The Culture of Collaboration

BusinessWeek.com Launches Collaboration Column

Internal competition wreaks havoc in organizations, compromising collaboration and reducing value. The cost is often hidden, but it can be significant. That’s why my first column on collaboration for BusinessWeek.com focuses on internal competition. The column is part of the site’s Management section, which offers actionable business information. So my column offers 5 ways that leaders can reduce internal competition.

Check out “The Hidden Cost of Internal Competition” on the BusinessWeek.com site.

Empathy and Collaboration: What's the Link?

Are empathic people more likely to collaborate? Or are collaborators more likely to empathize?

 

Dev Patnaik, author of Wired to Care, and I tossed around these and other questions during an engaging discussion this afternoon. “Collaboration allows for empathy and creativity to occur” is Dev’s view. We can argue this chicken-or-egg question either way, but the point is that empathy and collaboration are fellow travelers. While I argue in The Culture of Collaboration book that collaborating creates value, Dev argues that empathy makes money for companies.

 

Almost everything in business has become data-driven. The thinking is...if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t matter. Even traditionally less data driven disciplines such as public relations have become more numbers-oriented. Data certainly provides valuable insight, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. After all, the road is littered with businesses that have used numbers—real or manufactured—to hide destructive practices. Bernie Madoff, who’s not exactly a poster boy for empathy, comes to mind.

 

I’ve been noticing recently some cracks developing in this data-obsessed foundation on which we build and grow businesses. Clearly, Dev’s antenna is up, and he’s noticing something similar. Dev likens the shift to the change in painting (canvases, not houses) that occurred after the adoption of the camera. Expressionism replaced realism.

 

According to Dev, we’re moving into the “abstract expressionist phase of management.” It’s no longer enough to be a great numbers person. We’re now expecting more of our leaders, and empathy and collaboration are among those qualities. Because a collaborative organization creates greater value, there’s an increasing role for collaborative leaders. And the same is true for empathy.

 

Understanding the feelings of others is good behavior, but empathy particularly pays off when companies—that is the people who work for companies-- understand what their customers are feeling. And in Wired to Care, Dev deftly weaves into his narrative numerous examples—ranging from Harley-Davidson to Nike—of companies that have achieved impressive results through empathy.

 

Dev asked me about the relationship between empathy and collaboration, and I’ve been thinking more about it since we talked. The strongest link is that both qualities involve focusing less on self and more on others. The opposite of collaborative behavior is internally-competitive, command-and-control behavior. This is a form of self absorption. Another form of self absorption is lack of understanding how others feel.

 

While reading Dev’s book, I wondered whether its author is empathetic. So I asked him. “I’m not a very empathic person,” Dev insisted.  That struggle with empathy, though drives Dev’s interest in the topic. He points to the reputation of Apple CEO Steve Jobs as technologically-challenged. Jobs and Apple are ideally suited to sort out usability, Dev argues, because of this struggle. It’s not exactly analogous, but I take Dev’s point. And at the risk of treading into blurb-like territory, Wired to Care will make you think and act differently.

Kaiser’s Garfield Center Enhances Innovation, Collaboration

With the growing use of tools enabling collaboration at a distance, it’s easy to forget the value of same-room collaboration and the role of the physical workplace environment. Environment—both physical and virtual-- is one of the Ten Cultural Elements of Collaboration that I identify in The Culture of Collaboration book.

 

It’s essential to bring collaborative capabilities to people so that collaboration becomes integrated with work styles. Forcing people to walk down the hall or go someplace to collaborate falls short. Therefore, it may seem counter-intuitive that dedicated collaborative spaces not only enhance collaboration, but also are crucial components of collaborative organizations.

 

Our research at The Culture of Collaboration® Institute shows that the most collaborative organizations integrate dedicated collaborative spaces into work flow. The distinction is that these physical spaces are by no means the primary means of organizational collaboration. In some cases, dedicated collaborative spaces bridge physical and virtual environments by including geographically-dispersed team members through telepresence or videoconferencing.  

