Teaching Collaboration - Something that Should Be Learned If It Hasn’t Been

Editor’s Note: James M. Baehr will be giving a related presentation at the ISM Annual Conference in Nashville, on behalf of Sourcing Strategies Group LLC

So, what really is collaboration?

Start researching collaboration on the internet and you'll be overwhelmed with the information available. The materials cover everything from Emotional Intelligence (EQ) – the ability to identify and manage your emotions and the emotions of others; to collaborative leadership - engaging the collective intelligence to drive results across organizational boundaries; and, collaborative technologies - the hardware and software used to simplify communication and information sharing across the organization. With all this information you might believe that collaboration is easy.

Yet, we know it's not.

All these forces being in play can lead to some questions, such as: Should collaboration be a Supply Management priority? Yes - Supply Management leaders consistently cite collaboration as a “must do”. Are the benefits of collaboration overstated? Probably not, but collaboration is often misunderstood, misrepresented and misappropriated. Is collaboration inherent? Yes - some individuals have traits like empathy, curiosity, adaptivity, trust, etc. that predispose them to collaborate. Can collaboration be learned? Yes - given the opportunity and commitment.

Can collaboration be taught? Yes, the basics can be taught so that they're recognized and understood. But, as with most learning, collaboration is more likely a competency acquired through experience.

Too many times the words coordination, cooperation, and collaboration are used interchangeably. Most people see them as synonymous and simply some form of teamwork. We believe that just by assembling and launching a team we'll see results. Maybe not always, but most of the time. Putting this in the context of Supply Management let's say these teams are Strategic Sourcing Teams. They're cross-functional by design and in structure. And, at least for this article, let's suspend the belief that Strategic Sourcing is dead (because it isn't.)

Before going further, we need to define the differences across coordination, cooperation and collaboration. Cooperation is when two or more people work together and provide some form of assistance to one another. In cooperating each person has an individual assignment or a role. There isn't necessarily a shared goal. Coordination is the next level. It's about sharing information or resources across a group of people working together to achieve a common goal.

Collaboration is more intricate. It's a process to reach a goal when that goal can't be achieved by one person. It includes: jointly developing and agreeing on a common goal as well as the directions for getting there; the group collectively shares responsibility for reaching the goal; and, together they use their expertise, experience and resources to achieve the goal. A Strategic Sourcing Team is a good example because it's expected to collaborate, and must collaborate, to succeed.

Back to the question - can you teach collaboration? Yes, but sadly, many companies don't even teach teamwork. One of the reasons for not doing so is there's a conviction that emerging professionals are coming to the job having been trained in teamwork at the secondary and undergraduate levels. But, what about the established professionals? Most emerging professionals have been schooled using collaborative learning techniques - working together to reach a goal. Most established professionals were schooled using cooperative learning techniques - being part of a group but essentially working independently. Maybe this is one of those factors in the intergenerational differences we hear so much about.

For a senior Procurement executive, collaboration can have multiple definitions. It can be about stakeholder relationship management - how do we best work with internal customers and external suppliers? It can also be about Knowledge Management (KM) which is effectively the transferring of know what and know how across emerging and established professionals to capture, distribute, effectively use and sustain the “smarts” of the organization. The question should change from can you teach collaboration to how do we teach collaboration and when do we start?

The best way to start is to find opportunities that can be assigned to a cross-functional team - a Strategic Sourcing initiative. Select the team members and then have them trained in teamwork and the related sourcing concepts. Launch the initiative and ensure that someone is available to coach or advise the team. This sets in motion the prospect for building relationships and collaborative learning.

Not everyone is going to have the same level of skill, but they can share the same level of experience. Success depends on:

• the commitment to work together - collaboration requires emotional engagement
• respect for another's aptitude - their collaboration skills, their technical knowledge, their process expertise and/or their experience
• having the trust and confidence to interact with each other to work through differences of opinion

Building collaborative capacity is achieved when the results of the team's efforts are greater than what can be delivered by an individual. Teams that demonstrate they have the skills to effectively collaborate will typically outperform those that don't.

It can be argued the most important and most obvious benefits of Strategic Sourcing come from cost reduction. Nonetheless, there's a lot to be said for the value realized through improvement, innovation, relationship building and essential skills development. Professionals progress both personally and collectively, when they work toward a common goal - and deliver a solution to a specific business problem. They're accountable to one another.

With appropriate direction at the outset, they'll self-manage. They'll develop new skills or boost those they already have. They'll learn from each other to become better at what they do collectively. People are the essence of collaboration. It's ultimately people that collaborate. Most importantly - collaboration can be learned.

And, for the Supply Management Executives who must make the investment in collaborative learning, consider this thought from Professor David A. Garvin of the Harvard Business School - “If the rate of learning is not greater than the rate of change, you'll fail.”

SC
MR