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In The Collaborative Leader, L. Michael Hall and Ian McDermott answer key questions about leadership. What is collaboration? How does it relate to leadership? How do you do it effectively? How do you pull people together, inspire them with a meaningful vision, and organise them so that a team spirit emerges and peak performance is achieved? The Collaborative Leader is a practical guide to collaborating with others and leading collaboratively. That means learning how to win the hearts and minds of those who we lead. Packed with practical and immediate action points, the book will show you how to turn around a non-collaborative group or environment immediately. You will find assessment questions throughout, step-by-step processes on collaboration, and an invitation to action at the end of each chapter: a personal challenge to step up to the collaborative level of leadership. Learn the core competencies that facilitate a healthy, joyful, and productive collaboration. The foundation of collaborative leadership is self-collaboration. The leader who cannot effectively collaborate cannot effectively lead. If you are to walk your talk, you need to demonstrate collaborative skills yourself, and this book will show you the 'how to's' for developing the critical success elements of leadership. The best collaborators are those who have lots of fun collaborating. The goal can be serious. The collaboration can be fun. Learn how it's possible by understanding the structure and processes of collaboration. Whether you're responsible for team or organisational development, you'll find plenty here to inspire you to transform your leadership into collaborative leadership.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
Praise for The Collaborative Leader
The benefits of collaboration to leaders in the private, public and voluntary sectors are beyond doubt. In this world of increasing complexity, leaders are frequently required to work across conventional boundaries to achieve their objectives. This almost inevitably requires leaders to have the capability to collaborate effectively. In this work McDermott and Hall set out to demystify the art of collaboration and provide a methodology for leaders to achieve excellence in its application. The book also addresses the negative side of failed collaborative ventures and analyzes the principle causes. A must-read for aspiring leaders and everyone grappling with complex change.
Martin Roberts PhD, author of Change Management Excellence
In business, collaborative leadership is becoming an essential skill and principle … and yet it is often misunderstood, with frustrating results. In The Collaborative Leader, the authors give you plenty of thought-provoking questions, examples and models to help you walk the sometimes less than easy path of true collaboration.
Joe Cheal, leadership development specialist and author
Ian and Michael have been great thinkers and creators of quality information for the field of NLP for many years and their latest effort is certainly something special. Collaborative leadership, for most writers, is like trying to organize smoke. Ian and Michael have managed to be systematic, carefully specific (where most have failed), and even pragmatic in this effort to help us all understand, and actually learn how to use, the wonderful and valuable systems of collaboration. I really appreciate their careful explanation that leaders must make sure that their own preconceptions and habits are fully understood and sometimes changed. So, here we have critically important skill sets, presented at the right time in our ongoing effort to help organizations and teams move toward excellence. They have professionally identified principles and skills in a way that is pragmatic enough to be incredibly useful. Right information, right time, right presenters. It doesn’t get better. Get the book and find out for yourself what a sterling job these two men have done, again.
R. Frank Pucelik, Pucelik Consulting Group, INLPTA, and ANLP
The ultimate leadership challenge
Ian McDermott and L. Michael Hall PhD
Behind all the current buzz about collaboration is a discipline. And with all due respect to the ancient arts of governing and diplomacy, the more recent art of collaboration does represent something new—maybe Copernican. If it contained a silicon chip, we’d all be excited.
John Gardner
Creative collaboration is now possible on an unprecedented scale, by people based all over the world.
Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader (2003)
Collaboration is co-laboring, literally “laboring with” others. Given this, it is only natural that a book on collaboration should be written collaboratively by more than one author. That’s precisely what we have done in this book.
Both of us have engaged in many collaborations over the years and we ascribe much of our personal success to working with others—collaborating. We are also both seasoned writers as well as leaders in our own areas. Did we have time to collaborate and write another book? No, but we made time because this really matters to us, which is true of many collaborations.
When we began there was another person involved in this project—Shelle Rose Charvet. Actually, she was the one who originally brought us together and the three of us worked on this project jointly. But then “life happens” and Shelle realized she had taken on too much and needed to focus on her new business. She said that “for my own well-being I need to cut back on my commitments.” So she chose to step out of the project. This made us aware of an important aspect of collaboration: Collaborations inevitably grow, change, and evolve as people, situations, and needs shift over time.
