Collaboration For The Long Run

By Doug Shaw

Notes and a few pictures from my recent talks on collaboration at
Illinois SHRM 2014 and Ohio SHRM 2014

Collaboration and working together more effectively, starts when we
begin to notice one another, and improves when we take the time to get
to know one another better, and understand each others wants and
needs.

On my recent trip to Ohio for the SHRM State HR conference, I signed up
for a 5K run which took place on the Thursday morning. I needed a pair
of shorts to wear for the race so I got up at 6am and drove to the local
Walmart. This was my first time in a Walmart this place is huge! The
clock is ticking I need to find shorts and all I can see is fruit, vegetables,
hair dryers and kids toys. Im all lost in the supermarket. Luckily my
lost look attracts a member of staff and in no time Im shown to where
the shirts are, I grab a pair, thank the man and leave. I just made it back
in time for the start of the race. Walmart guy noticed me, took a few
seconds to understand what I needed and made a difference for me that
morning. In case you are interested, I ran the race in 27 minutes, 22
seconds.




Although I wanted to do well in the race, I stopped en route to
photograph the sunset over Sandusky. This view was a part of my
journey I wanted to keep and share and I decided it was worth losing a
few seconds off my time to gain something which would make the
overall experience more enjoyable and memorable.

I opened my talk in Ohio with this little story, and then set out a light
structure for the rest of the session:

Our objective for the session was to think about how we cocreate
greater value through better:

Collaboration
Experimentation
Relationships

Collaboration

Collaboration is important as we increasingly work in dispersed teams.
Its important when we consider the importance of organizational
memory and the importance of sharing knowledge to create power with
each other, not controlling knowledge to gain power over each other.

We talked about more open systems of communication, referencing
how Automattic (the company which founded Wordpress) chooses to
work in an almost email free way. People who work for Automattic
share almost everything on open platforms easily accessible by any
other member of staff. In this way, as problems arise and ideas are
generated, the conversations around them are visible to all, and all may
contribute if they choose.

As is often the case, there was broad agreement among us that we all
currently send and receive too much email, so a challenge to take back
to work from this section was to review the information we have in our
organizations and find better ways to make it more openly accessible to
colleagues. Try starting from the assumption that everything is open
and work back from there (hat tip to Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant, co
authors of Humanize, for that excellent suggestion). As the service user,
I should have easy access to information and then come to you as the
HR/Legal/Facilities/Sales/Marketing/Operations subject matter experts

for any clarification. Imagine how much more effective wed be if we
werent always having to point out where stuff is to other people, and if
we reduced the amount of current duplication, which is an inevitable
consequence of not haring information.

We also looked at an interesting study from Breakpoint and Beyond that
indicates that as we get older, our ability to think divergently,
significantly reduces.

At kindergarten age, almost all (98%) of a group of 1,500 children
demonstrated genius level ability to come up with different solutions
to a problem, a challenge, or an opportunity. By ages 8-10, this level had
fallen to 32%, by ages 11-13 it dropped further to 10%. A further study
of 2,500 people over the age of 25 returned a score of just 2%. Im sure
there are many reasons for this, and it is important we recognize that we
seem to unlearn this important ability. I expect shame, and fear of being
judged play into this strongly too.

Experimentation

The art of trying out different ways to work together. A couple of years
ago I was working with Thomson Reuters on improving collaboration in
Minneapolis. Rick King, a senior manager in Thomson Reuters opened an
event I was facilitating at Target Field with a simple, powerful question.
Rick asked, How much of your complexity is self inflicted? and you
could have heard a pin drop among the 200 plus guests. Sure some of
our work is complex, and we overcomplicate many things too. Being
willing to work in a more open, selfless style can be a great way to start
the process of simplifying and deduplicating.

The pull of the familiar is often strong, so how do we get past that pull,
that reluctance to take a risk? In The Year Without Pants, by Scott
Berkun, he suggests a way past this mental barrier is:

Simple, Little and Often. Why? If we keep it simple, stuff is easier to
launch, and if its easier to launch then it will get launched, and we are
likely to get fast frequent feedback from simple, quick experiments.

Very often at work, our activities are designed to support the plan, the
strategy. Businesses invest lots of time, money and effort into strategic

planning, and I think that is very risky. If the statement change is the
only constant rings true for you, then beware the often inflexible nature
of the long term strategic plan. As you and your colleagues try to
execute the plan that change we mentioned in the last sentence is
busy happening, possibly making your plan less and less relevant. Im a
big fan of having a direction of travel for your team and or your business,
and iterating your way there, maybe borrowing some thinking from the
agile manifesto along the way.

We also agreed it is important to understand the prevailing culture when
introducing experimentation and creativity into the mix. These are
desired qualities, a 2013 survey by the Design Council found that CEOs
chose creativity as the most critical capability required to navigate
todays complex world, rating it higher than vision, rigour or
management discipline. Yet we all know how much people struggle to
get creative. I think that is because we often mistakenly see creativity
as an all or nothing pursuit, as something that inevitably brings chaos
and disruption along with it.



I prefer to look at the creative process as a series of tensions, knobs and
dials. Playing with these tensions, adjusting the flow between rules and
trust, loose and tight, frameworks and freedoms. The tensions in your
organization may be different to the ones Ive shown here, so by all

means develop your own creativity ebb and flow meter, and let some
creativity, experimentation and collaboration flow helpfully into the mix.

