How Caring Leaders Nurture And Grow Collaboration

Collaboration is much more than people working together

Caring leaders know that they can’t bark a drill sergeant’s “Collaborate now!” command. Rather, cultivating collaboration requires a mindset similar to a master gardener committed to blending the right soils, planting the right seeds, and nourishing growth.
 

First, they foster a commitment to collaboration. For some people, committing to collaboration is as natural as cooperating on family chores. For other people, collaborative opportunities resemble a dysfunctional family outing. For some hyper-competitive people, collaborative opportunities dissipate because their egos will not allow others to win. Professor Morten Hansen of INSEAD studied the challenge of collaboration and noted that these “lone stars” deliver on their numbers “big-time” but their “behaviors run counter to the teamwork that the firm is trying to install.”

Second, they ensure they have the right structural elements—or the right soil and seeds to cultivate growth. Structural elements include making sure the right people are in the room, securing proper meeting spaces, and creating compelling agendas.

Third, they build and use the right skills. Active listening and empathy are a must, but so are question-asking skills. Caring leaders ask the right questions at the right time and avoid the desire to fill silence at the wrong time.

Caring leaders recognize that all three building blocks are necessary and self-reinforcing. For example, leaders with excellent collaborative skills but without the right people in the room will become frustrated with the results. Likewise, assembling the right people, who are not skilled, will be equally infuriating. Integrating these building blocks requires both the visible and subtle strategies discussed next.

Visible Practices for Collaboration

These visible strategies emerged from our observations and experiences about how to synergize the core building blocks of commitment, structure, and skill:

1. Make sure the right people are in the room and participating at the expected level. Most collaborative opportunities occur during meetings of various types.

2. Use personal instruction manuals to jump-start collaboration in newly formed groups. When you buy a new product, you receive an operating manual with a list of dos and don’ts. Why aren’t people equipped with a similar manual? A personal instruction manual can fill this gap.  

3. Assess meeting mechanics. Are meeting facilitators sending out agendas before meetings? Providing information before meetings? Sharing meeting summaries? Routinely evaluating the effectiveness of the meeting? These questions represent the top complaints in many organizations.  

4. Co-develop meeting ground rules with the team. Collaborative dynamics are acutely sensitive to the media used for communication—a successful TV advertisement may not play well in print or social media.

In the long run, caring leaders will be respected for their collaborative approach to problem-solving, even if they’re not successful in every case. They will also be appreciated for their decisiveness when collaborations fail. Collaboration is much more than people working together; it is building a sense of community with a group of people who respect and trust one another. They support each other and are able to disagree while finding a path forward. They recognize that, together, they find better solutions than anyone individually.

Author Bio

	Bob DeKoch has over 40 years of executive leadership experience, which included 20 years leading The Boldt Company, a $1 billion construction services and real estate development company. Bob is currently the President of his own leadership consulting firm, Limitless. Connect BobDeKoch
	Phil Clampitt is an award-winning communication and information science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and has over 40 years of experience in university teaching, ground-breaking research, and business consulting. Connect Phil Clampitt They are co-authors of Leading with Care in a Tough World: Beyond Servant Leadership