Today, companies are recognizing that effective collaboration is critical to future business success. Many think that if they just buy collaboration technology, they will become collaborative companies. But, that's not true. Business companies need to develop their collaborative capabilities before implementing collaboration tools.
If companies want to build collaboration, they need to see beyond activity streams at getting the basics right. Here are the five principles for effective collaboration that companies should follow:
1. Focus on Achieving Business Results: Collaboration should focus on where it can have the biggest impact on achieving business results. These are those parts of the business where decisions are complex and those decisions have far-reaching results. Collaboration should not be forced into every discussion, decision and dialogue if it is not warranted to get the desired results.
2. Collaboration is a Capability: This means that it is a complementary combination of processes, systems, business rules, data flows, staff responsibilities, organizational roles, etc. When you bring the right combination of these components together, only then a company create the ability to collaborate. If you want collaboration is to increase, when you increase each of the components, increase each of the others accordingly.
3. Manage Complex Trade-offs: Collaboration is not always about moving towards one universally best solution. Still, sometimes complex trade-offs need to be made. And for that, you require empowered and informed decision makers. The collaboration provides the tools for the right decision maker to get the right information at the right time.
4. Promote High Standards for Discussion, Dialogue and Information Sharing: Staff should be encouraged to adopt the highest standards of dialogue, discussion and information sharing with other staff members. These are life skills that will help staff at home as well as at work.
5. Promote Personal Accountability: Collaboration only works when individuals within the company act collaboratively. Therefore, it should be the responsibility of each individual to support collaborative working wherever it is appropriate. In a company, if individuals act collaboratively then work teams will also act collaboratively. And if work teams act collaboratively, organizations will automatically become more collaborative and achieve better business results.
In the starting, we mentioned that buying collaboration technology won’t automatically make a company collaborative. But, this doesn't mean that technology doesn't have a role to play in effective collaboration. Technology enables discussions between people all over the world, opens dialogue among communities of interest and fosters real-time information sharing.
