Collaboration? Not Yet...
Monday: September 24, 2007 7:41 AM
Clearly, that really isn’t a fair statement since no one in thier right mind would actually admit to not collaborating. Unfortunately, much of what we call collaboration really isn’t. If we are not collaborating, then what are we doing? Well, we could be communicating, cooperating, and coordinating.
Communication is simply the transfer or attempt to transfer information from one party to another. Communication may be the attempt to make sense of confusing data or mixed messages through out the organization. We communicate through email, phone, instant messaging, and many other mediums. Poor communication is still one of the most important problems we have to deal with in large organizations. Still, communication isn’t collaboration.
Coordination is about creating efficiency across a divergent set of resources. Since most of us serve others outside our own organization, coordination of activities is essential and allows us to employ a boat load of Project Managers. We can implement a system development lifecycle because we have great talent in the coordination role. However, coordination of disparate activities isn’t collaboration either.
Cooperation informs us to be part of the team effort. Employees that cooperate may keep their individual process separate but they are willing to sit down and discuss the various interactions and possibilities. They may even alter their own offering simply to ease the transition or effort. Cooperation is about compromise but isn’t about collaboration.
Collaboration is a process of creation between two or more resources. The product of this effort would not have been possible in the other three situations. Collaboration creates a shared understanding and meaning about a product, service, or solution. Communication, coordination, and cooperation are all required in order to actually collaborate. Even though we have 25,000 collaborative sites in the Sharepoint environment, the truth is very little collaboration is actually happening.
Last week, I over heard a manager ask his employee (A) to “work” with employee B. But what did this manager actually mean and should it be left to the interpretation of employee A to decide? Did the manager mean for Employee A to communicate, coordinate, cooperate or collaborate with Employee B? Did the manager assume collaboration but the employee heard communicate?
Clearly, that really isn’t a fair statement since no one in thier right mind would actually admit to not collaborating. Unfortunately, much of what we call collaboration really isn’t. If we are not collaborating, then what are we doing? Well, we could be communicating, cooperating, and coordinating.
Communication is simply the transfer or attempt to transfer information from one party to another. Communication may be the attempt to make sense of confusing data or mixed messages through out the organization. We communicate through email, phone, instant messaging, and many other mediums. Poor communication is still one of the most important problems we have to deal with in large organizations. Still, communication isn’t collaboration.
Coordination is about creating efficiency across a divergent set of resources. Since most of us serve others outside our own organization, coordination of activities is essential and allows us to employ a boat load of Project Managers. We can implement a system development lifecycle because we have great talent in the coordination role. However, coordination of disparate activities isn’t collaboration either.
Cooperation informs us to be part of the team effort. Employees that cooperate may keep their individual process separate but they are willing to sit down and discuss the various interactions and possibilities. They may even alter their own offering simply to ease the transition or effort. Cooperation is about compromise but isn’t about collaboration.
Collaboration is a process of creation between two or more resources. The product of this effort would not have been possible in the other three situations. Collaboration creates a shared understanding and meaning about a product, service, or solution. Communication, coordination, and cooperation are all required in order to actually collaborate. Even though we have 25,000 collaborative sites in the Sharepoint environment, the truth is very little collaboration is actually happening.
Last week, I over heard a manager ask his employee (A) to “work” with employee B. But what did this manager actually mean and should it be left to the interpretation of employee A to decide? Did the manager mean for Employee A to communicate, coordinate, cooperate or collaborate with Employee B? Did the manager assume collaboration but the employee heard communicate?
Comments (2)
I think you make and interesting point about the difference between communication, coordinationand collaboration. We all intuitively know that the first two don't work very well if there is no will to collaborate. Lip service can only achieve so much and not much at that. With the growing need for teams to adapt and respond to increasingly rapid change - collaboration is fast becoming the keystone of effective team performance.
The tricky question is : how can you make people want to collaborate? - I think most companies that have explored this question have realized that you can't (reminds me of the old joke: How do you get down off an elephant? - you don't you get down off a duck) So where do you get collaboration from? - In my opinion you get it from a number of places. Collaboration arises from the culture, modeled behaviour of those in 'management' positions (easier said than done sometimes) and from within each team member. If one of these factors is deficient or missing then it is like a missing ingredient from a cake mix - you'll notice the difference.
Posted by: Stephen Joyce on September 25, 2007 16:54
Interesting post; I'd like to be sure I understand your analysis. In short, you are saying that
communication = the act of moving information A=>B
coordination = finding communications efficiencies
cooperation = coordinated goal-oriented activities
collaboration = achieve goals through cooperation
So, elements in isolation form groups that can be aligned to achieve results faster than any one of the actors/elements could? This idea would have to be part of the value proposition behind 'web 2.0' technologies, applications, and websites, wouldn't you say?
Am I getting that right? Thanks for your feedback.
Posted by: mazy hedayat on November 25, 2007 07:43