The Ideal Collaborative Team AND A Conversation on the Collaborative Process

The Ideal Collaborative Team AND A Conversation on the Collaborative Process

The Ideal Collaborative Team

A New Survey Suggests that Attitude is More Important than Experience in Collaborative Work

A recent survey conducted jointly by Mitch Ditkoff and Tim Moore of Idea Champions, Carolyn Allen of Innovation Solution Center and Dave Pollard of Meeting of Minds reveals that most people would rather have inexperienced people with a positive attitude than highly experienced people who lack enthusiasm, candor or commitment, on a collaborative work team.

A total of 108 people responded to the survey, which asked participants to rate 39 criteria for selection of collaboration teammates on a scale of 1 (not relevant) to 5 (indispensable). The average ratings of all participants are shown in Fig. 1 below:

*What qualities, attitudes and skills help make a good collaborator?* *AN IDEAL PROSPECTIVE COLLABORATOR . . .*	Avg	Overall Rank
Indispensable (3)
Is enthusiastic about the subject of our collaboration.	4.4	1
Is open-minded and curious.	4.3	2
Speaks their mind even if it's an unpopular viewpoint.	4.0	3
Very Important (9)
Gets back to me and others in a timely way.	3.9	4
Is willing to enter into difficult conversations.	3.9	5
Is a perceptive listener.	3.9	6
Is skillful at giving/receiving even negative feedback.	3.9	7
Is willing to put forward unpopular ideas.	3.8	8
Is self managing and requires 'low maintenance.'	3.7	9
Is known for following through on commitments.	3.7	10
Is willing to dig into the topic with zeal.	3.7	11
Thinks differently than I do/brings different perspectives.	3.7	12
Important (7)
Can work with many different types of people.	3.6	13
Is comfortable with ambiguity.	3.6	14
Adapts quickly to surprises/changes/new requirements	3.6	15
Has a significant stake in outcome of the collaboration.	3.4	16
Has an ability to improvise.	3.4	17
Has a sense of urgency about our collaboration.	3.4	18
Encourages equal participation among all the members.	3.4	19
Some Relevance (11)
Is optimistic and upbeat.	3.3	20
Is pragmatic and knows how ideas get executed.	3.3	21
Has lots of ideas.	3.3	22
Thinks strategically.	3.3	23
Is playful and has a good sense of humor.	3.3	24
Can think on their feet.	3.2	25
Has diverse knowledge on a broad range of subjects.	3.2	26
Has good connections and networks.	3.1	27
Is skillful at helping the group reach consensus.	3.1	28
Has deep understanding of the subject of our collaboration.	3.0	29
Is deeply reflective.	3.0	30
Not Relevant (9)
Is well organized.	2.9	31
Is someone I immediately liked. The chemistry is good.	2.8	32
Has already earned my trust.	2.7	33
Has experience as a collaborator.	2.4	34
Is a skilled and persuasive presenter	2.4	35
Is gregarious and dynamic.	2.4	36
Is someone I knew beforehand.	2.3	37
Has an established reputation in field of our collaboration.	2.2	38
Is an experienced business person.	1.9	39
Question Categories (color codes):
YELLOW: Experience: history, reputation, experience
GREEN: Attitude: germane to/displayed in situation, topic, issue, group
ORANGE: Personality: persistent traits, thinking styles, social style, temperament
BLUE: Abilities, Skills / persistent learned skills, natural gifts

A Note on Sample Size: While we considered keeping the survey instrument open to increase the sample size beyond 108, the average scores for each question did not significantly change after the first 50 responses had been received. We therefore believe the responses above are representative of the online population as a whole.

Two criteria, enthusiasm for the subject of the collaboration, and open-mindedness and curiosity, are rated as the most important criteria by virtually all segments of respondents. More than half of all respondents rated these qualities as indispensable in a collaboration partner. By contrast, five experience-related criteria (proven trustworthiness, collaboration experience, previous familiarity with other members of the team, reputation in the field of the collaboration, and business experience), rate at or near the bottom of the 39 criteria assessed by participants.

Candor, courage and timeliness of follow-through are also rated very important qualities in a collaborator, along with strong listening, feedback and self-management skills and diversity of ideas.

These findings, most of which are based on responses from experienced collaborators, seem to suggest that just about any group of appropriately motivated people can be effective collaborators, and that good collaboration is more art, and perhaps chemistry, than science.

The creators of the survey were somewhat surprised by these findings, since our collective past experience suggests that well-facilitated collaborations employing trained collaborators can have a powerful advantage over self-managed, untrained groups. We've found that trained, facilitated teams achieve more creative breakthroughs, faster, and are more likely to achieve extraordinary results, accomplishing things as a team that the individuals working individually could never have achieved.

To explore these findings further, we analyzed the results by gender, age, experience and occupation of respondent. These results are summarized in Fig. 2 on the following page.

Gender: Perhaps not surprisingly, women tend to rate good listening skills, self-management and tactfulness as more important in a collaborator than men, while men rate courage and candor as more important than women do.

