“Success” vs. “Results”

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Admin

We always seem to talk about success and results in tandem, as if they are intuitively tied, but whenever we do, it seems to be based on a limited understanding of success. If we have to “measure positive results” to call something successful, how do you decide on the success of something like building a community, or collaborating?

With social media, or collaboration, or innovation, we may never see success, because our view of success is too narrow. We’re looking for something that can be compared to traditional marketing, personal productivity, or process improvement – some number that shows us how much extra we made or saved. We keep trying to measure the difference between working alone and working together, between improving the old and creating the new, and we’re at a loss. This is because we keep trying to measure success according to an outdated and purely results-based model.

Consider Twitter

Or Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, the list goes on. The goal of social media is to be social: to find and engage with a community of like-minded individuals on a variety of topics that further your shared interests and goals. If the goal is reduced simply to “make friends”, then what do we call a success or a failure? The results argument says that if you have “friends”, “followers”, “subscribers”, etc. you are successful, and that the more you have, the more successful you are.

Consider a company with thousands of subscribers that use big money to buy followers: are they successful? How about compared to the person working alone who has 300 fully engaged followers who do everything they can to spread the message? The “results” would suggest the company is more successful, but what happens when the person or the company wants something from those followers? For instance, both are trying to increase engagement, so both ask a question on Twitter.

The company will probably only get a small percentage of their subscribers that actually participate. The person with 300 actively engaged followers gets 300 actively engaged participants. In terms of flat number of followers, the company wins. In terms of achieving the goal of engaged participants, the person wins. However, we usually measure response rates, click-throughs, and number of followers, because those can be compared on a balance sheet. This need to overly simplify results is risky, because when we are deciding if the project was a success or a failure, the answer changes depends on your measurement.

With collaboration, innovation, or community building projects, success or failure can’t be measured except in certain circumstances. Compared to their “old-school” counterparts, there is no measure. The success of a community only appears when they’re presented with an obstacle and overcome it because of the rapport they have built in times of ease. With innovation, success seems to happen overnight, because we ignore the failures and their “negative” results. And with collaboration, success seems impossible to measure or predict, but it’s easy to differentiate between the successes and failures.

If we reduce success to “positive results”, we create a constant uphill battle for ourselves. If we can’t measure our success, and success is based on measurement, we can never be successful. Rather than obsess about creating a way to measure collaboration results, I would argue instead for a more theoretical understanding of success as “the increased possibility of achieving your goal based on actions taken with that intention”. Any step you take that brings you closer to your goal, you accomplish something, so let’s call that success instead.

Practice makes Perfect, so Start Collaborating

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Admin

Collaboration is “working together towards a common goal”, but how do I know when and where to do that? Any situation that has a problem and a solution is a perfect opportunity to collaborate, and here’s why.

Collaboration works really well when all parties involved share the same goals, or face the same problems, and have some intrinsic motivation towards achieving or solving them. Goals and problems are motivating in and of themselves, because they create unresolved tension.

Goals present an “end point” that implies the journey or task is incomplete in some way. There’s a finish line, we’re just not there yet. Problems are the same way. When we see a problem, we instinctively look for the solution, and if we don’t see it, it sparks some inner curiosity that makes us want to find it.

Take brainstorming for example. Brainstorming inherently means people working together to solve a problem. It implies a high level of complexity, or why would it require a dedicated event with a guest list? It also seems to imply a degree of unknown-ness or newness that requires exploration by the parties involved.

Department or company projects are another great example. They create a finish line, but one that can only be reached as a team. This creates a twofold motivation. Individuals are motivated to collaborate because none of them can reach the goal alone, and the team is motivated to leverage those individual skills and assets.

This is only to say that these are great opportunities for collaboration, not that they always turn out that way. The motivation is the important part. Extrinsic motivation (compensation for achieving the goal) has to be balanced with intrinsic motivation, the latter being much more powerful.

Problems that need to be solved and goals to be reached are just such motivations, and it is in these situations that we should try to collaborate. Any situation that has a problem to be solved or a task to be completed presents an opportunity to collaborate with someone. If we start taking those opportunities every time they are presented we can become expert collaborators, meaning more collaboration in more situations. Practice makes perfect!