 

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to explore one such dedicated collaborative space. From the outside, Kaiser Permanente’s Sidney R. Garfield Health Care Innovation Center looks like a warehouse. In fact, it’s a former check processing center in an industrial park in San Leandro, California. On the inside, the Garfield Center is anything but ordinary. The future of healthcare delivery is unfolding in this 37-thousand square foot laboratory. The Garfield Center includes multiple environments ranging from patient room prototypes to homes outfitted with monitoring and telemedicine technologies.

 

There are lots of gee-whiz technologies and environments including a concept operating room in which researchers are testing tools including augmented virtual reality. But what’s most significant about the Garfield Center is that people from across Kaiser regardless of level, role or region come together to brainstorm, innovate and collaborate. Doctors and nurses partner with architects and technologists to create prototypes for patient care in this “touchdown location for innovation work” as Sherry Fry, operations specialist for the Center, describes it. Anybody at Kaiser can use the facility as long as the activity is interdisciplinary. “The Garfield Center has become synonymous with innovation at Kaiser,” notes Dr. Yan Chow, associate director of innovation and advanced technology for Kaiser Permanente.

 

In developing the 3-year-old Garfield Center, Kaiser researchers studied models outside healthcare, notably the McDonald’s Innovation Center near Chicago. Kaiser also studied Mayo Clinic's S.P.A.R.C. unit, which I describe in my book. S.P.A.R.C. stands for See Plan Act Refine Communicate. Through S.P.A.R.C., Mayo assembles cross-functional collaborators to conduct live prototyping of healthcare service delivery.

 

The value of dedicated collaborative spaces is that they help break down barriers among silos. As doctors engage architects and facilities people brainstorm with technologists, ideas become prototypes which ultimately deliver measurable value.

Reflection Enhances Collaboration

Recently, I’ve grown concerned about the lack of reflection that can compromise collaboration. I define reflection as “pausing to think.” Reflection is increasingly lost in our interrupt and interact-driven culture. It may seem counter-intuitive in that reflection suggests working alone or in a vacuum. But there’s a difference.

 

Some people think they do their best work by going off in a corner and making their mistakes in private. They prefer to interact with others only after they feel they got their part right on their own. Once their part is complete, they prefer to toss their work over the fence to the next person to do their part. This assembly-line approach to decision making, problem solving and product and service development compromises value.  This behavior clearly undermines collaboration.

 

The other extreme is that in this Twitter-twitching, Facebook feeding, blog-obsessed culture, we feel compelled to constantly interact. Some health experts insist the fallout from these potentially obsessive behaviors includes everything from repetitive strain injuries to heart attacks, not to mention neglect of loved ones or divorce. Like endless face-to-face meetings, much of this online interaction is falsely labeled collaboration.

 

In The Culture of Collaboration book, I define collaboration as “working together to create value while sharing virtual or physical space.” Also, value is one of the Ten Cultural Elements of Collaboration that I identify in the book. Creating value is critical to collaboration. In fact, it’s a useful acid test.

 

Social networking includes a portfolio of tools and behaviors that can lead to collaboration, but it takes  more than a tweet, post, text or instant message to collaborate. Social networking and social media output can be much like cable television chatter. The difference is that social networking lets us participate, and we tend to dip in and out all day long. It’s easy to devote big chunks of time to chatter. And there’s nothing wrong with chatter, but it’s not necessarily collaboration.

 

Constant interaction without reflection can compromise collaboration and value creation. Brainstorming, sharing ideas, and co-creation produces incredible value. When we pause to think, however, we can contribute more effectively when we’re collaborating. Reflection enhances value creation for collaborators.

 

Using collaborative tools for chatter and fun helps instill behavior that sparks collaboration, but it’s easy to just keep chattering and never get around to creating value. Use value creation as an acid test for collaboration, and we derive greater satisfaction and real results from social networking and other collaborative tools. And reflection is part of that equation.

Constructive Confrontation at the Clinton Library and Museum

When I’m on the road, I keep my eyes open for collaboration insights.

 

This week I was in Memphis and made a detour to Little Rock. In Memphis, I stayed at the Peabody Hotel, the grand old hotel of the south famous for the daily parade of ducks from the hotel roof to the fountain.  The site of several ducks marching in formation through the hotel lobby certainly requires coordination and arguably collaboration.