Age & Occupation: Younger respondents, students and those in technology occupations value diversity of the team, comfort with ambiguity, and tactfulness more than other respondents. Respondents in their 30s, those with extensive collaboration experience and those in management occupations rate enthusiasm as more important than other respondents do. Older respondents, and those in education fields, tend to value follow-through, a sense of urgency, adaptability and collaborators with a stake in the outcome more than others do. And those in technology occupations are the only segment to rate diversity as more important than enthusiasm!

Group Size: Those most comfortable with small group collaborations (up to 10 people), and those in consulting occupations, rate conversational skills as more important in a collaborator than other segments. This might be due to the fact that in small-group collaborations each participant gets more opportunity to speak, and conversation (rather than just raising points) occurs more often as a result. Those more comfortable with larger group collaborations rate follow-through on commitments and comfort with ambiguity as more important. This, too, would make sense if larger group collaborations are usually associated with larger projects for larger organizations and hence rely more on individual activities and assignments both before and after the collaboration to achieve their objective. Large-group collaborations also allow less time for questions and clarifications from each participant, and hence more tolerance for ambiguity until their unanswered questions are resolved by the group.

Overall, though, there are no dramatic differences in the top 10 choices among any of the demographic segments: gender, age, experience or occupation.

Fig.2: Top 10 Ranked Criteria for a Collaborator, by Demographic Group

What are the implications of these results - for people wanting to establish, or participate on an effective collaboration team? We have defined collaboration as something more than mere coordination or cooperation. Here's how we make the distinction:

Collaboration entails finding the right group of people (skills, personalities, knowledge, work-styles, and chemistry), ensuring they share commitment to the collaboration task at hand, and providing them with an environment, tools, knowledge, training, process and facilitation to ensure they work together effectively:

Fig. 3: Collaboration, Cooperation and Coordination

Our survey suggests that some of the qualities we have considered important or even essential for effective collaboration are not viewed as such by most collaborators, even those with lots of collaboration experience.

We're believers in the Wisdom of Crowds, so perhaps we worry too much about how much careful selection, training and diversity a group of people needs in order to be effective collaborators. A great attitude does go a long way to making a team work, and a group that has the three 'indispensable' qualities in our survey: enthusiasm, open-mindedness & curiosity, and candor, can probably overcome any shortage of experience and diversity to work its away around any collective lack of skills.

This is not to say that experience, diversity, and collaboration skills don't make the job of collaborating much easier and more likely to succeed. It just means that what's most important in collaboration, as with so many things in life, is the people and their desire to help the team achieve the collaboration objective.

it's also our assessment that the objectives of a collaboration will affect the optimal selection of collaborators. In groups where the objective is modest -- say, to share information or even to achieve consensus, the make-up of the group is less critical (and often less open to choice) than when the objective is more ambitious -- such as achieving breakthrough ideas or collective work-product. If you were George Martin trying to come up with the collaborative team needed to produce Abbey Road, for example, the chemistry of the participants would certainly be more important than if the objective of your collaboration was to brainstorm locations for this year's annual shareholders' meeting.

Applying the findings of this survey to your collaboration project

Here, then, is our suggestion on how to select collaborators for a project:

Establish clear objectives of the collaboration and the commitments required of team members. This will allow you to exclude people who are unable or unwilling to make that commitment up front, either for logistical reasons or because they will not sufficiently understand or appreciate the objectives.

Decide on the appropriate collaborator selection process.
1. Selection of members by an individual or panel
2. Selection of invitees by an individual or panel (where the invitees then have the option of accepting or declining membership, and additional invitations are sent until a satisfactory team has been assembled) or
3. Self-selection by open invitation to anyone not disqualified by the commitments or objectives (step 1 above)

Decide on the selection (or self-selection) criteria, by selecting among the 39 criteria shown in Fig. 1 above, and adding any technical skill and expertise requirements of team members. If diversity is one of the criteria (and it usually will be) consider whether it is necessary that all members of the collaboration team meet all of the criteria, or if it sufficient that just one, a few, or a majority of the team members meet these criteria.
If the membership is deliberately or inevitably going to be skewed by gender, age, experience or occupation, consider some of the qualities that these specific demographics consider particularly important in a collaborator, per Fig. 2 above. At the same time you will probably want to make a preliminary assessment of the appropriate size of the collaboration team. Note that even if you use an invitation process, determination of criteria is still vitally important, both in deciding when you have a sufficient number of appropriate acceptances, and in allowing invitees to appreciate what qualities are expected of them if they accept. This is especially important if you use the Open Space approach to invitation ("whoever comes are the right people").
Review (or, if the group is self-selected, have them review) the composition of the team against the objectives, commitments and criteria. If important representation is missing, augment the composition of the team accordingly.

Allow the members of the team to get familiar with each other, ideally in a social setting or using team-building exercises, before they begin to address the objectives of the collaboration. If the team is virtual, this is just as important if not more so, but different familiarization activities will be needed.