As our experience with Shelle makes clear, collaboration is a rich and dynamic process between people; it is a living, evolving experience. It is not a rigid set of roles or rules about how to do something. It is an act and experience of creativity wherein a few, or many, people discover how to interact in such a way that new emergent ideas arise; ideas which, when put into action, can bring forth new and wonderful innovations.
While we identified a great many facets of collaboration in our initial inquiry phase, when we began writing this book, we shifted our focus to a singular question: What do we feel passionate about regarding collaboration that would make this book unique and transformative for the lives of those who read it?
In this book we have answered that question by focusing on three main considerations about collaboration and leadership:
What is collaboration?How does it relate to leadership?How do you do it effectively?First, what is collaboration? Collaboration is the demanding business of working together to get things done in order to get practical results. It builds businesses, makes money, and launches pragmatic solutions into the world. As we show you how this works, you will see how it can give you an edge in your leadership.
Second, how does collaboration relate to leadership? Collaboration requires leadership. It needs a person (or team) to bring people together and enable them to work effectively as one. Inspiring and administrating a collaborative partnership brings out the best in them. As we explain how to do this, you will learn lots of collaborative leadership skills.
Third, how do you do collaboration effectively? Collaboration necessitates skills. It requires a set of core competencies that enable people to work together effectively to achieve what none could accomplish alone or apart. As you develop these qualities, you will take your leadership skills to a whole new level.
We have found that there are many misconceptions about collaboration. One of the most common is that collaboration is a nice idea about people getting along and feeling good about each other, but it doesn’t improve the bottom line. Another myth is that collaboration requires a mediator, not a leader, because it involves getting people to compromise. There are many more. Such myths obscure the fact that collaboration actually gives businesses a competitive advantage and can deliver a real return on investment. All truly great organizations are great because of collaboration. We call these misconceptions collaboration myths.
Our contention is that a great deal of collaboration is hidden in plain sight and its importance is often unrecognized and unappreciated. Without some degree of implicit collaboration, it’s almost impossible to get much done at all. We believe this has huge implications for anyone in leadership. As you will discover, the fact is that collaboration involves a set of core competencies that are, in effect, leadership competencies. These can be learned and improved.
This also highlights another hidden truth: The ability to collaborate is the ultimate leadership skill. And that’s what our world is increasingly demanding—collaborative leaders. Therefore, promoting collaboration as a skill set is the next great step in leadership development. So, we have written this book to make explicit what collaborative leadership is and how to become that kind and quality of leader.
There are many benefits to be gained. First of all, a practical approach to developing high level collaboration skills. Instead of focusing on the theories behind collaboration, we have designed The Collaborative Leader to be a guide for how to collaborate with others and how to be a collaborative leader. This means learning how to win the hearts and minds of those you lead. Only then will people participate in a collaborative vision with you. You will find assessment questions throughout, step-by-step processes on collaboration, and an invitation to action at the end of each chapter under the title, “Your Next Steps In Being a Collaborative Leader.”
Second, practical and immediate things to do. We have organized the book so you can immediately begin testing the usefulness of the ideas—perhaps even turnaround a non-collaborative group or environment.
Third, a personal challenge to step up to the collaborative level of leadership. To lead others is to steer them to work together and to combine their intellectual and relational capital. As a leader you lead them to collaborate. That’s why the leader who cannot effectively collaborate cannot effectively lead. If you are to walk your talk, you need to demonstrate collaborative skills yourself.
Fourth, a model of the structure of collaboration. We come from a field that specializes in modeling expertise and excellence—neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). We began our own collaboration by unpacking (i.e., modeling) examples of collaboration—what made them work, what the challenges were, how collaborators dealt with barriers to collaboration, the beliefs and values of the collaborators, and much more. By the end of this book, you will have a thorough understanding of the structure and processes of collaboration.