 

Here in Little Rock…I’m staying at the Capital Hotel, which has an elevator big enough to supposedly have accommodated Ulysses Grant and his horse. Also, the Capital serves one of the best hotel breakfasts I’ve ever eaten. Everything is made from scratch! All of this in a gorgeous, old-world dining room.

 

Back to collaboration. Regardless of politics and how you may feel about Bill Clinton, any leader would do well to take note of Little Rock’s favorite son and his thoughts about hiring, culture, and decision-making:

 

“I don’t care how smart you are…” Bill Clinton’s voice boomed into my audio tour headset at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. “Success and failure depends on how well the staff and cabinet debate honestly and openly and then unite once you’ve made a decision. “

 

I was standing in the replica of the White House cabinet room, and President Clinton was setting the scene for the debates that occurred in that room on his watch as the 42^nd President of the United States. “You never can tell when somebody who’s in an unrelated agency will have a really keen insight…thinking people, caring people who came from all different backgrounds from all over America.” Amen! Cross-functional collaboration!

 

President Clinton was essentially talking about constructive confrontation, one of the Ten Cultural Elements of Collaboration that I identify in my book, The Culture of Collaboration. To effectively collaborate, the culture of any organization—whether it’s the federal government, a large enterprise, a non-profit, or a small business—must encourage debate and constructive confrontation regardless of level, role or region. 

 

Constructive means that the confrontation is about making a better decision rather than personality conflicts or posturing. At some point, debate ends and an organization coalesces behind a united position.  Smart organizations encourage debate as President Clinton did among his staff and cabinet rather than blind agreement with the boss.

The Clinton Library and Museum includes a replica of the Oval Office as it was when President Clinton occupied it. According to the staff, the former President often moves objects around or borrows them during his monthly or bi-monthly visits to the Library (he has an apartment upstairs with room for his secret service agents). 

 

The docents tell me that President Clinton knows them all by name and is closely involved in almost everything that happens at the Library. I spoke at length with one docent, Jane Cazort, whose father-in-law was lieutenant governor of Arkansas and whose granddaughter went to school with Chelsea Clinton.

 

Coincidentally, next week I’ll be attending the Fortune Brainstorm: Green 2009 conference in Laguna Niguel, California at which President Clinton is speaking.  More on that later.

Collaborating out of the Downturn Focus of Blog Talk Radio Interview

I discussed collaboration with Zane Safrit yesterday morning on his hour-long Blog Talk Radio show. You can listen to the show here.

 

When he was CEO of Conference Calls Unlimited, Zane masterfully used blogging as a marketing and business tool. His small company, based in a rural Iowa community, adopted collaborative culture and tools as an advantage in a marketplace saturated with large players. Zane is a super-capable, collaborative leader.

 

Our conversation ranged from common denominators and motivators for companies wanting to adopt collaborative culture and the biggest mistakes companies make. We also discussed the need to replace star-oriented culture and the role of collaboration in an economic recovery.

 

Zane asked me how companies can balance the need for collaboration with the need for consistency, routines and procedures. It’s a thoughtful question that organizations should consider. I explained that it’s necessary to include collaboration in policies and procedures, so that people are consistently collaborative J.

 

Towards the end of the show, we focused more on the economy. Zane asked me about the biggest trends regarding collaborative culture over the next two years. Here’s what I said:

 

People are going to realize what collaboration is and what it isn’t, and I absolutely believe that collaboration will help deliver us from the downturn. We need to abandon the herd mentality. I blogged about this on March 15, 2009 with a call to action. You can read the post here.

 

There’s a misconception that collaboration is about running with the herd. Real collaboration involves constructive confrontation….coming together to hash out issues, make decisions, improve processes and develop products and services. And it’s much broader than companies. It’s about governments collaborating across agencies and departments, with citizens and with other governments. It’s about people working together to create value in our communities.

 

It’s about changing education so that we’re developing collaborators. The more educated people are, the more competitive they are. Our educational system beats collaboration out of us. That’s changing.

