Debate to Collaborate!

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

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?

Collaboration in Hockey?

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.

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Collaboration and The Marshmallow Challenge

Some years ago Tom Wujec, author, Senior Fellow at Auto Desk and an amazing graphic illustrator gave a TED talk called “The Marshmallow Challenge”(video below). In the talk he described how different groups of individuals approach a technical design problem.  The objective of the exercise was for each group to build the tallest free-standing structure in 18 minutes with one yard of tape, one yard of string, 20 sticks of spaghetti and a marshmallow. The groups in this exercise ranged from CEOs to MBAs to lawyers, engineers, architects and kindergartners. The results of this challenge showed how these different groups worked together on the challenge.

Perhaps the most surprising result of this experiment was that the children did better than the CEOs and the MBAs were the worst!  The reason the children did so much better was because their design process included prototypes and instant feedback from each other sharing what they learned along the way. They discarded the failed ideas and built on their successful structures. The MBAs on the other hand spent much of their time debating who would be in charge and what plans they would follow. Architects and engineers did pretty well.  The message taken from this exercise is that how we collaborate is influenced by our habits and the cultures we come from. Understanding and managing those cultures is essential for effective collaboration.

Do you use a Second Screen?

Second screens have become the norm these days with the vast majority of people carrying a smartphone or tablet or both!  We google speakers during conferences and tweet comments about training sessions we are attending – we have become master multi-taskers.

Although most second screens are personal devices they are increasingly being used in the work and learning environments as additional resources. In his Learning Trends blog on March 25, 2011, Elliott Masie listed some of the potential implications for Learning and Corporate HR given the growing prevalence of second screens in our lives.

Learning Implications:google_htc_tablet_110

* People are using their Second Screens to continually enhance, contextualize and expand the CONTEXT side of CONTENT that is being viewed.
* Workers are able to collaborate – internally or externally – with formal or personal clusters of people as part of or in competition with the learning activity.
* Learners will have access to more back-channel and secondary content, context and opinion as they engage in learning.
* Tracking Second Screen activity will be a major challenge, if not impossibility.
* Learners will demand greater connectivity and access to at least some corporate assets on their Second Screens.
* When do we allow or restrict the use of Second Screens at work, in a leadership program or in the field?

HR/IT Implications:

* Selective, layered and location specific access to online assets from Second Screens will be requested from workers at the office, on the road and at home.
* Security issues – including Intellectual Property challenges – will arise as Second Screens are used, especially when the content is cached rather than just viewed.
* Second Screens will rapidly become HD-enabled Video Presence Units, competing with the quality of the $250,000 telepresence suite and placing intense loads on bandwidth.
* Equality and Discrimination issues will rise when employees buy their own Second Screens and are competing for performance with others who cannot afford the luxury.

Given these observations the question now becomes, much as it did with the issue of Facebook in the workplace, how to leverage the Second Screen to enhance learning and productivity.   Any Ideas?

Designing Collaborations

There are several key components that when combined in the proper measure can result in successful collaborations.  Creating the framework for the collaboration is one such factor.

Harnessing the creativity of a group requires not only the usual considerations of timing, data requirements, and the resources needed but also careful ‘engineering’ of behaviors and mindset.  This apparent contradiction of soft skills with the recognized hard skill association of engineering allows you to consider the process of organizing behavior in order to maximize creative mindset and minimize those that destroy collaboration.

Soft stuff is the glue that holds the hard stuff together. Knowing who should contribute to the collaboration and their necessary skill sets in addition to being prepared to mitigate negative behavioral tendencies (Divas, Pontificators and the like) are important considerations on an individual level.  For example, when a particular personality needs ‘management’, the ideal approach is 3 pronged:

1. Arrange a pre-meeting one on one with the individual and warn them that they may encounter topics or opinions that could cause an emotional/negative reaction.

2. Recognize their abilities/skills etc. and let them know their inputs are valuable to the group achieving their goal.

3. Find a solution that works for the individual and the needs of the group to prevent potentially destructive situations.

Let us say for example you have a member of your group that given his level of expertise and experience believes he/she should not be limited to the one time 10 minute speaking limit that has been set for meeting participants.  The result of the 3 pronged approach above could potentially be to offer this participant several opportunities to speak but with say a limit of 5 minutes per.  This approach respects the time of the rest of the group and minimally disrupts the flow but satisfies the participants need to comment often.  You can’t change the person but you can change the rules!

When considering the collective; dynamics, politics, pre conceived notions and potential conflicts should all be evaluated and prepared for in advance in order to ensure every participant is contributing at 100% capacity and not hindered by behavioral issues.

That isn’t to say of course that as a ‘collaboration designer’ you can’t have a little fun.  At least one organization I know of employs water guns in their creative sessions.  If a member of the group is perceived by others to be pontificating, squirt!  If a participant is negative about an idea without first asking questions, squirt!  Condescending, squirt!  Hogging the floor, squirt!  You get the idea.

Presentation Strategies to Change a Culture

Everyone is talking about the evils of PowerPoint and how the use of it is now considered a presenter faux pas but in seems to me that as with any tool it isn’t the technology that makes or breaks a presentation but rather the presenters approach.

You may be wondering how presentations connect to creating a culture of collaboration?  And the simple answer is that a great presentation can create an environment for deeper learning and collaboration by stimulating an audience to share experience and knowledge with each other. By forming the right mindset and following a few simple principles anyone can give a presentation that not only imparts knowledge but fosters collaborative culture.

1. Share knowledge rather than teach it

Plan to present something that the audience has never seen or heard before.

This may seem a daunting task but if you use a relatable example from an entirely different field/interest finding something original can be quite simple.

