The Hazards of Collaboration

Adapted from:
Why Teams Dont Work by Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley 2nd Edition 1998

If competition is bad, the collaboration must be good, right?

Wrong. Pure collaboration is as problematic as pure competition. Each has its purposes.
But each, practised to the exclusion of the other, leads to collapse.
Unabated competition creates a spirit of over the top, scorched-earth, absolutism,
legitimizing whatever means result in victory: treachery, deceit and corruption.
Unabated collaboration is also problematic. It is the nemesis of individuality, progress,
diversity and change.
Here are some of its hallmarks:

Sameness. Too collaborative teams adopt rigid standards and impose them on
themselves, foreclosing creative deviation

Groupthink leads to purges of perceived outsiders and stultification of insiders

Blurriness. Too much democracy leads to mush. When everyone has full, equal
input into a process, you can bet that process will lack focus
Slowness. Consensus doesnt snap to the way intimidated agreement does. It is a
slow ooze forming and teams lose momentum waiting for the ooze to arrive
Leaderlessness. When everyone is encouraged to lead, the end result is that no one
does
Defencelessness. When everyone knows everything, because sharing is so important
there is not confidentiality, and no firewalls. Some teams become so intimate and
sensitive with one another they cant function among outsiders.
Interiority. Teams who work too long together have a way of becoming cross eyed
over time, focussing on subjects of interest exclusive to the group
Mercilessness. The many are stronger than the one is the motto of
supercollaboration. It is also the motto of fascism

Grafting Competition with Collaboration

Which brings us to our favourite word, transcompetition. Think of
transcompetition as the grafting of fruit from the two trees of competition and
collaboration. Each tree has fruit that is good and fruit thats not good. The job of
your team is to combine the best of both trees, the best attributes of each
approach for the task currently facing the team.

 The will to Greatness vs. the will to Commonality. Teams require both ambition
and humility. Ambition drives us to great things. Humility lets us survive to try
again if we screw up. As great as ambition is, the will to commonality, may be
greater. It seeks to find win win solutions, common ground even when
positions seem cast in stone. Like the will to greatness, the will to
commonality is a talent that some people are born with, and most people
struggle to attain. On teams it is a pearl of great value.
Focus vs. Empathy. Or inwardness versus outwardness. These are valuable but
opposite skills. The analytical mentality is capable of focussing on the tasks in
hand to the exclusion of nearly everything else. But empathy is the badge of
the Amiable mentality. It is forever scanning the horizon for more to
understand, from the outside in. Focus is about me. Empathy is about us.
Teams require both in powerful measure.
Persistence vs. Insistence. They are as different as conquistador and natives,
the killer instinct and the instinct to survive. Persistence is heroic, willing to
die for a cause. Insistence is about survival in order to keep the cause alive.
Every team enjoys star performances, but every team needs pluggers who will
show up every day and do the work that needs doing.
Process vs. Results. A results orientation is an attentiveness to the what of the
team: Did we meet our goal? But a results orientation all by itself is a form of
tyranny: Give me the results and dont tell me how to do it. A process
orientation is attentiveness to the how of the team. Each is equally important
and must be balanced against the other.
Play vs. Work. Play i a teams genius its ability to generate, innovate,
revolutionize from thin air. Work is why we show up when we dont feel so
playful. Business gives lip service to work, but its true ethic is play.
Transcompetition means abandoning the pain principle for a pleasure principle
work for the fun of it.
Depersonalization vs. Personalization. Personalization is the talent for
communicating in such a way that the person you are talking to feels the
message has been custom tailored to his or her understanding. Personalization
is a precious skill on teams. But depersonalization is also very powerful. It is
detachment, the ability to see a thing without regard to its effect on you. How
liberating it is to take oneself out of decision making. When detachment comes
in, out goes paranoia, disrespect and the blindness that so often accompanies
self-interest.
Loose vs. Tight. Which structure is stronger, one that is elastic but encourages
innovation and experimentation; or one that achieves coherence through
imposition of order? This is an issue every team must resolve for itself. Loose
relationships like confederacies permit wider latitude for expression; but
tighter relationships, unions and alliances, have power to effectively
underwrite security. Let duration be your guide. If you are in imminent danger
of destruction, tighten the bonds between yourself and others. If your survival
issues are longer term, let loose the line and encourage free minds to find
solutions.