The purpose of this newsletter is to help you engage and explore untapped possibilities in your work with groups and organizations as a volunteer, coworker, member, or leader. You may be in a major ongoing working relationship over time, even decades. You may be engaged in a specific project with a limited life span. You may be in a working relationship that comes and goes in periodic episodes. Or you may be in a situation that requires you to come together with others in common cause.

What Is Collaboration?

It is more than a positive, cooperative working relationship. A true, creative collaboration joins individuals, groups, or organizations to work together and make possible significant results that cannot be accomplished separately.  In other words, there is a synergy, a ‘1-plus-1-equals-3’ effect, that makes the effort worthwhile. Many otherwise cooperative work relationships fail to fully engage participants’ diverse capabilities and imagination.

I want to share my experience and understanding of the ‘architecture’ of collaborative possibility. This is more than a checklist. It is an examination of intelligent, disciplined ways to engage human complexity and leverage collective capacity. Collaboration is an ‘art’ and a ‘practice’ that I will unpack in the coming months.

There are five major opportunities to develop creative collaboration with others. You can immediately begin to apply the framework and tools from this newsletter. First, consider your key working relationships. Then, identify the typical developmental stages that present an opportunity to consciously improve the level of creative collaboration.

·      Lay a solid foundation for a new initiative that supports the realization of a shared vision.

·      Integrate new members into an existing group without slowing down progress.

·      Increase the capacity of an existing group that has settled into comfortable, habits that only generate average results.

·      Forge a new partnership or strategic alliance with a level of respect and trust that can be sustained.

·      Improve challenging human dynamics that impair participant satisfaction and limit positive results.

Why Make the Effort to Collaborate?

·      Impact. Creative, cooperative relationships with others can extend your personal capacity to accomplish shared goals and fulfill the mission.

·      Resilience.  When you stand with each other, you become more resourceful and able to recover from setbacks, meet challenges, and overcome barriers.

·      Meaning. In organizational leadership workshops when I ask participants about their ‘personal best’ collaborative experiences, I regularly encounter people who recall the vibrancy and fulfillment of a distant collaboration that they never experienced again. These individual memories are far more than isolated anecdotes.

–       The wisdom of indigenous people around the world affirms collaboration as a path of survival, learning, and success.
–       Scientific observation of successful adaptation by humans and animals highlights the importance of resourceful collaboration.
–       There is emerging awareness of the power of trusting, cooperative action in a technologically connected world.

From the depths of human history to the leading edge of technology, unity for a shared purpose is powerful and important.

How Does Collaboration Work?

Synergy requires an intelligent investment of time and energy that prevents misunderstanding, establishes respect and trust, avoids destructive conflict, and increases the flow of creativity. However, the human equation of personalities, preferences, and ‘politics’ (power) can make collaboration difficult, or even impossible.

Knowing ‘HOW’  begins with your mental model. The pessimist sees difficulty in opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in difficulty. The most effective practitioners of creative collaboration that I have worked with are pragmatic idealists. They have few illusions about the human equation and its challenges. They also firmly hold an optimistic vision of the potential when human beings operate from the “better angels of their nature.” The journey from the puzzle of ‘What Is’ to the possibility of ‘What Could Be’ begins with the willingness to walk together and the ‘know-how’ to navigate and course-correct as necessary.

You can begin this walk by examining existing and planned collaborations. Consider five elemental characteristics and assess whether you and those you work with have what is necessary in place to build a strong, sustainable collaborative relationship.

Practice Tip #1