A Final Note:

If it's your task to assemble a collaborative team, remember that, in many cases, the team reflects the personality, style, and mindset of the people who launch it. Be aware of your own biases, talk to others about your choices, and exemplify the qualities (especially enthusiasm, open-mindedness, curiosity and candor!) that you're looking for in your team.

Collaborator Comments: Mitch Ditkoff

The results of our collaboration poll confirmed some of my pre-existing assumptions and challenged others.This may be an indication that my criteria for selecting collaborators are dramatically different, in some ways, from the respondents to our survey or it may indicate that I need to reconsider some of my criteria. The main finding of the survey that resonates with my own experience is that attitude is one of the keys to successful collaborations. Indeed, the "right" kind of attitude (to be determined, of course, by each individual collaborator) is the glue. Since collaborations are often like marriages and go through various ups and downs, it is essential that the collaborators enter into the relationship with the kind of attitude that can weather the roller coaster ride of the sometimes chaotic and challenging creative process.

It makes me think of the recent winner of baseball's World Series: The Chicago White Sox. The White Sox, by most baseball fans' assessment, probably had a better "attitude" than the NY Yankees, who had higher paid and, technically speaking, more skillful "all stars." The Yankees' attitude, however, seemed problematic all year long. Lots of squabbles, strutting, and lone wolfing. My ideal collaborator is someone whose attitude (i.e. mindset, positivity, resilience, playfulness, enthusiasm, respect for others etc.) is a contribution to the sustained effort of whatever project we're taking on together.

Another outcome of the survey that is consistent with my pre-existing assumptions is the importance respondents place on collaborators being able and willing to speak their mind and enter into difficult conversations. This is critical, I strongly believe, to mature collaborations. "Creative dissonance" is a wonderful phenomenon.. as long as the individual "dissonants" are committed to the iterative (and sometimes messy) process of "hanging in there" until resolution and/or higher ground is achieved.

The new physicists, I believe, refer to this phenomenon as the "Theory of Dissipative Structures." Meaning? Things, in the universe, tend to "fall apart" before reorganizing themselves at a higher level. Picasso described this in other words: "The act of creation is first of all an act of destruction." Skillful and committed collaborators know how to ride this wave--and eventually come out the "other side" with some kind of breakthrough, new insight, or renewed commitment.

In order for this to happen, collaborators must absolutely be willing to enter into difficult conversations and speak their truth. How they do this, of course, is key. "Speaking one's truth" is sometimes tantamount to "hitting and running" or "overpowering others with one's opinions." Done in the spirit of true collaboration, however, "conflicting conversations" have a very healthy impact on the collaboration in question.

What surprised me about the results of our survey was the relatively low importance ascribed to: 1) "My ideal collaborator is someone I immediately liked. The chemistry is good." Maybe, then again, this says more about me than anything else. I tend to be an intuitive. I follow my 'gut' about lots of things, usually with fairly good results. This is, I believe, one of the ways I select collaborators. However, the relatively low rating of this criterion by respondents gives me pause. Methinks, it might be wise for me to check in with some kind of "criteria checklist" above and beyond my gut feel. This might serve as a kind of reality check for me, especially since there have been times when I have selected collaborators based on too much of a gut feel.

What I'd like to create for myself, as a result of this collaboration poll, is a short checklist of "collaborator qualities" that I need to slow down and consider before too quickly "trusting the chemistry." Chemistry is important to me. But chemistry, I now see, can sometimes obscure a deeper look at other very important collaborator attributes as well. For example, many "single people" feel the chemistry with another on a first date. They may even follow up and create a second and third date. But this initial chemistry is not always sufficient to ensure a long-term relationship. So.. if you are like me.. and tend to rely a bit too much on initial chemistry, I recommend you create your own short list of counterbalancing "Preferred Collaborator Attributes" and actually slow down long enough to assess your potential collaborators in regard to these counterbalancing areas before committing to a collaborative relationship.

Collaborator Comments: Carolyn Allen

It has been fascinating to participate in this collaborative project about collaboration. The process itself reflected the final results. Attitude and Personality traits had an impact on the effectiveness of the collaboration. Gender also seemed to play a role in the productivity and balance of the process, with the lone woman on the team feeling the impact of differences in emphasis in line with what is pointed out in the survey.

The results of this survey showed that Attitude and Personality cornered the top 5 spots in what works well in a collaborative experience. These attributes ranked higher than Behaviors and Experience. That tells us that "soft" people skills that build community are vital to creativity and productivity. The question we must answer is how to enhance those kinds of skills in an increasingly isolating way of life.

The challenge of cooperation and collaboration are increasingly important as society splinters into more individualized options made available through the proliferation of media, the Internet, travel, mobile communications and educational specialties. The more we innovate, the more we need collaborative skills and opportunities.

As jobs and careers shift and slide, each individual carries personal thinking and group participation skills through these changes. Collaboration helps people navigate new challenges, change and membership in new communities.

Development of collaboration skills will enhance individual and team abilities to innovate and carry-through on our innovations in an environment that thrives on a balance of cooperation and competition. Collaboration within a team is essential, but collaboration as a group in a complex global environment is also a valuable survival strategy.