 

I’ve lived and worked in smaller communities where many people get jobs right out of high school. They’re used to working together to cook dinner at the VFW or help neighbors repair tornado damage. It’s this type of attitude that we need to nourish in our country, in higher education, in companies, in and among governments. Coming out of this downturn, star culture and internal competition are unaffordable. Collaboration will drive the recovery.

 

“How will that change our economy, culture, country?” Zane asked me.

I responded:

 

It’ll be back to basics…working together to create real value. The mortgage mess, the financial collapse were rooted in artificial value. We gave the keys to the country and the economy to star competitors… the best and the brightest who went to top schools and competed for themselves without considering the bigger picture. Now we need to entrust our companies, governments and communities to collaborators. And we’re going to build long-term, sustainable value.

Abandon Herd Mentality to Avoid Post-Digital Dark Ages

There’s a dangerous—and convenient—misconception that collaboration is about stampeding with the herd. The misconception is convenient, because often people in organizations and neighborhoods figure out which way everybody’s running, and they follow suit. This tendency leads to mediocrity at best and can poison teams, organizations, industries, the economy, and our collective culture.

 

In contrast, collaboration often requires constructive confrontation, one of the Ten Cultural Elements of Collaboration that I identify in my book. Rather than running in a pack, we can—through collaboration—come together in real time and hash out issues, improve processes and create better products and services.

 

Unlike collaboration, herd mentality is choking off innovation and ingenuity, two cornerstones of the collective culture and consciousness particularly in the United States. Running with the crowd created the dot com bubble, the real estate bubble, mortgage crisis, and arguably fed Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

 

In much the same way the herd embraced and artificially ran up dot com stocks and real estate and plunged the world into a deep recession, the herd is now embracing the downturn with abandon. Media, legislators, regulators and stakeholders that were complicit in the dot com and real estate bubbles are now condemning the behavior they embraced. It’s easy to pile on, but where were these voices during the run up and creation of these unsustainable bubbles?

 

In San Francisco, every day I see a couple of more empty storefronts on my flight path. And it’s the same story in New York. I was walking up Madison Avenue several weeks ago, and shuttered stores lined many blocks. People I know who eight months ago insisted on following the herd to the latest trendy restaurant are now eating take-out tacos or microwaving macaroni and cheese, even though they can well afford to eat in restaurants. Being cheap now propels the herd, so the herd is feeding the recession rather than a recovery. John Maynard Keynes, the economist, called the tendency to hoard rather than spend the paradox of thrift. His point, while controversial, was that unnecessary savings during a recession ultimately lowers savings because of the decrease in economic growth.

 

Businesses faced with a credit crunch are slashing research and development budgets, cutting the meat rather than just the fat, and jeopardizing their futures. With bad economic news monopolizing computer screens, the downturn is feeding on itself.

 

The period between the fall of Rome in the fifth century and the early Middle Ages in the tenth century is often called the Dark Ages. It was an era marked by cultural decline, ignorance, lack of enlightenment and societal collapse. The course on which we are headed as we follow the herd to avoid risk, innovation and investment is towards what I call the Post-Digital Dark Ages. While fiscal prudence and frugality make good business sense even in boom times, many companies are sacrificing long-term opportunities for short-term concerns.

 

A Chevron spokesperson recently told me that the company has a dearth of people in their 40’s, because Chevron imposed a hiring freeze for ten years in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. The idea was to cut costs, but that strategy provided short-term benefits with long-term repercussions.  The ultimate result is a talent and knowledge gap.  As experienced team members retire, there is a lack of people with long-term institutional knowledge to replace them. Chevron wants to avoid a similar situation in this downturn and will reportedly continue recruiting regardless of short-term economic concerns.

 

Exigent circumstances provide an opportunity to collaborate, think creatively, innovate, and create incredible value. But opportunity must be seized! The downturn is undeniably an exigent circumstance. Rather than succumbing to the herd mentality, we must reject a Post-Digital Dark Ages and engage and challenge one another to define and refine common goals, innovate, reinvent, invest for the long-term, and pave a path towards economic recovery.

