The Role of Collaboration in Organizations
Collaboration
The Role of Collaboration in Organizations
'More than 97 percent of senior leaders believed collaboration is significant to success. However, only 30 percent of respondents and 47 percent of senior leaders believed leaders in their club are undoubtedly skilled in collaboration. Results indicate leaders must learn to work across boundaries to collaborate effectively in the advent years.' (Centre for Creative Leadership, 2007)
Collaboration is a process of participation straight through which people, groups and organizations work together to achieve desired results. Base factors and characteristics have been identified by research as influencing the collaborative process, together with the skills of leadership, communication, sustainability, unity, participation, and a history of successful accomplishments (Hogue, et al, 1995; Keith et.al, 1993). Borden (1997) has identified four factors: internal communication, external communication, membership, and goal setting.
Borden & Perkins (1999) identified and defined the following factors in the amelioration of a simple self appraisal tool. This tool can be used by groups to stimulate argument after self rating the collaborative effort for each key area. It can also provide an summary of the key factors significant for success in a collaborative project.
• communication - clear and open with an established process.
• Sustainability - there is a plan for sustaining participation and resources throughout the scheme together with guidelines in regards to the replacement of members.
• research and appraisal - a needs appraisal has been conducted, goals are clear and there are determination processes in place to accumulate data and reveal those goals.
• Political climate - there exists distinct history and environment surrounding power and decision making. Political climate may be within the group as a whole, systems within the group or networks of people;
• Resources - there is way to the required resources. Resources refer to four types of capital: environmental, in-kind, financial, and human;
• Catalysts - the collaboration was commenced due to the existence of problem(s) or the reason(s) for collaboration to exist required a thorough approach;
• Policies/Laws/Regulations - the collaboration can function effectively under the existing policies, laws, and/or regulations or these can be altered or created
• History - the group has a history of working cooperatively and solving problems;
• Connectedness - members are related and have established informal and formal communication networks at all levels;
• Leadership - there are leaders who promote, facilitates and hold team building, and who can capitalise on diversity and individual, group and organizational strengths;
• Group amelioration - this collaboration was mobilized to address leading issues. There is a communication law and formal data channels that permit the exploration of issues, goals and objectives; and,
• comprehension Stakeholders - the collaboration understands the stakeholders, together with the people, cultures, values and habits.
Using the factors outlined above as a focus of argument may sacrifice fragmentation within the group and move group conversation from generic argument to focused dialogue leading to sound decision making, and action. Open and honest communication within the group can growth group effectiveness and commitment. It also assists with viewing issues and problems in a holistic manner. Open and honest communication within the collaboration and with stakeholders is significant to success.
Another key area to be addressed is the setting of direction and focus for the collaboration. Ensuring a clear and understood direction and focus in the middle of all parties for a collaboration defines the purpose of the collaboration as what its members seek to create. Setting the direction and focus begins with establishing the vision, mission, values, and principles. Defining the outcome(s) added establishes identity and fundamental purpose. Activities also need to be aggregated to provide value to the collaborative group and to stakeholders. Complicated activities with similar focuses can confuse. Task/role clarity can originate greater involvement, dialogue and understanding. Applying the range of factors above to the processes and contexts of the collaboration results in a greater shared comprehension of what the collaboration stands for, where it's going, the internal and external environment, and how it intends to make its outcomes a reality.
Collaboration as a Continuum Collaboration often means separate things to separate people, it is beneficial to think about collaboration as a continuum. Parties may consider themselves in relationships that vary from lower-intensity exchanges, in which the groups are more independent, to higher-intensity relationships, in which they are more interdependent. In one model (Kaplan, 1991), these differences in intensity are reflected in four Base terms: networking, cooperation, coordination, and collaboration.
Networking Cooperation Coordination Collaboration Lower-intensity' Higher-intensity Independence' Interdependence
1. Networking Organizations have a networking relationship when they replacement data in order to help each club do a great job.
2. Coordination Organizations have a coordinating relationship when they modify their activities so that together, they provide great services to their constituents.
3. Cooperation When organizations cooperate, they not only share data and make adjustments in their services - they share resources to help each other do a great job.
4. Collaboration In a collaborative relationship, organizations help each other advance or enhance their capacities to do their jobs. (Axner, 2007)
Trust and Collaboration The amelioration of trust in nurturing collaborative relationships is a vital skill for leaders (Tschannen-Moran, 2001). Trust is built on perception and history. How our motives and activities are perceived determines if others will trust us. If we trust, we share. If not, we don't. How other's comprehend us is their reality -outside of our own motives. If we are perceived as promoting our own schedule or trying to originate our own "empire", others are reluctant to come to be complex and to share. This applies to organizations and individuals.
