Insights: Collaboration

Real collaboration matters, and it asks more of us than most advice will admit. 

Each collaboration project I embark on seems to teach me something new. Each one is unique, but there are some repeating motifs that, over time, I have learned to recognise and pay more attention to. One of those is this: when it feels too easy, I start to worry. 

Initially that may seem counterintuitive. There’s a lot of advice out there on how to do collaboration well; you’ll be familiar with much of it: 

• Nurture relationships 
• Build trust 
• Break down silos 

This is all good advice. Collaboration does rest on trust and relationships. When those foundations are strong, friction is lower, and the work feels easier. That’s absolutely a good thing; it’s just not enough. It hides the price tag.  

Collaboration is often made to sound safe, warm, and enjoyable. Of course, I aspire for it to be all of those things; sometimes it’s even fun. But that hides from view the messy parts and might fail to prepare us for what it really takes. This article explores what it means to go beyond the ‘nice’ and into the ‘necessary’ of collaboration. 

Sometimes, collaborating is the only way. 

You’ve heard the old proverb “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” Here’s my extension: “If you want to go big, collaborate deeply.” 

By definition, most ‘problems worth solving’ are challenging to address under normal conditions. Otherwise, we would have solved them already. Often, they are difficult because they are complex. They have multiple interconnected contributing factors; they exist within dynamic environments; and they have no known best practice solution waiting to be rolled out. 

This also means they typically can’t be solved by one organisation acting alone.  

In my early collaboration days, there was an adage that “Everyone in the room has a piece of the puzzle”. Our work as facilitators was to enable everyone to place their piece and work together to build a bigger picture. The reality of the metaphor showed itself to be a little trickier than that. Most of the time, as we start to build, we don’t know whether all of the pieces are present, we’re not sure what picture we’re trying to create and there's no box lid, to show us what ‘done’ looks like.  

Some years ago, I supported the establishment and evolution of the Obesity Collective - a group with a vision to reduce the health and wellbeing impacts of obesity in Australia. 

There’s a well-known systems map (from Peter Kopelman's Foresight Report) that illustrates the complexity of this ecosystem, which meant that a genuinely broad-based coalition was needed to address it. Early contributors included academics; clinical professionals; health insurers; pharmaceutical companies; people with lived experience; food systems stakeholders and others.  

With such a diverse group in the room, tension was inevitable. Some of it came from real differences in organisational interests. Some of it came from how those interests were perceived by others. Every organisation needed to contribute, but no single organisation had the authority to mandate or the capability to deliver alone. The work required coordination between actors, and legitimacy that could only come from multilateral agreement.  

The group represented a microcosm of the real world – acknowledging and working with those tensions productively wasn’t a challenge to overcome along the way; it was the work. 

Since then, I have seen similar patterns repeated many times. What has become clear to me is that, when collaboration feels difficult, it's maybe not a sign that the collaboration isn’t working, but more likely a signal that the work is real. 

Collaboration should chosen, not drifted into. 

I make no secret of the fact that I can seem a collaboration evangelist at times. However, *even I* recognise that sometimes acting alone and going fast is the right answer. If we have the right resources, capabilities and influence at our disposal to achieve our goals then the most efficient way forward will be to do it ourselves. Collaboration should not be chosen because it sounds inclusive, mature or virtuous. 

There is a real cost to collaborating well that we should not take lightly. It takes time, it takes effort to get the foundations right, and it asks for patience, discipline and investment. At times it asks that we make sacrifices that might deeply challenge us. Collaboration is an adventure not for the faint-hearted. 

However, when our goals can only be met through collaborating, we should be willing to make that choice and do it with our eyes wide open. If we drift into collaborating, rather than actively choosing it, we risk wasting our time, and that of the people we’re reliant on for progress.  

We may end up actively undermining the very conditions we need to be successful in the long run. 

Collaborating well means being willing to let go. 