Social Media begets Collaboration

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Admin

First, check out this Harvard Business Review article by John Seely Brown: Social Media Will Play a Crucial Role in the Reinvention of Business. Then, consider his arguments with a view to collaboration.

His basic point is that social media not only allows for, but promotes innovation by its very use. John claims that innovation, or any new idea really, comes from the outside in, because core competencies are foundational to the organization and are usually too stable to change. So his point then is that when we look for a new idea, we will have more luck if we search outside the organization.

Here’s where collaboration comes in. Social media allows for interaction between the “edges” and the internal workings of an organization, as well as between the organization and its environment. These points of contact allow for ideas to reach right into the centre of the organization and jump-start revolutionary changes. Social media increases these points of contact to the degree that newer, better ideas are constantly being shared and developed because you get more people volunteering ideas and more people vetting those ideas and therefore, more “good” ideas overall.

The informality of social media is its other huge asset. Because social media allows for such consistent interactions, pitching an idea, sharing your opinion and gathering support have been de-formalized. The consistency just makes it feel like a virtual conversation with a group of friends. Therefore, it’s much more likely that an idea makes it out of your head and into a discussion. Social media creates a perfect environment for like-minded people to meet and interact, share and develop their ideas, and find support for achieving their shared goals. Our interactions on Twitter start to sound like THE definition of collaboration.

Why should I care?

The ubiquitous nature of social media means it has stepped in as the primary opportunity for daily collaboration. Basically, if you’re not on some social media platform, you’re betting against the odds for finding collaborators. With the number of people using social media, and the nature of the beast, it presents itself as the ideal resource to meet a growing interest in, and need for, collaboration. Not only that, the way we use these social tools is a sign that our perspective on the value of collaboration has changed. Collaboration can be, and usually is, viewed as a tool to minimize a drain on resources. Instead, collaboration in social media is a resource in itself – one that allows us to move from sharing work-loads to creating shared value.

Sharing and Collaboration

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Admin

The following is a guest post written for Kingbridge Conference Centre by Ryan Jaques.

As some of you may know, today is the first ever Global Sharing Day – a day dedicated to promoting and participating in the sharing economy. Sharing plays a pivotal role in most parts of collaboration, because in one way or another, it is how we connect with our fellow collaborators.

Stories and Dreams

It starts by sharing your story or your dream. You have some goal you want to accomplish, but all you have right now is that goal, that idea. So you start sharing that idea or that story with a few friends, and maybe they get on board. Then maybe your friends start telling their friends, and their friends. Maybe you get into social media and start sharing your story with the whole rest of the world. Maybe it turns into a global movement because it turns out that dream you shared with a few friends is shared by more than just your few friends. Sharing your dream with your team mates can help them understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, and having a common goal is invaluable for keeping a team working together.

If you want to see the power of sharing your dreams, take a look at the meteoric rise of the “Movember” movement in the last 10 years (bottom of the linked page) – from 30 members in it’s first year to almost a million world-wide.

Ideas and Plans

Chances are, your story or your dream is built on “Why?”, not “How?”. Most likely, the plan is to “create a global movement”, not to “create a movement by ________”. This is a good thing, though: if Simon Sinek tells us anything, it’s that people buy on why. The downside is that “why” rarely leaves room for “how” and “creating a global movement” isn’t really an action plan. All those friends you shared your goal with though, they have lots of ideas, and now they’re committed to the cause because they share your goal. When you have a team of people sharing their ideas for how to make your shared dream a reality, it’s a lot easier to go out and make it happen.

Resources and Expertise

The sharing of resources is the single greatest benefit of collaboration. It’s amazing what people have to offer when they’re given a chance to share, both resources and responsibilities. What I mean by that is, many problems are too complex to be solved by one “expert” – bits and pieces of the problem pull them outside of their expertise into a field of guess work. In this field, they are ineffective and not only that, they become ineffective as experts because they can’t focus. If there was a “bits and pieces” expert who knew exactly how to deal with those remainders, what a perfect partnership. Narrow expertise will still have its place, and not only that, each expert now has the time to dedicate their full attention to their section of the problem. Each person taking on their respective piece of the puzzle makes it easier for everyone else to do the same, breaking a complex problem into bite-sized brain teasers.

