Many organisations are waking up to the fact that collaboration is a key piece of the intranet puzzle. I have spoken to many such people in charge of collaboration in their organisations and what puzzles me in turn is their lack of understanding of the culture of collaboration. Let me explain.
Wikipedia defines culture as:
"[t]he set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterises an institution, organisation or group".
This basically means that the organisation has a preferred way of working, and this acts like a magnet, and this pulls all other parts towards it. For example, a bureaucratic organisation will attract bureaucratic technology and an open-thinking organisation will attract open-thinking technology.
Here comes the problem. Collaboration requires a different way of working. It requires attitudes, values, goals, and practices that are based on interdependent work. Not silo-based work, not workflow-based work but all-together-in-one-melting-pot-based work.
If the culture of the organisation is hospitable to the culture of collaboration then you're going to have a fun time and you'll be wondering what the fuss is all about. If the culture is pointing the other way around, well, you better start praying.
OK. Stop praying. All is not lost; there is still hope. There could be subcultures in the organisation that are more collaboration-oriented than others. Seek these out and embrace them. Ask them to show the light.
If no such subcultures exist (you poor thing) then you'll have to start at the very beginning: by acknowledging that a collaboration-problem exists and being aware of the type of situation you're in.
Situation awareness takes shape when the organisation embraces a specific collaboration technology - this is when the rubber hits the road. I think there are 3 types of such situations.
Type 1: the organisation is aware of its culture of collaboration and embraces the right technology to amplify it (e.g. IDEO's intranet). This is the mature organisation.
Type 1a: this is the idiot type. In this case, the organisation is aware of its culture of collaboration and moves ahead to embrace the wrong technology (e.g. web savvy, enterprise 2.0 ready staff but get an archaic document management tool because the IT department has restrictions on anything but Java and Security Level 3 software).
Type 2: the organisation is unaware of its culture of collaboration, moves ahead and embraces a collaboration technology and then something magical happens. The technology inspires the organisation, which then wakes up to its culture of collaboration, and everything goes great after that (e.g. Serena intranet). In this case the technology turned out to be one that matched their hidden culture of collaboration.
Type 3: the organisation is unaware of its culture of collaboration, moves ahead to embrace a collaboration technology and then something horrible happens. They declare that collaboration technology is not working and that they should go back to the 'usual' way of work!
Type 3 organisations are tricky. Collaboration clearly failed, but they cannot figure why. There could be 3 causes for failure: lack of a culture of collaboration, wrong technology or both. I'm betting here that in most cases it is because the culture of collaboration does not exist or it is fractured.
Here's my punch line: the adoption or participation you're going to get on your intranet is directly related to the culture of collaboration that exists in the organisation. Having the right collaboration technology does play a part, but only as a sidekick to the culture of collaboration.
So the next time you're in office, take a look around, what do you see? Which type of situation are you in?
[This article was supposed to be longer. I had planned to include some tenets of the culture of collaboration. Then I stumbled upon Evan Rosen's book called, take a guess, The Culture of Collaboration. I'm reading it now, and it does a wonderful job of explaining the culture of collaboration, way beyond what I would ever be able to do. Highly recommended read if you want to act on your culture of collaboration.]
Thanks also to Patrick Lambe for his feedback on this article.
James Robertson
website
permalink
Unfortunately, I think there’s a “type 4” organisation that is structured and run in a way that is “anti collaboration”.
Law firms can often be good examples: the primary (sole?) focus is on billable hours. Lawyers are trained to be independent, self-reliant, and often, opinionated.
This is not to say that collaboration can’t succeed in these organisations, but it does require a shift in organisational structure and executive focus
Gordon Ross
website
permalink
Hi Maish,
Your levels of culture reminded me of Tribal Leadership and the 5 stages of organizations that they describe in the book, moving from a violent nihilistic level 1 culture to a self-actualized level 5 culture. While the extremes are interesting, it’s the level 2/3/4 cultures where the shift is from “it’s all about me” to “it’s all about us” is the most interesting part.
In mixing the terms collaboration and culture, you’ve got something funny going on. Culture is about shared values. Collaboration, as defined by people like Barbara Grey, is about people coming together with different cultures, constructively exploring their differences and seeking a shared solution.
In many ways, collaboration culture is about agreeing to disagree or acknowledging how difference is good—your perspective and my perspective aren’t the same. And that’s what will make us successful.
Wikipedia’s entry on collaboration is good:
“Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together toward an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus”
Andrew Wright
website
permalink
There is an interesting white paper that claims that 36% of a company’s overall performance is driven by its ability to collaborate effectively.
Meetings Around the World: The Impact of Collaboration on Business Performance
http://www.shareworkz.com/images/frost_sullivan.pdf
It’s worth a read if you have the time and also a helpful resource if you are trying to drive the culture of an organisation to be more collaborative.
Maish Nichani
permalink
Hey James,
So these organisations are very aware of themselves being anti-collaboration! Definitely Type 4.
Hi Gordon,
Barbara’s definition is absolutely correct. She emphasises personal cultures coming together seeking a “shared solution”. However, there is no way we are going to get a shared solution if there is no shared agreement on working together. There are different cultures and subcultures at work each day at Toyota. But it is the commitment to quality, efficiency and group decisions (the Toyota Way) that gets work done. The Toyota Way is very hospitable to collaboration. It is a culture of collaborating under the influence of multiple, crisscrossing personal cultures if you will.
Thanks Andrew, will read the paper!
Keith
website
permalink
There’s no doubt that some organisations are far too secretive, which is unfortunate.
It definitely does pay to collaborate.
Nevin
website
permalink
Hi Maish
Very useful article, well collaboration is the key feature for Learning Online(and in general).These methods specifically aim to increase the success of teams as they engage in collaborative problem solving.This Improves everybody’s skills and Knowledge(understanding of their areas of concerns).The post is really informative.
Thanks for the post
keep doing the good work!
EphraimJF
website
permalink
Great point Gordon! (Sorry I’m chiming in so late here…)
Collaboration is about an open attitude more than a shared perspective.
Innovation often comes from putting people with different backgrounds in the same room to talk about an issue. Different perspectives looking at the same problem leads to much greater insight than if everyone has the same perspective.
So I guess good collaboration is about 1) shared goals and 2) openness to others’ ideas, to listening, and to growing your perspective.
Good companies are able to build shared goals that everyone is working towards. Really good companies also say (and support with their actions) “we appreciate different perspectives, speaking up, originality and dialogue.“ Marry these two company practices with good collaboration technology and you’re golden.
Rob
website
permalink
A lot of what is said in the article (and the first comment) are what we’ve seen from some of the people using Glasscubes.
People want to collaborate. They see the benefits, but ultimately 80% or so just don’t have the culture to take advantage.
The benefits to adoption surely have to be clear to the user, while any complexity and barrier to entry (such as training requirements) have to be taken into account when choosing something to assist with collaboration. The easier and more intuitive the better.