Relationships

Here are a few simple truths:

Without people, youre nothing
We do things more willingly for friends
Connections give us meaning
Conversations are the bond

These small significant ideas are the kind of thing we can build good
work on. Increasingly I notice in my work that what really matters is
small steps. I tend to glaze over when the promise of transformational
change is dangled in front of people like a huge glittering prize, just out
of reach. In recent conversations there seems growing agreement that a
grand plan is too big to feel achievable and is often hampered by a stack
of well meaning and dull PowerPoint slides and a healthy dose of
management mumbo jumbo. Instead, the way we actually get stuff done
is more often:

Little by little
Through getting to know one another better
Recognising effort and results

Trust is the foundation stone of relationships, and we build this in part
by doing what we say we will. And we recognize that at some point, we
all make mistakes. When that happens, its how we seek to recover from
that position that helps trust to reestablish or break. Acknowledging as
before, that knowledge has power when it is shared and used to
cocreate power with each other, not over each other that is key to
building relationships too. Personally I choose to trust people Im
working with and we will deal with the fall out as and when something
goes wrong. I realise that approach is not for everyone but it works for
me.





So Why Does it Go Wrong?

We know the value of collaboration, experimentation, creativity and
relationships, yet somehow we often fall short on these things. I was
fortunate to give a talk with Neil Morrison in Louisiana earlier this year,
and one of the many things he researched for our session together was
some of the psychology behind why even though we know what
works, we often deviate towards less helpful methods. The next couple
of pages are based heavily on what I learned from working with Neil.



In Illinois and Ohio I shared the SCARF model devised by David Rock, as
a helpful way of realising when things may be going wrong. In his
research, Rock found that when Status, Certainty, Autonomy,
Relatedness and Fairness are threatened we are less likely to
collaborate. He distilled his thinking into this simple model so we could
recall it easily, and so it can help us notice a threat occurring while it is
happening.

This model is not the answer it is simply there to make you aware of
how people respond when these things are threatened, so that you can
adapt and respond in a way that brings people back to a more helpful,
productive place.


We also looked briefly at the importance of having the basics covered.
Things like sleep, hydration, exercise/movement and diet and nutrition.

Once the basics are in place, and you are aware of what might threaten
your ability to collaborate, you can set the environment up to work
better for you.



One thing we noted is that when people are working at their best, they
can only do so for a short period of time. Yet at work, we often find
ourselves rushing from meeting to meeting, we allow our diaries to
become unrealistically full and then wonder why were not functioning
effectively. We talked about this and I shared some research that
underpins why busyness is bad for decision making, because of
something called the depletion effect. Heres an extract from Thinking
Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, which gives an example of how the
effect works:

A disturbing demonstration of depletion effects in judgment was recently reported in
the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences. The unwitting participants in
the study were eight parole judges in Israel. They spend entire days reviewing
applications for parole. The cases are presented in random order, and the judges
spend little time on each one, an average of six minutes. The default decision is
denial of parole; only 35% of requests are approved.

The exact time of each decision is recorded, and the times of the three judges food
breaks morning, lunch and afternoon during the day are recorded as well. The

authors of the study plotted the proportion of approved requests against the time
since the last food break. The proportion spikes after each meal break, when about
65% of requests are granted. During the next two hours or so, until the judges next
feeding, the approval rate drops steadily, to about zero just before the meal.The
best possible account of the data provides bad news: tired and hungry judges tend to
fall back on the easier default positioning of denying requests for parole.

I think we owe it to ourselves and our colleagues to find gaps in a busy
day, or failing that, acknowledge that a packed diary and a continual
rush of meetings will likely result in poor decision making.

In Summary

I think we work better together. Some of the things that help us do this
are:

Having, building and giving trust
Noticing one another
Getting to know each other better
Keeping things simple wherever possible
Accepting that small steps can make big differences
Having open access to relevant information, this means we can
cocreate power with each other, not exercise power over one
another.
Recognising that creativity is not binary. You don't just switch it
on, you adjust the dials and tease it out. Don't fear it, play with it,
iterate it.
Having meaningful conversations
Taking breaks














Further Reading

David Rocks academic papers are catalogued here:
http://www.davidrock.net/resources/

Humanize Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant
The Year Without Pants Scott Berkun
Thinking Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman

About Doug

Im a founder and director at What
Goes Around, a company that
helps people all over the world to
collaborate more effectively.

I advise a wide range of businesses
and business leaders on how to
make work better and more
productive through smarter, more
collaborative work practices. I
speak at conferences all over the
world, write for a number of publications and Im recognised by
Huffington Post as the UKs top expert on social HR in 2013.

Im also fascinated by peoples inherent creative abilities, and I love
working to make it easier for people to unleash their creativity, and to
bring their whole, best self to work.

Connecting people is a vital part of my work. My customers say that
working with me is invigorating, and they like the way I help unlock the
knowledge in themselves and their people, and encourage them to do
things differently.

I have been married to Carole since 1992 and we have an eleven year
old daughter Keira. When Im not working, I enjoy playing the guitar,
mountain biking and painting.

Website: http://stopdoingdumbthingstocustomers.com

Email: doug.shaw@wgalimited.com