This research project has identified many of the top criteria used to collaborate in everyday life -- home and family, as well as business, politics and even religion. The next step is to apply this insight to collaborative opportunities and test the validity of our ideas and observations against application in the real world.

I look forward to taking that next step and hope that this study will help you in applying practical tools to your own collaborative journey of discovery.

Collaborator Comments: Tim Moore

Using just the questions ranked indispensable and very important we could write the following synopsis:

Ideal collaborators are open-minded listeners who are generally curious. They're enthusiastic, yea zealous about the topic of collaboration. Because they think differently, they bravely put forth unpopular ideas, even in difficult conversations. They are low maintenance, return calls and emails in a timely way and follow through on commitments.

Why is open-mindedness rated so highly? Simple. When everyone speaks out freely, disagreement and debate is guaranteed. Respondents want a safe space to look stupid while uttering potential heresy. They don't want to confront entrenched positions or group humiliation. The ninety-eight pound geek with the breakthrough idea might never bring it up in a room of jocks hurling sports metaphors.

Our politically sensitive need for safety is counterbalanced by our desire for others to be self-responsible and low-maintenance. People count on their colleagues to be larger than any moment of conflict that comes up. They don't want someone else's personal distress piled on top of the normal stress of staying alert, assertive and on-topic.

Google's company culture mirrors many of our survey responses. With a work force of 5000 employees, dozens of projects are underway at Google at any one time. Roughly ten percent of employee work time is allocated to dreaming up blue-sky projects. Idea mailing lists circulate freely.

Google encourages food fight-like idea moshes. Rule number one is "no idea can be called stupid or too wild." Brilliant arrogance is okay as long as someone's brashness doesn't break positive mood and momentum. Although Google encourages "useful conflict," it's not interested in brilliant people who are difficult to work with.

The Googleplex is a fast, dense development environment. Average team size per project is six people, and an average project runs about four to six weeks. If a project doesn't pass muster by then, members break up and recombine. Any six-person team expected to brainstorm, design and build a groundbreaking feature in six weeks would need a diverse but complete inventory of resources and skills. This partially explains why our survey's youngest respondents value diversity so highly.

Google's management realizes their most valuable asset is passion. They allow and encourage workers to spend 20 percent of their time on something that truly interests them, outside their main assignment. And no surprise, that's right in line with our two top survey responses. Enthusiasm ranked number one in all but one of our five age demographics. Curiosity ranked second across the board.

Our survey asked about a kind of "generic" collaboration that doesn't really exist. In the real world, collaborations change as the stages of a project unfold. There's a marked shift between the early 'soft' phases of a project - purposing, collecting and brainstorming -- and its later, execution-oriented tasks. These later 'hard' stages often call on experts and authorities who usually have set ways of doing things based on pragmatic experience and standard practice.

Since Mitch, Carolyn, Dave and I work and/or consult in the areas of innovation and creativity, our focus is on getting "outside the box" and reinventing the wheel. But many wheels don't need to be reinvented. Execution tasks that come later in a project's timeline are the prime example.

In light of this, it's remarkable that five key survey questions about a prospect's "hard skills" and "experience" got low scores:

Are we buying into a mythology that believes the narrow-band expert isn't open minded? -- can't get out of his or her box? Do we believe experienced, rules-based people are stubborn and rigid? If so, this is the equivalent of Google saying the back-end code guys can't contribute to the English copy the user reads on the front end, or that the user interface the graphics guys design has no influence on code architecture.

Most of us may believe that while a well-synapsed generalist is more "likely" to get their head above the box top, anyone can have a good idea. But the limited scope of someone's role doesn't prevent them from having a sudden insight on the shop floor that improves some part of the whole.

No project's GANTT or CPM chart can predict when insights might take place or who they will come from. New ideas can appear unexpectedly, anytime in the course of the project, not just in the "brainstorming" phase. We have to be careful the role-box we put the pragmatic specialist in is not so tight that he or she isn't welcomed as an equal partner to present new ideas and insights on the fly. It should also never matter whether someone's idea is inside or outside their area of expertise.

So the next survey might address this question: How can generalists (big idea people driven to free-associate and innovate, like Google's idea moshers) best collaborate with specialists so that each type informs and stimulates the other?

Collaborator Comments: Dave Pollard
and Conclusion: Where Do We Go From Here?

A considerable body of research, and my own observations in social environments and out in nature, suggest that we are normally, instinctively, cooperative, rather than competitive. It takes a lot of indoctrination to drive that out of us.

It is less clear whether we are instinctively collaborative, rather than inclined to work alone. Collaboration can be hard work, since it requires us to think outside our 'frames' and see things from others' perspectives. In creative work, especially, collaboration can cause conflict that goes beyond creative friction to anger and intolerance. My observations in 27 years of work in large organizations suggests that we collaborate effectively when we have to, when we know for a fact that collaboration will achieve better results than each of us working alone would accomplish. To some extent that is the message that this survey gives us: Attitude is most important, and if we believe collaboration will succeed, it will, and if we don't, regardless of our group's skill, experience, and personality, it won't.

