages are more hierarchical than others.
Take the example of Korean Airlines, which had a poor safety record a while back. Investigators determined that it was because of the hierarchical culture in the cockpit, coming from societal norms of respecting one’s superiors. Co-pilot always performed per captain’s instruction, instead of contributing to the decision-making and challenging decisions when appropriate. Furthermore, they found that the language itself was significantly more hierarchical that English. Now only English is allowed in the cockpit.
Overcoming the issue of politeness is not just the polite person’s job, but of all collaborators in the effort. Engage, listen, learn and discuss. Adapt to communication styles of collaborators; for example, written communication may be more effective, video conferencing may be more participatory than audio conferencing and adjusting the pace and clarity of speech can make interactions more effective. Steve Lamont articulated his view in Mind the Language Barrier.
"The secret is to gang up on the problem, rather than each other." - Thomas Stallkamp
Great secret, but which gang? Who does it include? The “gang” must be formed deliberately and diligently for the needs of the effort on hand. Use the minimalist approach for the team size, based on project needs for skills, expertise and experience. Team members must have clearly-defined roles, and no extras on the set!
"We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others are bright, some have weird names, but we have to learn to live in the same box." – Anonymous
Here I would simply quote and thank Shannah Whithaus, Lecturer at University of California at Davis, California, commenting on Effective Collaboration Is More than Deliverables:
I set up collaborative groups all the time, since my students work in groups during each class I teach at UC Davis. To me, if you think only of the "deliverable," groups become impossible to manage productively.
Consider this, though: Group work (collaboration, if you will) does more than just produce a finished product. It builds trust among group members, allows for people to learn from each other (and from the mistakes they're sure to make), and provides opportunities to push one another to achieve so the group succeeds as a whole. In my classes, a group works together for the entire course (10 weeks), so I get to experience both the process and the product over and over. Here are some of the insights I've gained over the past five years working with collaborative groups:
- Focusing exclusively on the final product when putting together and managing a group means that everyone involved in the project loses. After all, if you want the best product, why not put all the best students into one group, and just let them go to it? (And here's a question for you... how do you know if a given student/employee will drag a group down? If process is considered important, might this "weak link" end up being the grain of rice that tips the scales in your favor?)
- Being product-driven leaves no room for active listening and learning, which must be at the heart of a thriving collaborative group. Paying attention to the process from the start results in an improved final product every time.
- Working in collaborative groups means letting members participate fully in every area of the project, whether they’re experts or not, and valuing their insights during each step toward the goal. Valuing input from every team member may mean you spend a bit more time on a given step in the process. You have to be willing to allow for that time if you want to maintain a positive group dynamic.
- Encouraging my students to stress the process and product equally means they end up producing a better "deliverable" 100% of the time
In conclusion, you’re unlikely to “achieve effective collaboration” if you focus on the product (on time! under budget!) alone. Think “grain of rice,” “active listening and learning,” and “valuing insights” if you want to develop successful, long-term collaborative groups.
"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean." - Ryunosuke Satoro
We need buckets of various sizes and textures to nurture gardens of various sizes and types. This is where the old saying is appropriate: Use the right horse for the course! Pull together the right mix of people, based on project needs, to work on the problem on hand.
"Collaboration is no longer painful - or precious." - Vince Clarke
Collaboration is neither not painful nor not precious! I understand the quote in that collaboration has been occurring for a long time and we have figured out how to collaborate, and it is expected and therefore not precious. Collaboration is becoming more complex and thus pretty painful, and given its importance, it is precious.
If collaboration were no longer painful or precious, the following "Collaboration Gap" would not be the case.
Please rate yourself... a) I WANT to be able to collaborate, and b) I am ABLE to collaborate.
;)
Please rate your organization... a) My organization WANTS its employees to collaborate, and b) My organization's employees are ABLE to collaborate.
Collaboration is a key to creating value for business success. It must become a core capability – something you intentionally and deliberately nurture, develop and practice. It requires culture change aimed at flattening hierarchy, increasing transparency, allowing right talent to naturally flow to right endeavors without organizational barriers, establishing open communication, ensuring recognition commensurate with contributions, firing know-it-all’s and gate-keepers, and so on.
"Few things in life are less efficient than a group of people trying to write a sentence. The advantage of this method is that you end up with something for which you will not be personally blamed." - Scott Adams
Dilbert to the rescue! This quote highlights specifically to the “accountability trap,” to which we referred in an earlier post, Mind the “Collaboration Trap”. This post highlights that collaboration is not always the answer and over-collaboration may indeed be detrimental.
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." - Helen Keller
Some things we can do better alone and some things better with others. Same theme as above for the right mix of people, based on needs, to address the issue on hand!
For example, a debate is raging over whether collaboration is the right approach for ideas-generation. A recent article, Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea, published in the INFORMS journal Management Science, suggests that collaboration might not be as effective as some individual work for the generation and selection of a few high quality ideas. In addition, the number of ideas generated is higher when individuals work by themselves, and the average quality of ideas is no different between individual and team processes.
"Gettin' good players is easy. Gettin' 'em to play together is the hard part." - Casey Stengel
This reminds me of an old story. Consider a beauty pageant, representing arguably the most attractive people. Now, take the best nose, ears, hair, eyes, and so on, from individual participants and put them all together to create a new person. Chances are this creation would be just about the ugliest thing in the world. The best parts are not always the best fit!
The US basketball “Dream Team” of 2004 Olympics, made up professional superstars, the presumed Gold medal winner, failed miserably and won only a Bronze. This team sure performed well for living on a cruise ship rather than on the Basketball court.
Effective collaboration is not only about pulling people together, it must take a holistic approach, as outlined in the Four Ps of Effective Collaboration: Purpose, People, Process and Place. Survey respondents in our study, Assessing the State of Collaboration: Return to Essentials, offer advice on how to make collaboration more effective, which spans all 4 Ps.
What is the most important advice you would give to someone who is about to lead a major collaborative project? What is the 2nd most important?
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"The purpose of life is to collaborate for a common cause; the problem is nobody seems to know what it is." - Gerhard Gschwandtner
Defining clearly the shared goal is the most critical part of a collaboration effort, as our survey respondents opine. Poorly defined purpose adds to the complexity of the effort at the very least, and can even derail the effort.
Articulate the Purpose: i) Define goals/objectives and outcomes/deliverables clearly, ii) Outline what success looks like, and iii) Articulate impact on the organization.
How would you contextualize these quotes for the current state of collaboration? What are your favorite collaboration quotes?
Lokesh Datta
Reader Comments (1)
Some more quotes on collaboration:
"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” - Henry Ford
"Two heads are better than one."
"Collaboration equals innovation." - Michael Dell
"There's no software out there to do what we did. This was a significant collaboration of people." - Jeffrey Schwartz
"The beauty of collaboration is that you get pushed and stretched to go where you'd never go otherwise." - Licia Perea
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” - Harry S Truman