Fifth, a guide to the set of competencies that facilitate a healthy, joyful, and productive collaboration. One of the things we discovered in the process of studying collaboration is that the best collaborators are those individuals who have lots of fun collaborating. The goal can be serious; the collaboration can be fun. People repeatedly speak of the pleasure they derive from collaborating, how it brings out the best in others, and how on occasion the experience takes on the qualities of a classic flow state—lost in the moment, with a strong sense of meaningfulness, joy, challenge, and effortlessness.
Sixth, the “how to’s” for developing the critical success elements of leadership. There is one thing that perhaps makes this book unique: In contrast to the majority of books about collaboration, we focus on the individual collaborative leader. Most titles in this field are about organizations collaborating with organizations and how to create inter-organizational collaboration.
Seventh, a personal taking stock. It’s tough to promote collaboration with and between others if you’re at war within yourself. Getting your own behavior aligned with your own values is part of the secret of being an effective collaborative leader. The foundation of collaborative leadership is self-collaboration. It begins with you because high quality collaboration is an inside-out process. What, you may ask, is self-collaboration? It’s the ability to collaborate with the different aspects of yourself. We will return to this element continuously throughout the book.
So, are you a collaborative leader? Would you like to be? Do you know how to pull people together, inspire them with a meaningful vision, and organize them so that a team spirit emerges and can deliver peak performance? If you would like to say “yes” to these questions, then this book is definitely for you.
Ian McDermott L. Michael Hall
Part I
Chapter 1
Why Bother?
Collaboration will be the point of differentiation between the companies that grow successfully into the next decade and those that don’t.
Neil McPhail, CEO of Best Buy
Successful collaboration is the science of the possible.
Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman, Organizing Genius: The Secrets Of Creative Collaboration (1998)
As a leader, why bother with collaboration? What is in it for you and for those you lead? Consider any of the truly great achievements that human beings have created—the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, nations uniting to stop Hitler, putting a man on the moon, building sky-scrapers in modern cities. When you do so, you are contemplating acts of collaboration. People came together, worked together, shared a vision, and achieved what would have been impossible alone or apart. Because of a collaborative effort the incredible happened. This is the magic of collaboration.
Or think of the great corporations that exist today—those in the auto industry (Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors, etc.), the IT industry (Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.), banking (JPMorgan Chase, HSBC Holdings, Citigroup, etc.), and so on. When you do, you are contemplating acts of collaboration—human beings operating as collaborative partners.
So collaboration is good for the bottom line of profit and it is also good for the other two bottom lines of highly successful companies—people and passion. In other words, via collaboration you can create synergy out of the dichotomy between what many people think of as opposites—the hard side and the soft side of business. Collaboration can actually solve many of the problems which businesses suffer today, such as a one-sided overemphasis on money as the sole criteria of corporate success. Money is important but it is not the sole purpose of commerce. Business also requires a focus on people; it requires responsible, ethical, cooperative individuals. This saves companies from suffering from a silo mentality, indulging in unethical business practices, sacrificing people for the return on investment (ROI), and so on.
At its best, a collaborative vision unleashes hidden and untapped potentials which, in turn, can create a better world for all. Collaboration facilitates a broader vision for work, organizations, and corporations which transcends just profit. Collaboration also enables good people to be great together. The very experience of collaboration changes us. It changes how we relate in our work environments and it changes the business and political cultures we have inherited. Through collaboration we can also tap into emergent expressions of creativity that put us, and our organizations, on the cutting edge of innovation, leading us to pioneering new products, services, and information.
The collaborative vision is about who we are together and the quality of the way we relate. Collaboration therefore expands what we do and the results that we create together. Potentially, it also expands the quality of our relationships. Here, then, are two great benefits from collaboration. First, we are able to achieve results together that we cannot achieve alone. Second, the quality of our group experience—the culture that results—gives us both a competitive advantage as well as a community of which we can enjoy being a part.
Fostering collaboration also addresses one of the most destructive problems troubling all businesses and organizations—disengagement. Employees who are not engaged in the business—who are bored, resistant, and disloyal—are people who cost the company. They are also dangerous people—a danger to the group spirit, to creativity, and to sustainability. A collaborative culture changes this. Work becomes more engaging because of the quality of our relationships in the workplace and the quality of the teamwork.