A new wiki by Mark Elliott called MetaCollab proposes to "create a continuously developing repository of knowledge surrounding collaboration". It is focused on the collaboration processes used in many different environments. Mitch, Carolyn, Tim and I will be contributing to the wiki to continue the investigations we have begun in this report.

A recent study by Ken Thompson and Robin Good suggests that high-performance teams believe seven things: That each member of the team is accountable, trustworthy & competent, willing to give & take, honest and open, willing to share credit & responsibility for the results, and optimistic about the outcome of the project, and that their collective mission is important. This certainly resonates with our survey's findings.

The same study lays out what the authors call bioteaming rules: rules for building organizational teams based on the principles of successful collaboration in nature. The twelve rules are:

The next stage of our research will explore the process by which newly-formed collaboration teams can be most successful, the various collaboration tools available, and the various formal and informal roles that members of collaboration teams play. We hope to work with Mark, Ken, Robin and others going forward. This stage will be launched with a 'Conversation' between the four of us. You can find it on The Virtual Breakthrough Café. From there we hope to develop a set of Guiding Principles for effective collaboration -- principles that will help members and organizers form, facilitate, and enhance the effectiveness of collaborative teams.

A Conversation On The Collaboration Process

InnoWiki members Mitch Ditkoff, Carolyn Allen, Tim Moore and Dave Pollardrecently conducted an online survey to get a public assessment of the ideal qualities one would look for in a collaborator. Generally, the view of the majority, regardless of age, gender or experience, was that attitude was more important in a collaborator than talent, skill, personality or experience.

In order to make the results of this survey even more valuable to readers, we thought it would be useful to provide some insight not only into who are the best collaborators, but how one can better conduct collaborative activities. Rather than conducting another survey, we decided to tap our collective (and collaborative) experience as collaborators, and we concluded that the best way to relate this was through a conversation. So here we go. (John, our interviewer, is an imaginary creation of the four collaborators who collaboratively invented this conversation.)

John: OK, let's start off by getting our definitions straight. What exactly is a collaboration?

Tim: Collaboration seems pretty simple to me. It happens when a group of two or more decide on an outcome they want, commit to making it happen, and start moving toward it. It implies a project that they want completed, unlike cooperation and coordination, both of which feel task-focused to me. Collaborators have, if not an explicit mission or path or in mind, an understanding that the project is highly purposeful and can be finished with the talent at hand. Skills may overlap, toes may get stepped on, but the purpose and fulfillment of the work stays larger than any problem. When the mix is right, collaborators sense momentum and a kind of common destiny. That's why even informal collaborations work so well - individual inspiration meets group aspirations. In the early sixties, before the Beatles hit the top of the charts, John Lennon would cheer his mates. "Where are we going, fellas?" "To the top, Johnny!" "What top?" "To the Toppermost of the Poppermost, Johnny!" That's a summoning of purpose, a vision of a collaborative end-point.

Dave: The definition I've used is "the creation of a collective work-product by a highly responsive, interactive, iterative give-and-take process that yields something greater than what any set of individuals working alone could produce". I distinguish it from the less intensive and less interactive processes of coordination and cooperation in this article. The Beatles (including George Martin) as a team produced collective work-product like Abbey Road that no group of artists, however talented, could have produced working autonomously. That's collaboration.

Mitch: I am guessing that everyone reading this conversation has had at least one memorable collaboration in their life. With a friend, partner, spouse, teammate, co-worker, neighbor etc. In a school, on a sports team, in the the military, at work, with a religious or community group etc. Think about what made this collaboration successful and then see what you can do to bring this quality into your current relationships and projects. Fan the flames of what has already worked for you in the past. And ask yourself what new qualities you can bring to your next collaboration to make iteven more successful that your previous ones. At the simplest level, "collaboration" means to "co-labor... to labor together." What is it your care enough about to join forces with someone?

Carolyn: My working definition of collaboration is one that is also what it's NOT. It's not competition, although it exists within a natural and human compeititive system. It's more than cooperation -- it has mutual ownership, stakeholder goals, creativity and construction at its base, where cooperation might not. You can't buy or legislate collaboration, it is an organic process that grows -- or doesn't.

John: Why is it important, both in business and in society as a whole, that we learn to collaborate well?

Carolyn: We're all in this moment and place together, and collaboration is the antidote to the abuse or extreme pursuit of greed, competition and individualism. Through collaboration we actually listen to others (and act on our discoveries) as much as we listen to our own needs and desires.

