Category Archives: Collaboration

Robot Collaboration

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You are probably wondering how we could possibly program robots to collaborate when most of us have such a difficult time doing it effectively ourselves!  Well MIT researchers have recently discovered that it is quite a challenge indeed. (“Helping Robots Collaborate”, Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence News, February 14, 2014)

Currently researchers are working on applying a combination of robotic control programs to enable groups of robots to collaborate.  The most recent tests of this complex system have included a simulation of a warehousing application where teams of robots are required to retrieve arbitrary objects from indeterminate locations, collaborating as needed to transport heavy loads.  It sounds simple enough right?  Well, as with any collaboration communication has proven to be one of the primary issues.  There are far too many variables involved to program a detailed set of communication conditions – similar to communications in any work environment.  And similar to human work environments and modes of communication the greatest success in this venture for robotic collaboration has come when the robots are given the tools and freedom to ‘decide’ how best to communicate and accomplish what they need – like a self organizing team.  Each robot has a series of coloured lights to use for communication when their direct relay systems are slow or out of order.  Originally, the programmers were attempting to create a specific light response for any situation/communication need that may arise, which of course proved impossible given the infinite number of variables and qualifiers involved in a group collaboration.  What has provided some success is programming the robots to identify the coloured lights as a method of communication and allow the artificial intelligence algorithm determine whether use of the lights is necessary and what the colours mean.

The Kingbridge Insight this week is an extrapolation of the lessons this robotic experiment has to offer while attempting to program collaboration behaviour.

Traditionally, organizations work in a hierarchy, where actions and behaviours are determined by a superior officer.  Even though many organizations have taken some steps towards creating ‘bottom up’ environments the underlying structure for the most part remains the same. In this experiment however, the most successful collaborations resulted from self organization and the absence of command and control.

What conclusion would you draw from this about the conditions required for successful collaborations?

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The Dominance Problem

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Another classic problem of most meetings is the dominance problem.  A few people intimidate others.  As a meeting organizer or leader how can you mitigate the negative effects these people can have on potential collaborations?

Sometimes a few loud individuals can dominate your meetings.  And that can lead to quiet people (e.g. introverts) not sharing their best ideas.  There are lots of ways to manage this psychological dynamic between the louder and quieter people in your meetings.  But one such technique is called the Nominal Group Technique (NGT), an alternative to traditional brainstorming.  NGT prevents the domination of discussion by a single person, encourages the more passive group members to participate, and results in a set of prioritized solutions or recommendations.

Let’s say your team is trying to make a decision, for example; imagine you’re trying to decide whether to bring your proposal to the CEO now or wait until after the Board meeting.  Now, this is a classic situation where a few louder voices could steamroll the rest of the group.

So, as the team leader, what you do is ask everyone to write down their opinion on a sheet of paper. Then you collect those papers and record the opinions on a white board or flip chart and vote. This forces team members who wouldn’t have otherwise spoken up to voice their opinions.  It also minimizes the effect of group members who would otherwise dominate the conversation.  And yet, everyone still has input, and you get all of the best possible ideas.

You, as team leader, can control each of the member’s voices.  You can control their input, the flow, and the tone of it.
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Another benefit of the nominal group technique is that it reduces Groupthink because it encourages independent thinking – people don’t get swayed by listening to everyone else’s arguments.

An alternative to the manual recording method for Nominal Group Technique is to utilize a collaborative technology tool such as an audience response application like Turning Point or one of the many smartphone applications or a decision support application like Think Tank.

The Kingbridge Insight this week is to encourage you as a leader, whether of a group or an entire organization to continuously try new techniques for group engagement  – the results will speak for themselves.  Also, and perhaps more importantly, ask for help if you need it! Consult a professional management consultant or if you are in the Greater Toronto Area give us a call and we can connect you with one of our trusted advisers.  There are resources out there to help you reach your goals – tap into them!

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John Abele: Medical Devices to Conference Centre – The Connection

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John Abele, co-founder of Boston Scientific spent the better part of 4 decades pioneering the field of less invasive medicine.  With the undeniable success of Boston Scientific John has since pursued philanthropic endeavors including promoting science literacy for children and projects in social innovation.  John also purchased The Kingbridge Conference Centre & Institute in Ontario, Canada.

