By Lorna Stone, Vice President of Programs
There are lots of great blogs and newsletters out there, but one of my favorites is Eye on Health, edited by Tim Size of the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative. The following excerpt is from Leadership Insights: Can We Collaborate?, an article in their May issue, by Jo Anne Preston.
“Cooperation is great, but the word is not interchangeable with collaboration. … But when opinions clash, resources are scarce and priorities differ, collaboration is an effort that requires technical and interpersonal skill…"
Here are some things you can do to build more success at leading collaboration:
1. Decide why collaboration is in YOUR best interest. Is there something big you really want to achieve? Could it be more attainable if you got the support of others? When you ask for their support, make sure to find out what is in it for them too.
2. Identify together a clear purpose that is in everyone’s interest. This is your guiding light in times of personal agendas and egos flaring. Redirect the group to the mutual purpose when competition threatens to overtake collaboration.
3. Look for opportunities to share the credit…
4. Aspire to achieve a balance between ‘process’ and ‘outcome’. The dilemma: you won’t reach your deliverables if you don’t maintain relationships, and you won’t maintain relationships if you don’t eventually deliver. So you have to do both. If your personality is more attuned to the agenda, partner with someone who has a good intuitive sense of how the people process is working, and vice verse.
5. More collaboration = less control. Can you get more comfortable with that?
6. Create a ‘go to’ mantra for yourself, for when the going gets messy. For example,
‘Whatever we achieve together may take longer but will also last longer.’
7. Empathy goes a long way. Conflicts pop up when we see things differently. The old ‘seek first to understand’ softens the communication, opens up doors to understanding, and from there you can build. ..
8. Work to eliminate jargon. It’s safe to assume that if you use a lot of jargon, there will be some people who feel left out, not part of the group. Many will never tell you about it because they don’t want to look stupid. When you lose them, you lose your influence, so strive to keep your communication as clear as you can.
9. Good facilitation skills take the ‘personal’ out of differences. They help people process their thinking, make decisions that benefit the larger purpose and keep the focus on team. If you are not skilled in facilitation tools, either bring someone on the team to help with that, or learn them.”
Editor’s Note: If you are trying to make a decision about how you want to work with other organizations, Arthur Himmelman’s paper on the topic may be of interest.
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