Tim: In a good collaboration, everyone wins. In principle, it's easy for people to accept sharing a prize, but in practice it's hard for today's media-fed egos. We live in an era when personal triumph against all odds is ritually worshipped. We love stories like Rocky. Biographies focus almost exclusively on individuals. Inspiring as these stories of personal struggle are, I think they inadvertantly encourage a cult of rugged independence and justify chronic defiance - rock star CEO's and CFO's. Hooking into this cultural myth makes a defiant stance almost mandatory for any person trying to write their own history. Things must be against us or how will we prevail, triumph, win? Most of us dream a dream of individual glory. To buy into that story, to shape our destiny, there must - absolutely must - be villains to fight. That defiance is part of our hero culture. But sooner or later, defiant heroes have to take a job and are forced to work with others. Unfortunately, the social fabric that develops by then often feels more like herding and domestication than real collaboration. Ergo Dilbert.

Sincere collaboration is a major shift from all that. Successful collaborations sideline personal stories and focus on the unfolding of a "village project," something we're naturally wired for and have been for millenia. Businesses need to realize that people want to get socially connected in that natural way. We have a longstanding benign need to group like villagers and enjoy building something together that improves the village, in this case the world. Most people long to be part of a barn raising. This is true whether we're scientists in a lab, directors in a boardroom, or players in a band.

Dave: Exactly. It's important because we've seen that the cult of leadership, where executives and experts and external guru-consultants make solo decisions in a rarified atmosphere far from the wisdom of crowds, simply doesn't work. Collaboration is to the networked organization what leadership is to the hierarchical organization, and we are living in a world where the networked organization is replacing the hierarchical organization because it's more natural, more engaging, and more effective. And we desperately need much more effective ways of working and solving problems if we want business to regain its innovative edge and society to dig out from under the crises we're facing today.

Mitch: The whole, indeed, is much greater than the sum of the parts. Extraordinary results manifest when committed people with a compelling goal and the willingness to set aside petty ego concerns for an extended period of time, are able to join forces. 1+1 =11. "Plays well with others" (remember that?) is one marker of our youth. I wonder how our teachers would grade us today if they observed some of the ways in which we interacted (i.e played) with our peers, co-workers, spouses, and neighbors.

John: Your survey outlined the qualities to look for in a good collaborator. How can we, as individuals, get better at collaborating?

Dave: Practice; pay attention; and study great collaborations. The more collaborative activities you get involved in -- work bees, sports teams, Open Source projects, community activities, Open Space events or cross-functional business project teams working on innovation or problem-solving, for example -- the better you will get at collaborating. Pay attention to examples of collaboration in the arts, in the sciences, in public affairs, in nature -- watch jazz improv, spontaneous community collaborations after blackouts or natural disasters, or how hunting dogs corner their prey. A wonderful study in collaboration is TS Eliot's The Wasteland, the manuscript marked up with suggestions, questions and critiques by Ezra Pound and by Eliot's wife. The improvement of the result of that collaboration over the original draft is astonishing. The Human Genome Project is another collaboration worth studying. But as our survey indicated, attitude is probably more important than skill. The chemistry of the group is also very important. And some of us are just instinctively good at collaborating (women seem to have this instinct more than men, in my experience). So practice can only get you so far.

Mitch: People get better at collaborating when they realize they need to get better at collaborating (and want to) in order to achieve their goals. And while this realization is not sufficient, it is a necessary beginning. In my experience, most people do not want to really collaborate because collaboration demands the kind of intimate relationship that most people avoid. Marriages, for example, perhaps the most difficult of collaborations, fail at least 50% of the time. When one enters into a collaborative relationship, they must eventually deal with all of their "stuff": control issues, power issues, trust issues etc etc. Not a lot of fun for most of us. Also, collaboration (and its second cousin, "teamwork") demand that a person slow down, reconsider, reflect, and allow to come into expression specific courses of action they would not necessarily choose if they were "running the show" themselves. Again, not easy for most people. Ideally, a creative collaboration is NOT a compromise, but a skillful and productive dance of opposites (or, at the very least, discontinuous opinions.) Synthesis often is the result of thesis + antithesis. There is something glorious about disagreement when the disagreeing parties are committed to a "higher good." Creative dissonance can be joyful, but only if the dissonant collaborators are committed to the same, higher octave goal.

Carolyn: I would order it this way: First comes intent. Then comes practice. Then refinement. Someone created the slogan, "Ready, fire, aim." Order and action are powerful components of learning.

Tim: Like Dave said. Practice. Look for inspiration. Study, admire, bless other great, phenomenally successful collaborations. Instead of reading biographies, read stories of great ensembles, groups, projects. Study filmmaking. I grew up in a professional theater family. When I watch plays or films, I want to see great ensemble work. If three or more actors can create a truth together, that's more inspiring to me than any star's bravura solo. All performance art - music, dance, acting - requires great attention and a sense of personal truth. I've been in a lot of collaborations where two people in the group have chemistry, find an instinctive groove, and keep generating it while others add to that energy. Years ago I played guitar for a week with the Rolling Stones, in Keith Richard's spot. The connection between Jagger's foot and Watt's snare was the heart of the band's groove that week, with Keith absent. I loved falling into that chemistry. It was natural - magnetic. When any two people in a collaboration strike a spark and generate something that's natural and instinctive, every one goes - Yeah! - and falls in. It's always a joy to add something to great energy. I think that's why enthusiasm ranked number one in our survey.

