Collaboration in a New Era

The landscape for collaboration is changing. As leaders increasingly participate in multiple and diverse networks, opportunities for connections and collaborations abound. Often the word collaboration sounds good in theory, but our past experiences lead us to believe that this is much harder in practice. With the constrained resources and time pressures we all face, collaboration may appear as one more thing we can’t afford to do. Who can take the time to collaborate? LLC, through experimentation with new ways of collaborating, has found that the benefits of collaboration can be more easily realized than you think.

We started experimenting with new approaches to collaboration several years ago in the design of Creating Space, our national convening. These convenings are designed to attract new members to the community, create connections and bonds, and build bridges between different community networks. By modeling this process in the design of the gathering itself, we have achieved breakthroughs in our ability to convene and host this event with less LLC staff time and resources, and with better results. Collaboration saves time and money, improves the quality of the convening, spurs innovation and creativity, leads to better decision-making, and creates more access to information and resources. So what makes the difference between a collaboration that unleashes power and energy and one that zaps our energy? Here’s what we have learned:

• Identify a focal question/theme for calling together collaborators and issue an open invitation. By focusing on a question or theme, potential collaborators are better able to make informed decisions about whether they are interested in participating. An open invitation attracts unusual allies (e.g., people you wouldn’t have been likely to work with otherwise). These people are often the source of innovative, new ideas.
• Allow for multiple forms of participation. Collaborators who can make choices about how they want to participate throughout the collaboration are more able to sustain their participation. The level of participation may vary throughout the course of the collaboration depending on many factors.
• Take time to get to know each other and listen to each other’s stories. When we understand and care about each other we are energized to connect and work together. When we know what each other’s interests and strengths are we are better able to build on those. Half-day face-to-face retreats can go along way towards establishing these bonds.
• Create and renew a shared vision each time you get together. Our collective vision of what we are achieving together evolves; it is important to create space for reflection on what we are creating together even during conference calls.
• Create platforms for collaboration that are open, transparent, and accessible. We are using wikis, interactive websites, and discussion forums to co-create agendas, notes, ideas, and resources for our work together.
• Encourage experimentation. Trying out new methodologies for connecting, sharing and learning together creates the potential for innovation and breakthroughs that can spread through other networks and communities.
• Let go of attachment to outcome. Our attachment to outcome is often what causes the most stress during a collaboration. When we have a strong sense of our alignment of purpose and values, we are more able to let go of our attachment to a particular outcome.
• Hold ourselves and each other accountable for what we say we will do. When we create community, we hold each other accountable. We become mutually responsible towards each other.
• Reflect and revise in real-time. Taking time for checking in and reflection at the beginning of each meeting enables the team to make course-corrections in real time.

Using these principles, we have launched an initiative that leverages every aspect of collaboration. Leadership for a New Era is a learning initiative with a commitment to experiment with new ways of collaborating and partnering to achieve greater influence, spread innovations, and support one another to thrive and survive in a world of increasing complexity and urgency to produce change. To facilitate the process, we have developed a collaborative website that includes wiki and forum functionalities, and have invited anyone in the leadership development community to participate. This website is designed to allow us to connect our resources, align our thinking, report on our actions and at some point in the future, synthesize our learning. It takes patience in the early going as people learn to work together in different ways. We are a few months into the initiative and continue to attract more and more contributors interested in experimenting with new ways of working together.

Other organizations using collaborative approaches include Habitat for Humanity Egypt, which is using a collaborative approach to engage local organizations to increase its impact; and Kiva, which has created an on-line platform to link social entrepreneurs around the globe with investors. We would love to hear from you! Tell us about your own experiences with collaboration and what you have learned from them.