If we choose willingly to enter into collaboration, it should be a signal that we really, desperately care about it being successful. Ironically, that can make this next part even harder. Real collaboration asks us to be ready to give something up. 

It’s likely that at some point you have come across leaders whose motivation for ‘collaboration’ was “how can I get everyone to agree that I have the right answer and get on board to help me implement it?”. I don’t need to tell you how that goes. 

The reason why is embedded in the reasons for collaborating in the first place: 

• It’s a problem worth solving; 
• The answer is unknown, and the problem space is dynamic; 
• No one party holds enough of the authority or capability act alone; 

Acknowledging the above means coming not with the answer ready to go, but with openness, curiosity and humility.  

There’s a further piece to this puzzle that is also worth naming. In “Collaborating with the Enemy”, Adam Kahane shares a contemporary iteration of an old adage that he attributes to leadership scholar Bill Tolbert. 

His version goes something like this: “If you’re not part of the problem, you can’t be a part of the solution”.  

There are details you might reasonably choose to quibble with, but the part that matters is that in a complex system, reaching a new state requires every part to change, and yes, that probably includes us. It’s one reason why, when I collaborated in the development of the early strategy for The Possibility Partnership, “Changing ourselves” was articulated as a key pillar, right alongside “Partnering with others to change the system” and “Learning through experimentation”. 

If we’re asking, “are we really up for collaborating”, and I think we should be, the following questions might be a useful guide. 

1. Am I willing to change – myself, my team, my organisation? If my starting point is that if only others would change, then things would be better, I might need to rethink my readiness. 
2. What am I willing to give up? This might be certainty, control or credit. It might be a mindset or belief that we hold tightly whether we know it or not. It might be the solution that we’d most love to see implemented.  
3. Am I willing to compromise on my own goals, in service of a stronger collective outcome? Collaboration should rarely demand full sacrifice, but a level of compromise is almost always required. Sacred cows may exist, but we need to be transparent about them, and clear about the boundaries they create. 

Each one of these questions asks a lot of us. Even when we are willing, the work itself remains difficult. It will feel hard, and that’s OK. It means it’s real. 

We all need help, to sit in the tension. 

When we’re asked to loosen our grip on things that are important to us, and to embark on a journey through which we do not have full control or a clear picture of the destination, there will be tough moments. What some refer to as ‘the groan zone’. When we’re grappling with balancing our own organisational needs against those of the collective, we can’t be expected to also hold space for others to do the same. 

This is where the support of expert facilitators and partnership brokers becomes valuable. The work isn’t to provide answers or to make collaboration frictionless. It’s to help create the conditions where difficult shared work becomes possible. 

That might mean: 

• Creating a container for the conversation that is held neutrally, rather than seen to be owned by one party or another; 
• Holding space for multiple ideas to co-exist, without forcing premature agreement or decisions; 
• Reflecting back to the group when behaviours drift too far from the collective intent and into the personal or positional;  
• Providing ‘just enough structure’ that we can move through uncertainty without shutting down; 
• And yes, remembering to have fun along the way. After all, if you can’t have fun with a problem, you may never solve it. 

The right facilitator will not draw you the final picture, but they will enable you to bring the right pieces of the puzzle to the table, identify the ones that might be missing, and support you through a process of testing and learning as the picture starts to emerge. 

They will also be there only as long as you need them, letting go as the collaboration builds its own foundations through capability, trust and relationship. That remains the goal, but getting there takes time, commitment and care. 

Collaboration by design, not default 

Collaborating is not always the answer. And it certainly isn’t the easy option. However, when it is the right answer, it asks us to lean in all the way. It’s hard and demanding. It asks us to stay with ambiguity; to compromise; to change ourselves.  

That’s why I've become wary of collaboration that feels too easy. To struggle isn’t the goal, but to avoid struggle is a soft and comfortable trap. 

So, embrace the struggle, and remember to also have fun, and ask for help along the way. On the other side is the gold we are looking for.