Affect- based trust are feelings of emotional involvement and sincere caring for each others welfare. Cognition-based trust is the belief that others are competent and responsible. Both of these forms of trust are the foundations for collaboration in organisations (McAllister, 1995). Interpersonal trust is also viewed as a key to facilitating and enabling coordinated social interactions (Coleman, 1988).
Learning to Lead Collaboration citizen can tend not to collaborate, this may be caused by issues of understanding, time, our work environments or politics. Collaboration is a relatively new concept and is unfamiliar to many people. We were taught in school to compete and that the world is survival of the fittest. Collaboration can seem to run contrary to what we were taught to do and be. If citizen are used to seeing knowledge as a scarce reserved supply (and straight through proprietary of knowledge it can originate increased power for the private or group) citizen may be less inclined to engage in open idea replacement and collaboration.
Innovation needs to occur in an environment of experimentation. However, if innovative ideas are to be effective, they need some buildings to allow for consistency. The environment should nurture both innovation and standardization.
Politics and bureaucracy also need to be addressed and understood within the organisational context and the context of the collaborative effort. Good ideas aren't all the time the ones that are implemented. Ideas that are related to the right citizen in the right positions can often gain acceptance speedily and easily. Who has power? influence on key decisions sometimes rests covering of formal processes. Sometimes, citizen on the "outside" have a profound impact on key decision makers. Ignoring other stakeholders can sink new ideas and innovations.
Tools for Collaboration The It business has recognised that collaboration and social networking is the way of the hereafter and there is a strong move to originate products which seek to enhance productivity by virtualizing communications and enterprise processes. citizen and organisations are seeing at ways to associate with each other virtually and Web 2.0 products are being designed to fill those needs. However we already have easy way to tools such as video and tele conferencing, chat, bulletin boards and email - simple tools which enable groups to communicate. Many tools are facilely available as open source software or at low cost manufacture them accessible to all sectors. There are also more advanced products such as accumulate instant messaging, screen sharing and other groupware tools. These types of tools enable geographically dispersed teams to come together for virtual meetings allowing for time and cost savings, less travel, and improved communications flow.
Conclusion Trust, collaboration, sharing, free time of ideas, are expressions of belief systems and culture. When we debate the role of collaboration in an organization, we are debating our views of how the organisation as a whole should be organized, power distributed, diversity allowed, and decisions made. Collaboration reflects a point of view: that by working together partners, formal or informal, can bring separate perspectives to bear to solve a qoute and bring about change. In order for collaboration to occur successfully within an organisation there needs to be a supportive culture and work environment, encouragement from senior managers and a rewards law which reflects the importance of collaborative practices. For collaboration to be successful in the middle of organisations there must be clarity, direction and dialogue.
Resources For more data about collaborative software go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_software
References
Axner, M. 2007, Promoting Coordination, Cooperative Agreements, and Collaborative Agreements Among Agencies. The community Toolbox accessed 17/12/07 at [http://ctb.ku.edu/tools/en/sub_section_main_1229.htm]
Borden, L. M. 1997, community collaboration: When the whole is greater than the sum of parts. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. (Quoted in Borden & Perkins, 1999)
Borden, L.M & Perkins, D.F. 1999, Assessing Your Collaboration: A Self appraisal Tool. Journal of Extension, accessed 17/12/07 at http://www.joe.org/joe/1999april/tt1.html
Centre for Creative Leadership, 2007, What's Next? The 2007 Changing Nature of Leadership Survey, accessed 17/12/07 at http://www.ccl.org/leadership/pdf/research/WhatsNext.pdf
Coleman, J.S. 1988, social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology 94 (Supplement). 95-120.
Hogue, T. Perkins, D. Clark, R. Bergstrum, A. Slinski, M. & Associates, 1995, Collaboration framework: Addressing community capacity. Columbus, Oh: National Network for Collaboration.
Kagan, S. L. 1991, United we stand: Collaboration for childcare and early education services. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1-3.
Keith, J. G., Perkins, D. F., Zhou, Z., Clifford, M. C., Gilmore, B., & Townsend, M. Z. 1993, building and maintaining community coalitions on profit of children, youth and families. Michigan Agricultural Experiment center research report (529). East Lansing, Mi: invent for Children, Youth, and Families.
McAllister, D.J. 1995, influence and cognition - based trust as foundations for interpersonal cooperation in organisations. Journal of Occupational and Organisational psychology Journal, 38: 24-59
Tschannen-Moran, M. 2001, Collaboration and the need for trust, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 39 Iss. 4.
share the Facebook Twitter Like Tweet. Can you share The Role of Collaboration in Organizations.
No comments:
Post a Comment