Be vulnerable

This suggests to your audience that you in fact don’t know everything, but you’re here to share what you do know.

Be confident

This may seem to contradict the idea of being vulnerable but in fact the most confident people are those who are curious, open and unafraid to show their vulnerability.

2. Personalize your content

Connect content to personal experiences

This demonstrates a genuine interest and sincerity in involving your audience in a way that abstract references can’t.  This tactic can be used as your ‘something the audience has never seen or heard before’ quite successfully and provides more than one context that the audience can understand while stimulating them to think of their own personal metaphors that relate.

Now, while you are following the principles above if you do decide to employ PowerPoint as a presentation tool,- and I contend there is nothing evil about that! – try to restrict its use to showing relationships through images and very few words running in the background while you talk.  Again, using personal images or images from ‘real life’ rather than stock photos will better serve your purpose and resonate with the audience.

Any audience will have a group of people with a range of understanding and experience with the topic of your presentation so tell a story, describe things in more than one context and be original!

The Collaboration Paradox: Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done – Webinar!

One of the mainstays of successful collaboration is engineering interactivity and purposeful communication between the members.  Advances in technology have provided the tools to make this easier and accessible but it is still up to the organizer(s) to create the right conditions for collaboration to work.

Take advantage of the opportunity to learn about what makes a successful collaboration (and not so successful) via one of the very technology tools that make it possible by joining the Pegasus Communications Webinar “The Collaboration Paradox: Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done” with me, John Abele on January 11, 2011.

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The Collaboration Paradox:
Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done

with John Abele

A 90-minute live webinar andjohnabele interactive discussion
Tuesday, January 11, 2011, 2-3:30 pm ET
Register for this live webinar

Description
The need for more truly powerful collaborations, where the collective intelligence of a diverse set of minds is harnessed toward a common goal, is greater than ever. And yet we find collaboration vexingly difficult to do. In this webinar,John Abele, renowned co-founder of Boston Scientific, will examine the many different types of collaboration along with the barriers to making them effective. He’ll describe new tactics and approaches that may seem counterintuitive, but that will help unleash the wisdom of a crowd far better than more obvious approaches. John will share learnings from his extensive experiences in business, medicine, education, science, and philanthropy.

In this webinar, you will::

  • Learn from extraordinary successes and spectacular failures
  • Take away tips for overcoming the challenges that stand in the way of effective collaboration
  • Discuss how to foster rational discussion by understanding root causes, analyzing issues and options, and weighing trade offs—together
  • Understand how best to collaborate around implementing solutions
  • Receive a copy of the “Kingbridge Meeting Design Guidelines,” from the Kingbridge Centre and Institute

Pricing
This 90-minute interactive session is $129.00 per site (a single phone line). You can use a speakerphone so that a group of people can participate. You will also have unlimited access to the recorded version following the event.

Date and Time
The live webinar is being held on Tuesday, January 11, 2011, from 2 to 3:30 pm ET. When you register, you will receive detailed information about how to call in and participate.

Presenter
John Abele is the retired founding chairman of Boston Scientific Corporation (www.bsci.com) and one of the pioneers of less invasive medicine. He holds numerous patents, and has published and lectured extensively on the technical, social, economic, and political trends and issues affecting healthcare and on strategies for improving collaboration between individuals, businesses, and organizations. John’s major interests are science literacy for children, education, and disruptive technological innovation. He is currently vice chair (former chair) of the FIRST Foundation, which works with high school kids to make science literacy cool and fun, and owner of The Kingbridge Centre and Institute, a conference center that is devoted to perfecting the “Art of Conferencing” and hosting exceptional meetings.

Register for this live webinar!

Collaborative Leadership

Recently, Margaret (Meg) Wheatley wrote an insightful article called “Leadership in the Age of Complexity: from Hero to Host”. Resurgence Magazine, Winter 2011.

In it she describes the wonderfully classic paradox that in order to gain control, you must cede control.

That concept raises the issue of exactly what “control” is.  Suffice it to say that it refers to having a goal and achieving it….with others and not needing to take credit for the result.  Although, ironically, if you do master that skill, others will begin to connect the fact that when you are around they do better.

She points out that most cultures make assumptions about leaders that are taken for granted:  that they have all the answers, that the followers will follow, and that more control produces better results — particularly for big risky projects.  That’s why CEOs, Managing Director’s, etc. “get the big bucks.”

But complex problems require integrating many different types of skills and creating an environment where the collective intelligence of a diverse set of minds (age, experience, knowledge, culture, geography), are harnessed to solve these problems.  They identify the problems, analyze, speculate, debate, experiment, build and test ideas for their solutions.  And maybe even rethink the goals.   The hero-based command and control model  doesn’t work when the problems are complex.  It’s much more useful when you know exactly what needs to be done and just have to execute (i.e. an aid airlift).

As it turns out the political, business and academic worlds make it very difficult to assemble a truly diverse set of minds.  Our societies put skill sets in silos and protect them with hard earned credentials that filter out the non-cognoscenti…the riff raff.

So, being able to “harness” the appropriately diverse minds is an art form.

One of the most common ways to do that is to convene a group.  But getting the right people to come and creating an environment that overcomes the barriers to collaboration is really difficult.   In the world of opera the person who can do that is known as an impresario.  They can recruit and manage multiple divas.  In other worlds, they are collaborative leaders.

The medical world I have lived in, of surgeons, specialists, department chairmen and a host of supporting cast is very much like the opera.  The symbols of power and control are rampant.  Learning to lead as “host,” not “hero,” can produce far better and longer lasting results.  Thank you Meg.