 

We now have access to tools and technologies that we could only dream about during previous downturns. Our challenge is to use these tools to strengthen rather than undermine traditional values of innovation and ingenuity. We must harness a range of real-time and asynchronous collaborative tools plus same-room collaboration to enhance real relationships sustainable in person or at a distance. As we build trust, we must strive to improve shared ideas through constructive confrontation and broad input regardless of level, role or region.

 

More broadly, we must change the conversation from doom and gloom to growth and recovery. Let’s change our approach from hibernation and indecision to collaborative action. People are hibernating, because of across-the-board cost cutting and management edicts banning many necessary business expenses. The result is that team members are lying low, unable or unwilling to perform necessary functions. Therefore, management’s attempt to improve balance sheets is actually leaching value out of companies.  Also, we must find and employ collaborative problem solvers who can rethink how we’re doing business.  

 

If we continue stampeding with the herd, we risk the onset of a Post-Digital Dark Ages. Through collaboration, we can ultimately exit the downturn with a more sustainable, long-term focus throughout business, government and society.

 

Toyota's Collaborative Leadership Involves "See it for Yourself"

In selecting Akio Toyoda as its next president, Toyota is reaffirming its commitment to collaborative culture and methods. A key tenet of Toyota is genchi genbutsu which means "see it for yourself.” This is related to the leadership method practiced by HP’s David Packard and Bill Hewlett beginning in the 1940’s and later dubbed “management by walking around.” The idea is that to figure out what’s really going on in an organization, a leader needs to get out of the office, go to factories and loading docks and retail outlets, and get his or her hands dirty.

 

That’s exactly what Akio Toyoda did when he visited a Toyota dealership in Ann Arbor, Michigan last summer. He wanted to personally investigate a pickup truck recall. A story by Micheline Maynard on February 15, 2009 in the New York Times says Toyoda made a trip “so secret that Toyota’s public relations staff didn’t know he was here.” While at the dealership, he reportedly got down on his hands and knees to examine the undercarriage of a truck. At the news conference in January announcing his appointment, according to the Times, Toyoda announced he would pop up everywhere as he did in Ann Arbor.

 

Genchi genbutsu or “see it for yourself” fits squarely into collaborative culture and methods. However, it’s not always possible to fly across the world to see what’s happening. That’s where collaborative tools come into play. Through unified communications, we can find one other and connect regardless of level, role or region. We can escalate IM to voice, web conferencing or videoconferencing and spontaneously hash out problems and make decisions. Visual communications is a critical enabler. An ideal solution is telepresence, which makes people feel practically as if they’re sharing the same physical space regardless of distance.  

 

Our research at The Culture of CollaborationÒ Institute has shown that almost all highly-collaborative companies have integrated some form of real-time, interactive video into their operations. As I describe in The Culture of Collaboration book, Toyota uses a custom-designed visual communications system coupled with product lifecycle management and advanced computer-aided design tools that has become essential to its operations. The system links people at design facilities, plants, and at business partner sites and provides a rich virtual environment for developing and producing vehicles.

 

Two other areas involving collaboration that Akio Toyoda will likely re-emphasize:

1)     Making decisions based on long-term goals rather than on short-term developments

2)     Nemawashi or making decisions slowly by consensus

 

While collaborative culture is never about one person, Akio Toyoda is certainly one role model for collaborative leadership.

Architectural Collaboration and the California Academy of Sciences

As I gazed at the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper and other amazingly-clear star formations last Thursday evening, there was no distraction from city lights or from the fog that often defines San Francisco.

I was sitting in the world’s largest digital planetarium, which uses real-time data from NASA plus immersive video technology. The NASA data accurately represents the current night sky, and the immersive video technology makes visitors feel like they’re travelling through space.

 

The star-studded evening program was a departure from the usual daytime planet presentation in honor not only of Charles Darwin’s 200^th birthday last Thursday evening, but also of the launch of NightLife at the California Academy of Sciences. NightLife is a weekly Thursday evening event featuring bars, food plus all of the Academy exhibits. 

