Understand How You Like to Collaborate

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

One of the things I’ve noticed lately is an increase in conversations about collaboration. CEOs talking about bringing employees back to the office because it’s better for “collaboration”. Individuals describing themselves as “enjoys collaboration”. And people sending emails saying, “Let’s collaborate!”. There’s just a lot of talk about collaboration. 

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Collaboration is good and important for business success. But I believe that collaboration isn’t as simple as “Let’s collaborate!”. There are layers to collaboration, and it could be helpful for people to spend some time thinking about how they like to collaborate. Knowing the conditions that someone enjoys collaboration could make a big difference in the result. 

I recently read Harvard Business Review’s 10 Must Reads on Collaboration and one of the articles talked about understanding your collaboration options. I thought it was a great way to think about how someone likes to collaborate. I don’t want to give away the article, but here are four types of collaboration to consider:

OPEN: Collaborating in an open environment implies that you’re willing to work with individuals from basically anywhere. This includes inside and outside the organization. And it also implies that someone is willing to collaborate with someone who might know more about a subject than they do. This could be a great way to generate a wide variety of ideas. 

CLOSED: By contrast to open collaboration, the closed collaborative environment says that someone is willing to collaborate but with a select group of people. There’s nothing wrong with this approach but it does mean that we have to know who we want to collaborate with … and why. This approach could be perfect when you’re familiar with a subject and want to work on problem-solving with a small group. 

HIERARCHIAL: This approach factors in the organizational hierarchy. Realistically, sometimes when we’re problem-solving, we do have to keep “what senior management wants” in mind. It might make sense to collaborate with a group that understands the goal and has the internal / external network to make it happen. 

FLAT: My take on the flat collaboration option is that this type of collaboration is focused on creating a win-win between the collaborators. There are times when we use the word “collaboration” in the spirit of reaching a mutually beneficial solution. The collaborators are each key stakeholders and are prepared to work together to find common ground. 

I thought these different types of collaboration could be a starting point for someone to reflect on how they like to collaborate. I could definitely see someone saying, “I like open collaboration.” Or “Most of the time, I’m involved in hierarchical collaboration processes.”. 

And when we are asked to participate in a collaborative process, it could be helpful to think about the role we’re going to have. Maybe we’re a subject matter expert being asked to participate in a closed collaborative process. Or we’re a department manager who is invited to take part in a flat collaborative process about an upcoming change. 

Simply saying, “I like to collaborate.” might not be enough in today’s complex business environment. Think about how you like to collaborate so you can bring your best to the process. This also gives you the opportunity to identify if there are collaborative environments you want to learn more about and skills you would like to focus on to become a better collaborator. 

Image capture by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Dallas, TX