When you get people truly caring, connecting, and working together, all kinds of creative ideas and projects emerge. Sometimes this means that individuals begin to have a sense of how they can access their higher values, such as making a difference in the world or contributing to the larger good. When this happens, more is unleashed—and this can take an organization to a whole new level.
There is an incredible power in collaboration. Human history has demonstrated repeatedly how we can do so much more together than alone or apart. Single heroic leaders are nothing if they cannot foster collaboration.
The power of collaboration has brought about this age of science, technology, space exploration, the social media, and so on. Consider the incredible immensity of the collaboration at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.1 CERN, the official name for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is a large-scale international collaboration of people from seventy countries working together. Palestinians and Israelis working side by side. Iranian and Iraqi scientists working together. All in all, there are more than 2,000 staff members and up to 13,000 people can be on site at any one time.
If collaboration enables science, technology, the arts, and civilization, what then is collaboration? Collaboration is people working together in a partnership to create something that no one individual can create or do single-handedly. This very special state, and state of mind, is about far more than just complying with authority. It is about positively and actively wanting and acting in unity with others to achieve a common goal.
If collaboration refers to working with others, then the opposite is going it alone—the drive for independence, separation, and stepping out alone when no one else believes in our vision. The fascinating thing about human beings is that every one of us feels the pull of both of these forces; they are built into our neurology and psychology. We want to be independent and we want to be a part of a community. We want to be true to our innermost self and we want to be part of a winning team.
We all begin life within a collaboration, inasmuch as we begin in a family, a community, a town, a nation. Without others, we wouldn’t survive at all. All of our basic human needs are met by others. After that begins the developmental pull within us to separate, to individuate, to become a self in our own right, to define ourselves, to find our own way. This instigates the individuation process of childhood and the teenage years as we gradually become independent adults. But, at the same time, we feel yet another urge emerging—the social urge, the pull to be a part of a group, to have close friends, to find a special one to love, to become interdependent.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
John Donne, Meditation XVII, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1623)
The pull of collaboration arises because we are social beings with social needs—for love and affection, for bonding, for companionship, to have colleagues, to be a part of a winning team, to be recognized by peers, to count in their eyes. Yet so many things can mess up this drive. Lots of people are blocked from creative collaborations because of their desire to have things “their way” or because of their need for constant recognition and attention.
Others are blocked from effective collaborations because they haven’t learned basic social skills: listening, supporting, validating, confirming, and taking time to be present. They didn’t learn the lessons of kindergarten—how to play well with others. They are bossy, demanding, self-centered, critical, sarcastic, and unkind. They are not good team players. There are many other blocks that interfere with effective collaboration: fear of change, vested interest in the status quo, fear of loss of self in a group, inability to be a part of a community, lack of vision, and intolerance. We will cover these in the coming chapters.
Nonetheless, in today’s interconnected world, collaboration is more important than ever. Neither individuals nor nations can afford to go it alone, operate in isolation, or act independently from the rest of the world. Realizing “big hairy audacious goals” requires people working together effectively as high performance teams.
Nowadays, companies are moving toward self-managing teams who collaboratively provide leadership and management for an area of responsibility. In order to move to this level of high performance, we need to have self-actualizing individuals—people who want (and know how) to operate as part of a high performance team. They need to know how to tap into each other’s unique differences and enable others to be an important part of the group. To facilitate this, we need collaborative leadership—leaders who have the ability to set a vision, pioneer with a collaborative style, pull people together, and work through the conflict of differences so that a group spirit emerges.
Some of the most successful companies are the result of collaborative partnerships—individuals working together for mutual benefit. It is our belief that those who do not develop this personal power will be left behind.
For a clear definition of collaboration we begin with the word itself: co- (with) and labor (work). An operational definition for collaboration is:
Working intelligently with other people for a mutual vision and benefit.
A form of co-leadership, with people working together as partners, which brings out the best in everyone and achieves results that a single person could not have accomplished alone.
Learning from each other, sharing knowledge freely, helping each other to complete jobs and meet deadlines, and sharing resources for a common good.
Tapping into differences to create the required synergy that solves problems.
Working together as a team rather than as disconnected individuals.
The ability to pull together to actualize a shared vision or solve a problem, and innovate a new solution.