So, why a conference centre?  It seems an unlikely progression, medical devices to meetings, but for John the link is clear.  The current edition of Briefings Magazine published by The Korn/Ferry Institute features an article by accomplished author Glenn Rifkin exploring this very connection –  “Growth Through Collaboration: John Abele’s Vision”.

The article highlights how after years of working to convince often ego driven medical professionals and a bureaucratic medical industry to make change and ‘try something new’ that the key to success was collaborative approaches featuring innovative meeting techniques.  One of the most notable outcomes of these efforts is the still widely used Live Demonstration Course.

(Full article here)

In the following video John summarizes in his own words his vision for The Kingbridge Conference Centre & Institute and it’s roots in his experience with Boston Scientific.

Why Purchase a Conference Centre? from Kingbridge Conference Centre on Vimeo.

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Debate to Collaborate!

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This week at The Kingbridge Centre we have the pleasure of housing the 2013 International Independent Schools’ Public Speaking Championship (IISPC) hosted by The Country Day School here in King City, Ontario.

Students from across the globe ranging in age from 14 to 18 have gathered to compete in this intellectual competition with their peers for the opportunity to move on to the World Championship competition in Lithuania next year.

These teens present up to 12 minute memorized speeches (wow!) and debate some very sophisticated topics including long term care shortages and government policy.  One of the most amazing things was observing the skill with which these students considered and responded to opposition, questions were addressed and rebuked with both respect and tact.  Skills that are absolutely necessary for successful collaboration in business and beyond but that are often lacking.

In our global economy, the ability to effectively collaborate is quickly moving from a specialized skill for facilitators and moderators to a necessity for all.  It is programs like IISPC and FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science & Technology) that teach youth the ‘soft’ skills beyond the core curriculum of reading, writing and mathematics that will prepare students to be effective collaborators in the future.  Gracious professionalism, active listening and the art of articulation and presenting a cogent argument are the keystone to successful cross discipline and cross culture communications that have come to define organizational success.

Today’s Kingbridge insight is both a question and a challenge, “How do we effectively integrate programs that provide the ‘soft’ skills required to thrive in a dynamic economy into the public school curriculum?”  This challenge is obviously fraught with bureaucratic hurdles and funding issues but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress”
~ Frederick Douglass, Leader for the Abolitionist Movement

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Gaining Influence

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As a functional manager it is one thing to know that you have the information and potentially the answers to some of your organizations issues, it is quite another to influence senior or corporate management’s decisions.

In the most recent issue of the Harvard Business Review researchers Anette Mikes, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business Review along with Matthew Hall, London School of Economics and Yuval Millo, University of Leicester wrote “How Experts Gain Influence” about the findings of their 5 year study on gaining influence in an organization.

They found that in order to increase their impact, functional leaders should develop four specific competencies:

1. Trailblazing: finding new opportunities to use your expertise
This particular mode of influence involves uncovering previously unidentified issues or challenges that may prevent the organization from achieving its goals or initiatives.

2. Toolmaking: developing and deploying tools that embody and spread expertise
Basically, come up with succinct but simple tools, such as reports or visual models that can be employed cross-functionally for greater visibility, understanding and ultimately consideration.

3. Teamwork: using personal interaction to take in others’ expertise and convince people of the relevance of your own
This competency draws heavily on harnessing collective intelligence across the organization and as a result creating inclusiveness and buy in.  For example, if you were creating a reporting tool (see toolmaking) great influence and support will be gained by engaging other functional managers in the design.

4. Translation: personally helping decision makers understand complex content
Keep it simple!  Use your own expertise to interpret information into a usable format and actively engage yourself in the explanation.

Although these four competences identified by Mikes, Hall and Millo may seem basic and perhaps have an air of common sense, execution is often hindered by the same barriers we see to collaboration such as ego and hidden agendas.  As such, this weeks Kingbridge Insight is to suggest that if you struggle with attaining influence as a functional ‘expert’ perhaps the solution is self reflection – are you allowing your personal behavioural barriers prevent you from demonstrating the competencies required to be influential in your organization?

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Advancing ‘Social’ Technology Improves Healthcare

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With technology you have access to information on just about anything and you can collaborate on a myriad of projects and tasks across the globe. Yet, we have virtually no access let alone involvement in our own personal health information and management?

