People talk about the need to collaborate, but it can be an over-used term and, as a result, some people may actually avoid it. Many people think that any time they're working together toward a common goal, they're collaborating. In my 25 plus years of work life, the situations that kept me up at night were when I was “collaborating” with others without enough clarity regarding what that meant. There are many ‘collaboration’ tools, including social media channels, expensive collaboration management systems on shared world-wide platforms, or less-expensive cloud-hosted systems. But, do the people in your organization really know what it means to collaborate for results? Would they be successful in collaborating if they were simply sitting around a table together working on a problem?

The fact is, there are many ways to make decisions and work on projects. Sometimes it is totally appropriate for one person to make a decision without involving others. Other times, collaboration is more appropriate because the initiative is going to have wide-spread impacts and affect people across the organization or beyond. The key is for leaders to be transparent regarding how the project will be executed – who owns it and how decisions will be made. And, if it is a collaborative effort, it is essential that communications outline a solid framework for both how people will work together and what their roles will be.

In a ‘model’ company, you would see collaboration modelled from the top down and this would help you get a sense of what is expected of you. Executives would be transparent about decision making, open about what they do or don’t know, and inclusive in asking employees for additional ideas. In many organizations, however, this type of behaviour would be a HUGE culture shift. It is not uncommon to find people at all levels in organizations working independently and actually, unintentionally, hoarding information or resources. Some people may be unaware of what others are working on. Others may be naturally introverted and uncomfortable building relationships across the organization. And still others may just have no idea where to begin to collaborate.

To be effective at collaborating, you need to believe that tapping into the creative juices of others will lead to better results than you could achieve on your own – and that people with different perspectives can provide you with great insights. But what if collaborating doesn’t come naturally to you? What if you don’t have role models for it in your organization? The following coaching problem is about just that – a manager who isn’t a natural collaborator, but who has been told during a performance review to be more collaborative. How do you coach this?

This month’s problem to solve together:
A research manager in a mid-sized pharmaceutical company asked for some coaching help. She is a shy, independent person who enjoys solving problems. While she has a small team of three reporting to her, she focuses primarily on providing technical direction and on being a technical resource to her team. She feels most energized when she is working on her own analyzing data. She knows that her team looks to her as a technical leader/mentor, and she does bring her team together to collaborate. But her boss told her at a recent performance review that she needs to be better at collaborating with directors in other business units. After the meeting with her boss, she thought about this, but realized that she didn’t have any idea how to get started in being more collaborative.

My suggested coaching questions to initiate the conversation with the manager:
•       Does your company have guidelines/processes/definitions for collaboration? Did your boss tell you what he/she means by collaboration?
•       Are there other managers in your company who you would like to learn from – who have skills and experiences different from yours?
•       Is there a leader or senior executive in the company who collaborates well, who you see as a role model? If so, what do you see them doing to collaborate with other executives or with others at all levels in the company?

Leadership coaching exchange:
Tell us how you would handle this coaching situation and, in our mid-month blog, we will post different thoughts/ideas from our readers as part of this Coaching with Character Exchange. Your coaching suggestions (if posted) will be transcribed verbatim, but your name or organization will never be shared without your permission.

Do you have a coaching problem you’d like us to share in an upcoming blog? Contact Kathleen Redmond and tell her about it.