Which person is the most important here? Successful collaboration recognizes the value of each person, even if the one at the top seems to stand above.
Say you need to work with other people. The problem is, as Jean Paul Sartre famously put it, “Hell is other people.”
You misanthrope, you.
Last month I shared some thoughts about software mediated collaboration tools. Today I want to focus on some human factors that can have enormous influence on collaborative efforts.
People spend years earning graduate degrees about how humans interact. There are endless books on the subject. There are people who make their careers advising corporations and politicians and leaders of institutions large and small. For today’s blog, I’m focusing comments on a few key guidelines I’ve learned leading big teams on complex projects, and also working as an ordinary participant on countless other gigs that couldn’t have been done without a collection of willing hands.
Do you respect your boss? How about your colleagues? How about your employees? If you’re laughing—or grimacing—at any of these questions, you already get why this stuff matters. Both inside work and out, your whole life has been about how you orient yourself around other people. Personal achievements matter, of course. But most people don’t achieve or fade entirely due to their own internal engines. In the context of a collaborative effort, that awareness makes all the difference in terms of fostering a team that can draw the best from diverse personalities, especially in the face of challenges.
In last month’s discussion about collaborative software tools, I mentioned that even cold, inhuman code depends on human interactions. Despite my hand-wringing, I’m just like you: I can’t live without it. Software make me infinitely more powerful, more collaborative, more efficient in so many ways. It helps me until the moment it collides directly into the realities of teammates who don’t think the same way as I do.
Sound familiar? You set up a Zoom call or a Teams meeting, only to find that most people have their cameras off and their attention fragmented. Text messages and emoji’s fill the chat, and you have to wonder if half the team is just waiting for the call to end.
Don’t despair. That peril is actually a key to future success. The moment we focus more on how and why people make the interpersonal choices they do, is the moment we discover that great teams can collaborate even if they’re reduced to something as simple as conversations while standing in a circle. In fact, if you’re able to have collaborative meetings standing in a circle, same place, same time, DO IT. Humans collaborate best when they’re face to face with other humans. Therefore, if you’re forced to utilize online video conferences, press hard for everyone to at least turn on their camera. You’ll minimize distractions, emphasize commitment, and build better relationships among participants. If your call list is too big for everyone to turn on their cameras, at least insist a shining face from whomever is speaking at the moment.
If you’re an autocrat (and I realize this may be a provocative comment these days), collaboration won’t be much of a conundrum. You’ll simply task people to move bricks, and they’ll go off and do the work, regardless of how they think the task ought to be accomplished. Most of us are not autocrats, however, and that means many people assigned to moving those bricks will want to weigh in on the details—where they’re going, how they’re stacked, and why-the-hell you want to move them in the first place.
Collaborative success therefore comes from a tricky balance. Everyone needs to feel welcome to contribute to the overall success of a project. It’s vital to create a culture that values ideas even from those who might bring perspective from only tangental disciplines. When we facilitate creative thinking with flattened hierarchies, groups benefit from creative ideas that otherwise might not see the light. This not only helps unearth new ideas, but also invigorates the potential for otherwise reticent teammates to speak up more confidently.
A pitfall here is that not everyone can have access to the microphone all the time. A culture of openness does not imply a culture of equivalence. Equality? Sure. Everyone matters, and everyone has to feel like they matter. But it’s probably more useful to hear a pilot’s opinion about landing in a storm than the opinion of a well intentioned flight attendant. Openness does not mean that everyone’s opinion will carry the same weight on first hearing.
Nonetheless, some people can’t tell where their own boundaries ought to begin and end. Some people get a taste for participation, and begin to think their voice has endless value. (We’ve all met these people.) To avoid encouraging an inadvertent hijack from an overly enthusiastic participant, a sound management strategy is to be vigilant from the start. Setting reasonable, yet firm, ground rules for how meetings will run can help forestall the awkward conversation you’d rather not have with a suddenly loquacious participant. Everyone needs to have access, but access demands careful cultivation. Some groups figure this out. Many stay stuck in-fighting for influence.
