An introduction to collaboration concepts used at University of Chicago Booth School of Business Chicago alumni event at launch of effort to engage with collaboration
6. We can think about many topics Personal skill Operational approach Corporate strategy/definition Inter-organizational approach The Boss Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 3 Group 2 Group 1 Group n
7. Human element critical to collaboration Usually what the designer has in mind Often not thought about explicitly
25. Who and how? Hierarchy Crowd Crowd by consensus Crowd Crowd/individual about what to watch Crowd Hierarchy Crowd Crowd by voting Crowd Decide (who, how) Create (who)
28. Collaboration guidelines Source: Adapted from Trebor Scholz, The participatory challenge Give reasons behind your thinking Be concise, patient and persistent Develop good listening skills Put a stop to domineering interruptions and put-downs Communicate frequently, clearly and openly Acknowledge upcoming problems Communication skills Take a dose of humility Develop a long-term view Learn when to let go Attitude Pay attention to scale (4-5 people is great) Get everybody involved in the process Develop a clear process including self-reflexive loops Combine online with face-to-face to speed up the process Stick to initially made commitments Use facilitators for larger groups Process Outline clear and attainable short-term and long-term goals Define needs/ self-interests well Goals Develop trust and mutual respect Culture
29. Next steps – Dinner !! Source: Avlxyz, Jorge_11, Bev(sugarbloom cupcakes) on Flickr
Here’s two more that I like. And they have some flavor of collaboration. (READ T-shrts). These are also about collaboration, subtly – we’ll talk about it more.
Break up into groups of four for this
Collaboration A skill to have (for individuals) – personal skill building – WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO BE GOOD AT _- WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO IN ORDER TO BE AN EFFECTIVE COLLABORATOR. It’s more than just basic interpersonal skills, although that’s needed. A way of working within organizations (and structuring organizations so that the right collaborations happen) - organizational development topic. How do you get cross-departmental collaboration. One of the author’s mentioned – Hansen – in his book talks about Sony’s attempt to respond to the iPod (they were the parents of the Walkman). They were apparently constitutionally incapable of working acorss BU boundaries – because of culture, distance, incentives and some other features. A strategic option – to choose to draw the boundaries of “the firm” in a different place than may have been done in the past. This leads to situations like Linux – which was developed by volunteers in an open source way and has become a viable operating system – very robust, I’m told – for servers and for personal computers. Linux has been built by a collaboratoin of individuals and ocmpanies. Innocentive is a problem-solving network, originally developed by Eli Lilly. Businesses with problems (called SEEKERS” post the problems, and then they are dealt with or not be a network of Solvers. The winning solver is paid some amount, which might be $10- $50,000 or more. So Lilly, and other firms like P&G, use this network to get problems solved. They are outsoucing some of their R&D to a collaboration. Bill JOY Quote – “no matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else” Amazon looks like a more traditional company. But the recommendation engine on Amazon,and the reviews, are outsourced to a collaboration. So it’s another example of where the lines are drawn differently. I
There is potentially a business/ organizational (goal-oriented) element AND There is always a human element
Tools to facilitate business oriented interaction (A Space, Lockheed Martin), purpose-built like Cisco examples Social interaction as the “grease” for corporate interaction
It’s not costless
NIH – Insurlar culture Statsu gap Self-reliance – should fix own problems Fear don’t want to reveal problems Hoarding Competition – with colleagues and other units Narrow incentives Too busy Fear - loss of power if sharing knowledge Difficult search Company size Big distance Too much info Poor networks Transfer Tacit knowledge No common framework Weak ties
Why are they doing it? Money (directly or indirectly) Love (enjoyment of the activity, socializing with others, contributing to a cause) Glory (recognition for its own sake)