In collaboration, two or more persons come together to combine their understanding, skills, and resources to achieve a richer and fuller outcome than any one person could achieve single-handedly. This means that collaboration is a creative way of interacting and connecting with others which encourages fun, ingenuity, and resourcefulness. Where there is true collaboration, there is a creative synergy of differences. That synergy both unifies and enables individuals to experience an intense and high level of resourcefulness in ideas and actions and, as a result, surprising and unprecedented results often occur.
All collaboration is not the same, neither in nature and character, nor in degree. We use a continuum to help people determine how much collaboration they consider appropriate. Our experience is that people find these distinctions very useful. The continuum ranges from competition to synergy:
Determining what type of collaboration is optimal is equally useful. Here are six kinds to consider:
Ad hoc collaborations: People coming together for a limited time to work together on a project or problem and then disband.Long-term collaborations: Teams, committees, and boards (usually a permanent structure within an organization); partners in personal life.Crisis collaborations: People coming together to resolve an unexpected crisis who become an emergency team.Interpersonal collaborations: Group of individuals working together for a common vision.Inter-organizational collaborations: Two or more organizations working together on a common problem or vision.Leader-driven collaborations: Individual leader who convenes others to work with him or her to achieve a vision.Some of the key benefits of collaboration include:
Larger challenges: Collaboration enables us to take on challenges that are too big for a single individual.
Larger results: Collaboration facilitates us to accomplish things together that we could not accomplish alone or apart from others, and this unleashes extra potential.
Increased return on investment: High quality collaboration increases the ROI in organizations.
Managing risk: Managed well, collaboration can reduce risk and the fears which accompany it.
Competitive advantage: Many cutting-edge companies today are gaining competitive advantage from harnessing the power of collaboration. They access more talent to increase the synergies which favor innovation.
Facing uncertainty: Collaboration enables us to face the uncertainty and ambiguity which is required for creativity, as we have each other to depend upon.
Vitality: Collaboration enables us to have more fun at work, to be more playful and optimistic, adding an élan vital to the organization.
Fun: Collaboration enables groups and teams to experience greater levels of creativity and fun.
Learning: Collaboration promotes group or team learning which transcends individual learning.
Quality relationships: Collaboration enriches the quality of relationships at work and lowers attrition, thereby retaining the best people.
High quality culture: Collaboration enriches the kind of culture in organizations that increases the quality of creative products and services.
Teamwork: Collaborations can inspire people to want to be part of a group, team, or organization.
Unleashing potential: Collaboration facilitates the unleashing of potential in all of the participants.
New gestalts: Collaboration can unleash a synergy to create outcomes that are far more than the sum of their parts.
Emotional intelligence: Collaboration can enhance trust and emotional intelligence so there is more self-management, self-leadership, maturity, and sense of responsibility.
Inspiration: Collaboration increases inspiration and motivation as we work on something larger than ourselves. It improves morale.
Resilience: Collaboration makes us more resilient because we have others who can hold us up when the going gets tough.
Humane organizations: Collaboration enables us to make our work life more human and humane. This reduces stress, disengagement, theft, etc.
Creativity: According to John Briggs, “Collaboration is one of the best kept secrets in creativity.”
The average return on collaboration is nearly four times a company’s initial investment.
Ricci and Wiese, The Collaborative Imperative (2011)
While collaboration may have many benefits, it takes leadership to create and foster effective collaboration. It does not happen without intentional leadership, and it often takes determined leadership with a vision and an attitude. In particular, it takes leaders who are especially skilled in handling conflict and differences.
Collaboration requires men and women who initiate, inspire, and guide the process. That is because to be collaborative is itself an act of leadership. Whenever anyone pulls others together to undertake a shared project or vision, they are demonstrating leadership. Collaborative leadership requires the ability to see possibilities despite conflict, barriers, silo thinking, and giant egos. For a leader to step up to become a collaborative leader is to “man up” to such challenges, whether the leader is a man or a woman.
Leadership is, by its very nature, the process of enabling people to work together effectively. What then is a collaborative leader? A collaborative leader is someone who is able to get people to work effectively together for the sake of greater productivity and efficiency.