John: Alright, let's talk about the collaboration process. Are there 'best practices', templates, models, or methodologies that, if used, will ensure success of a collaborative effort?

Mitch: In my experience. a successful collaborative effort requires the following: initial chemistry, genuine respect for ones' collaborators, deep listening, genuine curiosity, the time and willingness to immerse in the collaborative project, an agreed upon protocol for giving and receiving feedback, the ability to recognize breakdowns quickly and clear the air ASAP, real clarity about roles and responsibility, clear and timely communication, a collective sense of humor, a shared compelling vision, a sense of urgency, the ability to maintain focus in the midst of ambiguity and chaos, honor, follow through of commitments, and periodic opportunities to have fun together.

Carolyn: The dissection and art of collaboration does seem to be a new endeavor. Strides are being made to understand it's art and science, but it is still an alchemy of relationships. The best tools are what you have access to when you need them: intent, practice and refinement. Of course, learning from others is a collaborative coup in itself! :-)

Tim: People never look at their driving manuals after they get their license. Somehow they just roll out there and learn to get along with other 3000 pound steel objects hurtling at them. Sure, knowing the rules of the road is a prerequisite to entry. But does it ensure success? Nope. Collisions happen. Nothing's better than stepping in the ring and finding out you can handle it. I doubt there's any method that replaces being on the minority end of a consensus and having to decide in two seconds whether to push or let go.

As far as methodologies go, I think the jazz masters teach collaboration as well as anyone can. I like the '50's and 60's quartets and quintets (Miles, Cannonball, Coltrane, Herbie Hancock). Jazz players are tasty and leave space for each other. In jazz everyone has to be a master at listening and playing at the same time. And if you play a wrong note, guess what? It's only one note. Keep going. Make it sound intentional by changing what follows to make sense of it. Let the unintended dance with the intended. Ready, fire, aim.

Dave: There's a great online book that talks about "collective processes" used in intentional communities and in consensus building and dispute resolution. No rigourous processes, but a lot of practices that guide and steer a team striving towards a common goal. Most innovation processes are inherently collaborative processes as well, so some of those models of good innovation processes can serve as excellent models for collaboration as well.

In my experience, if you have the right people involved in the collaboration (which entails a good invitation process), a shared sense of urgency around an identified goal or challenge, and qualified facilitators to guide the process, you don't need a lot of structure to the process. The greatest challenges for facilitators, I think, are the learned behaviours so common in many organizations that interfere with natural collaboration.

Mitch: Well, I certainly hope the deck of cards I am creating (i.e. "Teamwork Cards") will be a useful tool, insofar as it will increase people's awareness of the nooks and crannies of deep collaboration and teamwork. I am fascinated by the Wiki technology and exploring it more and more. Good meeting facilitation skills also help.

Dave: I'm a great fan of Open Space Technology as an enabler of collaboration. It's extremely flexible and puts the emphasis on the conversations and on the emergence of understanding. For prolonged and asynchronous collaboration, tools like wikis (there's even a 'meta-wiki' specifically attempting to develop a theory of collaboration) can help to document the trail of thoughts and facilitate online 'conversations' (like this one). I also like mind-maps as a mechanism for documenting and clarifying what has been said and agreed to in real time.

Carolyn: Dave and Mitch are excellent creatives and synthesizers in this field and they have a good grasp of what's happening. I cock my ear in their direction to learn about new methods.

Tim: I don't know if this is a a tip or tool, but one thing I'm pretty adamant about is letting people be shy, awkward, strange and different. We need a collaborative framework or attitude that welcomes brilliant loners out of their solitude, yet still dignifies and supports their solitary space. That doesn't say, "Hey! Now you're wit da team. Come do the ropes course," but allows strange brilliance to come and go - from solitary trance or contemplation to group work. Ideas often get born in solitude, or in trance states while doing routine tasks. Talented people have their own kind of meditation practice - it's called immersion in their passion. They feel more content there than in social settings. So if you want to tap that brilliance, you have to tweak the social setting. Make it respectful and receptive. Too many brilliant but tender souls never approach collaboration again after being jostled by roughshod group behaviors.

I get a lot of insight reading the research on emotional and social intelligence and studying evolutionary and social psychology. Why are the social skills needed for collaboration second nature to some kids and not to others? Some of us know how to "play well" from childhood, but many still don't know how. One book I like is in Robert Selman's Making a Friend in Youth. This Harvard psychologist did clinical studies chronicling the stages of friendship between pairs of children six and up - how they reframed their conflicts over time, how their relationships evolved. Selman has contributed for twenty-five years to the body of research on social awareness, ethics, bullying and mobbing. If any company wants to attract talent and build a vital, creative culture, it needs to look seriously at these issues.

John: Can you recall your most successful collaborations to date? And what, specifically, made them so memorable?