Creative Collaboration: What does it take?

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Admin

Creative collaboration is doubly complex because the “common” goal we are working towards isn’t even known yet. We’re working together to come up with something entirely new, so it’s impossible to “know” what the outcome will be before we start. Therefore, we should try to find a replicable method that can help stack the odds in our favour.

By looking at examples of collaboration successes and failures, we should see common factors among each. Unfortunately, with the sheer number of factors that could affect collaboration, this will be like a giant game of “Where’s Waldo?” – there will be many possible answers, some more accurate than others, but we will have to wade through a certain amount of irrelevance. Fortunately, like Waldo, successful creative collaborations do seem to have a few trademark characteristics.

Leadership

It may seem counter-intuitive, but there has to be a defined leader who’s job it is to run the collaboration. This can be a facilitator, truly outside the group, or an elected member of the group who’s specific job it will be to make sure the agreed-upon rules are followed.

Rules

Rules are key. Everyone must have a chance to speak, but no one can be allowed to pontificate. Personalities can be given a chance to shine, that’s why they’ve been invited to the collaboration, but they can’t be allowed to dominate. New ideas can and should be fielded, within reason.

Diversity

If a group is too similar, you can get groupthink, if they’re too diverse, the lack of common ground might inhibit progress. It has to be a combination of expertise on the subject matter, and “curve-ball” participants, whose specific role is to think differently.

Discomfort

Last but not least, a little discomfort goes a long way. When people know what to expect, they shut down their creative brain. If you can keep people slightly off-balance, they don’t know what to expect, and will be more open to the “unexpected”, allowing them to think more creatively.

Some proponents of collaboration might disagree, claiming that boundaries will infringe on the creative abilities of the group, but it is these boundaries that seem to be the most important components of creative collaboration. Without keeping the process “reigned in”, it can quickly spiral out of control. So while it may seem counter-intuitive to have someone “lead” the collaboration according to a “set of rules”, without boundaries we end up with the tennis match from last week.

Collaboration 101: A New Look at the Definition of Collaboration

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Admin

Cooperative vs. Non-Cooperative Play Illustration by: Tracy Ma

Collaborate: to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.

We know what it’s supposed to mean, but what is collaboration? With a myriad of definitions and uses, the word appears in many contexts, and often with different interpretations. With elements of competition, co-operation, and compromise, we can see how subtle collaborations throughout our days make it possible to achieve our goals. To learn about collaboration, then, it seems much more valuable to seek out and learn from stories and examples of collaboration in daily human interaction. With so many situations that require, or at least enable collaboration, it seems plausible that we already have the skills and just need practice adapting those skills to different situations.

We can learn by studying examples of effective and ineffective collaboration, and seeing what works and what does’t. For example, simply by driving in traffic we are practicing collaborating. Equal parts competition and compromise, the concept of “right-of-way” is a structure that enables collaboration, and defines how everyone participating will interact with each other. In sports, the combination of co-operation and compromise make the game possible. Although we are competing against the other team, we also have to agree with our competitors to play by the same rules. Non-cooperative play results in nobody being able to play, as shown in the image above.

As the activity gets more complex, there is a more complex form of collaboration. Our traffic system, our healthcare system, our education system, even our business “system” exist as collaborative entities. The moon landing would not have been possible without a massively complex collaboration. Neither would a cure for smallpox. These systems are dependent on collaboration: intuitive, subconscious, or otherwise. If subtle, almost unconscious collaboration prevents total chaos in seemingly every group activity, then conscious, grand-scale collaboration is an incredibly valuable tool just waiting to be harnessed.

We seek to untangle and understand collaboration by sharing and learning from these stories, to find a way to harness the power of our collective intelligence and commitment, and so, we ask for your help. If we can practice and perfect our collaboration skills, we can solve more complex problems in increasingly innovative ways. If you have a story, an example, or even a question about collaboration, please share it. The more people participating, the more powerful the collaboration can be, so add your voice and your insights.

Kingbridge Conference Centre and Institute

Open Minds and Expand Thinking "The paradox of real collaboration is that it is not about getting the best minds together – it's about creating a New Mind Set."

Category Archives: Collaboration