Do you really need to collaborate?
Collaboration?
I have many clients asking how they can encourage their staff, and their managers in particular, to collaborate more often and more effectively. The first question I ask is what they mean by "collaboration". It has become a bit of a buzzword at the moment.
I find Janine O'Flynn's thinking very helpful when it comes to definition. O’Flynn finds the notion is presented as central in many prominent policy documents, but largely unexplained. From amongst a range of learned definitions, she presents COOPERATION as an informal relationship where there is no common mission/vision, where information is shared on an as needed basis, authority remains vested in the separate organizations, there is little risk, and resources and rewards remain separate. COORDINATION involves more formality, missions are compatible and this requires common planning and more formal communication; risk increases due to the increased intensity of the relationship. COLLABORATION is a more “durable and pervasive relationship” involving new structures, a common mission, shared planning, formal communication across multiple levels, pooling and jointly acquiring resources, shared rewards and more risk.
Collaboration is presented as just one way to work together. ”Others are important and most likely they better reflect practice in the public policy world where cooperation is often purchased or demanded, where turf is guarded, and where resources and rewards largely remain tied to autonomous organizations”(p115).
She issues this caution: “ In policy terms, the obsession with collaboration has resulted in two response……collaboration becomes the latest “one best way”, the Holy Grail of operating; or the last resort of governments and PSOs when nothing else works. In other words, organizations fail into collaboration…”(p112).
Janine O’Flynn, The Australian Journal of Public Administration, “The Cult of Collaboration in Public Policy”, volume 68, no1, pp 112-116.
Author: Denise Picton
Categories: Leading & Managing, Political Savvy,