Carolyn: My most successful collaboration is a lifelong collaborative relationship. It is so embedded in my life that I can't imagine operating without this collaboration. My collaboration team is nature. This web of survival strategies engages my every breath, every action, and every intention. Without air to breath, I couldn't give carbon dioxide back to the plants. Without birds, my beloved landscape would be a monoculture. Without water, we would all stink ;-) We survive together, thrive together, and collaborate to evolve the world's landscape, the weather and the mix of species. Personally, I love the collaboration. Collectively, we humans could learn a bit more about collaborating with this organic team.

Tim: (1) My first record album was a successful collaboration with my friend and producer Nick Jameson. I felt totally free and Nick added invaluable parts every day. Lots of fun. (2) Eleven years ago I helped found a regional multimedia coalition which brought together people in the arts, business and technology who wanted to create digital content, do internet projects, etc. Our mission was to create new synergy between people from formerly unrelated professional disciplines. Four of us put together a structure and meeting agenda and called everyone we knew. Like magic, people opened up their houses for meetings, shared their offices, computer resources and art studios. Some meetings were an hour away from others, that's how enthusiastic our group cohesion was. (3) I also founded an environmental alliance of almost 200 households to push for water conservation and to control development on our mountaintop. This was a more neighborly, village scale action group. We met regularly for two years and secured important zoning changes over that time. (4) About 15 years ago, hundreds of people in our town volunteered to construct a quarter-acre playground called wonderworks. It was a huge two weekend undertaking and the town kids still play there.

Mitch: (1) The first nine years of my business partnership with Steven McHugh? (the co-founder of Idea Champions.) We were two wild-eyed friends with a common vision, a lot of trust in each other, complementary skills, a sense of urgency, tons of creativity, a willingness to experiment and learn from our failures, and a common love of sushi. (2) My marriage to Evelyne Pouget, my wonderful wife and mother of our two kids. In some ways, Evelyne are I are very different and not likely collaborators: Catholic/Jew; Woman/Man; French/American; Gemini/Virgo, Devotee of Gurumayi/Devotee of Maharaji... but we have a common bond of love, respect, gratitude, and a common commitment to live our lives in service to the highest good. (3) My high school soccer team. We were undersized and a long shot to win even a single game, but we ended up wining the Nassau County Championship and the Good Sportsmanship Award. Why? Very little individual ego. A great coach. A genuine love and appreciation for each other. And a growing sense that we could accomplish anything we set our minds and hearts on. Plus, we had a ton of fun in the process, had some very skilled players, and enjoyed practice.

Dave: My best collaborations have been with groups where there is deep understanding of and respect for each other's strengths and weaknesses, and an equally deep trust among all the members of the group. That's been especially true in my recent innovation projects, that entail a lot of synthesis, imagination and brainstorming, and in activities in the exurban neighbourhood in Caledon, Ontario that I live in, where 34 families live and work in harmony with nature on a large protected wetland.

John: We live in the most diverse human population the world has ever known. Travel and migration have changed our culture. How can we use collaboration to improve cultural differences?

Carolyn: Multidisciplinary solutions tend to have a more lasting impact because they deal with the complexity of systems and how they thrive. Collaboration that includes a diverse membership -- gender, age, ethnicity, even organic lifeforms (in spirit and science, at least)...can all contribute to a more robust strategy.

Tim: I actually think we're growing less diverse globally, and that Westerners, especially Americans, are isolated and fragmented as individuals. If the objective is a lessening of tensions around race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender -- situations with much enmity and prejudice, there's usually only one solution: more authentic and/or playful contact between rival factions. Increase actual face to face encounters. Collaboration. Take the Middle East, for example: For years various youth programs and camps have brought Palestinian and Israeli youth together. They work side by side on common projects for most of the summer. They hang out. Once they're done, they can never go back and be around the same vengeful hostility at home.

John: This conversation has been very helpful. Any final words on the subject?

Dave: The better we get at inviting the right people to collaborations, learning the skills (notably good listening and awareness skills), and practicing, the better our collaborations will get. In fact I think we will be amazed to discover what we can do when we learn to truly collaborate, rather than just 'working together'.

Mitch: The future of our planet depends on skillful collaboration, informed by an inner awareness of its importance. By necessity (and sometimes crisis) I see people increasingly coming together to go beyond the bounds of sectarianism to accomplish great things. I invite anyone reading these words to reflect on what project of theirs would be served by skillful collaboration with others.. and then seek these people out and dive in.

Carolyn: Collaboration is the heartbeat of community. Competition is very wasteful of talents, resources and the environment. Collaboration that is inclusive, flexible and creative offers hope for a better future. It's worth our investment because we are creating our tomorrow with today's relationships, today's ideas, today's strategies.

Tim: Collaboration is about experiencing interdependence. Let me repeat those two words: Experiencing Interdependence. A self - you, me, whoever - steps into a group, and becomes a one connected to many others, collecting energy in and distributing energy back out. Like breathing. So if we dolly back, we see collaboration as a closed system with a kind of natural internal circulation. Any collaboration "methodology" that can sideline conventional social roles and stories and support the free circulation of ideas, feelings and instinctual energy is getting it right.