A corollary to this potential pitfall has to do with mediocre ideas that advance on the merits of purely presentational zing, or the social popularity of the person doing the zinging. Momentum promotes momentum, as statistics teach us, which means that even a negative trend can pick up steam. Ideas need to make sense under scrutiny, not simply due to good salesmanship.
If you’re the leader, you have to interrogate yourself first. Is an idea gaining traction because it’s good, or because you like the person promoting the idea? Same goes for the opposite. If a good idea comes from someone who isn’t your favorite, can that idea still gain the attention it deserves? For yourself and for everyone on your team, good collaboration demands a fair referee on the playing field. Unfortunately, there generally won’t be any third party referees. The only referees for most collaborations are the participants themselves, headlined by the people in charge. Fairness ain’t always easy, but it’s essential if the team is going to have a chance at delivering excellence.
Good collaboration requires everyone to lean in. There’s likely going to be a quarterback or movie director or CEO leading the conversation, but expectations established before the meeting should insist that everyone needs to come prepared. No matter who you are on a team, know your role to the best of your ability, no matter how unglamorous it may seem, but also make an effort to understand the big picture. Come to meetings conversant in vocabulary that may only be adjacent to your specific job. Be open to hearing about which of your colleagues are doing well and which are in trouble, and be willing to either learn from them or give them a speedy assist, depending on circumstances.
For all members on a team, it’s okay not to know something, presuming that your ignorance is handled with integrity. If you don’t know an answer, say so. If healthy interpersonal habits have been modeled appropriately, count on the rest of the team not to chastise you for it. But beware! If you come to a meeting or a work environment and you haven’t done the necessary preparation to know what you should know, consider yourself duly warned. Ignorance is inexcusable if you simply aren’t paying attention to your job.
Whether you’re the captain or the crew, you have to commit to your role. If you’re crew, you can’t come to meetings and try to hide in the back of the room, hoping you won’t be asked to contribute. If you’re crew, you’re a full-fledged player, and you’re obliged to know you’re role as much as it’s knowable. If you’re the captain, you have to be honest about what you do not know, but you’d better know a whole lot about most things. Most of the time that will be inevitable, or your wouldn’t have risen to a position of authority in the first place. You likely have experience or expertise that earned you the position. But with power comes responsibility, and an obligation to role-model good behavior. If you ask someone for information or opinion and he or she flubs the moment, you don’t do anyone any benefit by humiliating them in public. You’ll build enmity with that individual, and you’ll teach the rest of the room to clam up in the future. This doesn’t mean you should just accept mediocrity or lack of preparation. That’s never okay. But how you convey your dissatisfaction counts profoundly, especially considering that your example will influence future team interactions.
Good collaboration means that nobody on the team should be exempt from taking out the trash. Leaders need to clean the coffee machine that everyone else will use. If they’re hiding behind an excuse that they’re too busy, they’re not understanding something fundamental: collaboration requires a mutual commitment that goes beyond the top line objective.
That’s the take-home thesis, in fact. Good collaboration has to start and end with a commitment to shared purpose. We might not always have a good day at work, and even the best plans can turn to confetti when faced with real-world pressures, but a team that’s focused on healthy collaboration knows that success can only be possible when everyone on the team can count on the collective mutual commitment.
I work in media, and these notes often define the best moments I’ve had working on my most successful projects. But much of my career has also been in aerospace and “big science”, and I can honestly report that best outcomes have often come from those teams that know how to collaborate. Not everyone always agrees; not everyone always sees eye to eye; not every schedule will be easy to hit. But starting and ending with the presumption of shared purpose, with a willingness to compromise in order to pursue larger, more important goals, generally describes teams that can deliver the goods.
Sounds simple me, or at least reasonable. Is it too idealistic, therefore, to wish for a similar ethic to reassert itself in our national civic spaces?