Doctor Leslie Saxon, Chief Cardiologist at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine envisions a medical system where patients and doctors become partners in health management.  As Founder of the Dallas CPR Classes and Center for Body Computing, an innovation think tank dedicated to wireless health Saxon believes that advancing digital tools in the medical industry could make tracking heart rate and blood pressure as simple as opening an app on your iPhone or checking your e-mail.

Many patients today, particularly those with cardiovascular distress, are provided implanted digital devices that track heart rate, blood pressure and sense abnormalities.  The information stored on that device however can currently only be read when the patient comes to the hospital to ‘download’.  After which all information is review by a physician and not made available to the patient.  A costly and inefficient system.  Saxon, has taken that technology one step further by partnering with medical device developers to add the ability to access the readings from implanted devices on mobile devices.  Basically, you and your doctor can get real time information anytime and anywhere.  It would be like having an office visit everyday and a complete physical every week without the considerable cost and time.  The data available could predict future injury and allow for preventative action customized to the individual.

The possibilities are endless.  Saxon is also working with BMW to develop a heart rate sensor within the cars steering wheel that will check the drivers vital signs.  Imagine, you get into the car, you are stressed and exhausted, the biometric readout in the car senses this and automatically plays calming music!

The Kingbridge Insight this week is taken from a well known principle of adult education which is that an adult learner requires engagement in both the learning process and the establishment of outcomes.  Lecturing and giving orders without providing the why is rarely effective.  Learning and development professionals have known this for decades and have made great strides in reforming organizational learning.  So why has medicine not done the same?  The doctors hold all the information and serve down dietary restrictions, exercise orders and make out prescriptions without providing adequate information to the patient as to why this is necessary and more importantly without involving the patient in the decision making process, and then are baffled as to why so many patients don’t follow these regimens they have been assigned.  That is not to say the doctors are to blame, the system is flawed.  We know this, and Einstein said it best when he so wisely described insanity as continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results.

 

 

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Collaboration in Hockey?

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I don’t know whether it’s happened before, but for the Chicago Blackhawks, winner of the Hockey Stanley Cup, to take out an ad in the Boston Globe to thank their losing opponents, the Bruins, along with the Boston fans and the city itself for their welcome and sportsmanship, was certainly unusual.

In a sport where the joke is that it’s a fight and occasionally a game breaks out, this example of classy behavior is frankly rather inspiring.   Yes, it is self serving, particularly after the strike and loss of the early part of the season, but it’s a great reminder that professional sports are entertainment and enormously influential on the culture of our society.  Winning comes from skill, discipline, teamwork (and a little bit of luck), but sportsmanship builds the fan base and close games fill the stadiums and TV.

More importantly, and the Kingbridge Insight for today is that sportsmanship sends a message to the fans and community at large that respect for your opponent and collaboration in behavior and rules is what makes our society work.

Thank you letter3

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When did failure become such a bad word?

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One of life’s most rudimentary lessons, ingrained in us from birth, is that we learn from our mistakes.  Why then as adults in the business world are we conditioned to look at even the smallest failure as grounds for rebuke?

Professor James Patell at Stanford Graduate School of Business has dedicated himself to challenging this mindset through a groundbreaking graduate course called Design for Extreme Affordability.  The course challenges the students to design low-cost products that can solve tough problems in the developing world. Forty students from across Stanford’s schools – engineering, medical, business and others – pair up with global partners who have concrete projects to tackle. The goal is to deliver nuts and bolts solutions, a way to implement them, and the means to sustain them over the long haul.  Over the last 10 years his students have been wildly successful at innovating some life changing products, and the key to success – encouraging failure!

Patell teaches his students the art of rapid prototyping, where the idea is to develp often and fail often thus allowing them to learn from all of the the large and small errors that occur at each stage to produce an end product that not only works but has been tested throughout its development.  Patell believes that many failures are a means to a great solution.  And the evidence suggests he is correct.  Some of the most notable innovations to come out of his students work include low cost d.light solar lanterns for villages without electricity, a childhood pneumonia treatment device (AdaptAir) that provides a custom fit for babies of all sizes to receive oxygen and the widely publicized Embrace blanket for premature infants.

So the “Kingbridge Insight” for today is a recommendation for a shift in mindset among business leaders.   Rather than measuring success as an absence of failure perhaps resilience and the ability to recognize failure as an opportunity to improve should be the true measure of business excellence.

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