 

I walked, Lagunitas India Pale Ale in hand, through the recently-reopened museum and marveled at the four-story glass rainforest with its colorful poison frogs and Borneo bats and the graceful movement of jellyfish in the Steinhart aquarium, which includes thirty-eight thousand animals. Aside from official certifications that the Academy is the “greenest” museum on the planet, I found the museum’s “Living Roof” stunning and unique.   The 197-thousand foot roof features seven hills containing many native plant species. The concept was to blend the building’s environment with that of Golden Gate Park and to reduce the Academy’s energy needs by creating oxygen, capturing rainwater and avoiding the heat-trapping disadvantages of tar-and-asphalt roofs.

 

After a decade of planning and $500 million in expenses, the Academy reopened last fall to much fanfare.

At the time, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an interesting story by John Cote that described how the Academy’s board of directors chose an architectural team for the project. By July of 1999, the board had reportedly narrowed its search to five finalists. According to the story, a British architect arrived with five associates, two trays of slides and detailed mockups of two specific designs. He spoke for an hour and a half.

 

When it was Italian architect Renzo Piano’s turn, he began by rearranging the room chairs in a circle. He then used a blank pad to sketch as he listened to board members describe the importance of nature, biodiversity, and naturalistic forms. Ultimately, Piano and his team got the job because of his collaborative approach. Rather than simply presenting options to the board, Piano engaged and involved his client. The result reflects broad input and the collaborative sessions between architect and client.

 

Too often in organizations, people make decisions in a vacuum. Those decisions are handed down to people who must implement them. This causes a chasm between the decision makers and the decision implementers and many others who are impacted by decisions. Then there’s a lot of talk like “They want us to ….” Or “they’ve decided that we’re supposed to….” So, an “us and them” mentality develops and sucks the motivation, innovation and value out of an organization.

 

In contrast, collaborative organizations make decisions by involving and engaging people across levels, functions, business units and regions. When people have a stake in decisions, “us and them” dissolves. I’ve written in The Culture of Collaboration book and in this blog about the interplay of culture, environment and tools in sparking collaboration. In his initial session with the Academy’s board, Renzo Piano used all three. He changed the culture by involving the board in the conceptual process. He redesigned the environment by rearranging the rooms chairs in a circle. And he used a blank sketch pad as a collaborative tool.

 

It’s a reminder—one that we stress in The Culture of CollaborationÒ Workshop—that collaborative culture can begin with a team gathering or a spontaneous exchange. In the case of the California Academy of Sciences, the result is an extraordinarily functional and “green” architectural masterpiece.

Early Input Enhances Collaboration

The most collaborative organizations get broad input into decisions early and often.

 

President-Elect Barack Obama got into some hot water recently when word leaked out that he planned to nominate Leon Panetta as director of the CIA. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, publicly attacked the decision partly because of Panetta’s lack of intelligence credentials and partly because nobody apparently consulted her about the appointment.

 

Aides to the President-Elect insisted that they were planning on getting Feinstein’s input regarding the Panetta appointment before going public.  However, getting a key stakeholder’s input late in the decision-making process is less collaborative and less valuable than getting early input. Requesting late input is often political rather than collaborative and provides an opportunity for the decision-maker to sell key stakeholders on a decision rather than really consider their perspectives.  

 

Collaboration means people participate in decisions regardless of level, region, business unit or function. In The Culture of Collaboration book, I write about how Toyota makes decisions and the role of nemawashi, which essentially means consensus building. Before the automaker changes the wheel base on a car model, the company gets broad input from those who design and assemble the vehicle. The decision takes longer, but implementation is swift because stakeholders have already anticipated and addressed potential problems.

 

In contrast, faster decisions without broad input may appear more efficient, but such decisions often run into hurdles during implementation and ultimately absorb more of an organization’s resources. Without broad input, people who are impacted often criticize a decision because they had no voice and no stake in the outcome.

 

Had the Obama transition team involved Senator Feinstein earlier in the process, the decision on the CIA director nomination would have reflected her input—and the transition team would have avoided the resulting perception that the President-elect and his staff are making decisions in a vacuum. Ironically, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has been focused on making the intelligence community more collaborative. For more on this, see my December 18, 2008 post.

 

Getting early, broad input into decisions enhances collaboration and creates greater value whether the organization is a government, a company, a non-profit, a school, or a club.