That’s not easy. It doesn’t happen in a moment. It takes time. How does this work? How does a leader create this level and quality of collaboration? To achieve this, leaders develop the inspiration and the know-how for getting people to cooperate to produce a team effort. An effective leader has what may be considered a “magical gift”—namely, that of enabling individuals to work together in ways that bring out the best in people, so that everyone wins and everyone enjoys the process.
A collaborative leader also needs to be able to confront people on non-collaborative behavior while inviting them to step up to and engage in a higher quality of collaboration. The collaborative leader sees beyond parochial politics and insulated silos. He or she dares to challenge people to communicate their differences and let them become sources of creativity.
If you don’t think that’s magical, consider for a moment those who lack this leadership ability. The sad fact is that not everyone who is rewarded with leadership is able to facilitate collaboration. Many leaders behave in ways that trigger others to take sides and waste their energy in conflict. They hold secrets, play favorites, and set faction against faction to manipulate situations to their own benefit. Not only do people not collaborate, they barely cooperate. Playing this kind of politics undermines collaboration.
What is the secret of creating collaboration among people? What are the leadership qualities and skills that enable some leaders to be so effective in fostering collaboration? What are the premises, beliefs, values, and understandings in leaders who are able to bring others together, inspire them with a vision beyond themselves, and organize things so that people love cooperating and have lots of fun being part of a winning team? We will address these critical questions in the following chapters.
Consider the problems and headaches of doing the opposite. What happens when a leader cannot inspire and organize for collaboration? Organizational problems, management problems, labor problems, financial problems, poor efficiency, conflict, stress, loss of revenue, scandals, corruption, and so on. Also, in most companies today, the capital of the business is no longer buildings, bank accounts, and machinery; it is people. We talk in terms of intellectual capital, creative capital, and relational capital. This is another reason to model leaders who are able to create effective collaborations.
On the surface, the idea of collaboration sounds simple and direct. In reality, it is a very rich and dynamic experience—one that involves many factors. In researching this book, we have identified many of the necessary facets and factors of successful collaboration.
Collaboration requires skills. As you pull people together, you will have to deal with conflicts which difference evokes in individuals. Collaboration emerges when people come together to share a common vision and are organized so they can contribute their best for a team effort. We should not frame collaboration as a touchy-feely thing; collaboration is actually a hard-nosed skill.Collaboration calls for a win-win proposition that everyone understands and buys into. To lead a collaborative team, everybody in the group must feel they are winning. Contrast this with the competitive attitude whereby someone tries to win at another’s expense. Rivals seek to gain an advantage over each other or take revenge on a colleague who is succeeding. The opposite of collaborative thinking is the idea of scarcity (i.e., there is not enough for everybody; it’s a zero-sum game—win or lose) or transaction-type interactions (where one person exploits or uses another for his or her own purpose).Collaboration begins with self-collaboration. The foundation of collaboration with others is collaboration with yourself. When it comes to collaborating, we can work with single individuals, an entire group, or as part of a group with other groups. Self-collaboration means you are reasonably integrated and not driven by internal conflicts. This emotional good health enables you to reach out in collaboration to others. We might say: Only the strong can collaborate.All collaborations are not the same. As you will discover, there are different degrees and intensities of collaboration. It can involve a range of behaviors from coordinating activities, cooperating in a project or activity, engaging heart and mind in a vision, or investing in something bigger than oneself.Collaboration is so natural that you are already doing it. Collaborating is all about relating to others and it is fundamental to successful living. Ask yourself: Where am I already collaborating and with whom? Where do I collaborate in my private life? In my career?Collaboration involves a range of behaviors. These range from low level to medium level to high level interactions. The words we typically use to describe these different levels are coordinating, cooperating, engaging (collaborating) and committed.Effective collaboration requires a set of core competencies. The skills of collaboration are high level relational skills. Trying to collaborate without emotional intelligence (EQ) and social intelligence (SQ), by relying on some trick, will not work in the long run. People may regard such behavior as inauthentic and even manipulative.Effective collaboration produces measurable results. We collaborate for a purpose—namely, to achieve an objective. We do it to get results which can be quantified. Without collaboration you will either overwhelm yourself with all that has to be done to achieve something world class or you will reduce your objective to something mediocre.