‘Collaboration’ is being used pretty loosely these days andoften in the same breath as enterprise 2.0. But, simply because peoplework together to meet objectives and reach goals, doesn’t mean they arecollaborating. Other ‘c’ words like communicating, co-operating orco-ordinating may be more appropriate descriptions of what is actuallytaking place.

By recognising the nature of the interactions, we can betterunderstand the restrictions of, and relationship between, theassociated behaviours. We can then focus more sharply on initiativeswhich (i) improve controls and efficiency, or (ii) add value throughcreativity and innovation, or more ambitiously (iii) both! In terms oftechnology, that aids in the design and implementation of appropriatespaces for people to work in, equipped with the right tools tofacilitate the capture, exchange and creation of information andexpertise.

In his article “Collaboration vs C-Three (Cooperation, Coordination, and Communication)“, Leo Denise (1999) distinguished between those terms as follows (and to which I have added a few thoughts):

• ‘Communication’ refers to how people understand each other and howinformation (including prospects, rumors, feelings and failures) istransferred. Often the problem of communication is thought to be solvedwith more newsletters, memos and meetings – which often serve only towaste more time by circulating floods of irrelevant generic news anddistracting people from the critical activity of listening. Now there’snothing wrong with noise, provided the means are available to filterthe things worth listening to, and then something constructive can bedone with the filtered information.

• ‘Coordination’ is about efficiency and making sure people know whenand how to act. Because of natural overlaps in organisations, it isimportant for people to have visibility of what others are doing toavoid redundancy or inconsistency. Whilst coordination tries to getpeople pulling together, the effort must nevertheless be directedtowards a desired goal.

• ‘Cooperation’ is a factor in moving in a unified direction, buthighest value doesn’t derive from group think and continually followingestablished norms. Consequently, it needs to be balanced withdiversity, and the spark of creativity which comes from ideas, dissentand debate.

• Whilst the above ‘C’s tend towards controlling and centralisingefforts, ‘collaboration’ is about creation and is the driver ofinnovation. It involves bringing people together to achieve a goalwhich cannot be achieved by applying more effort to the other ‘C’s.’Collaboration’ thrives on difference, insight and spontaneity, ratherthan structural harmony. As such, it requires a shared space, time andenvironment to allow people to devise the solution to meet the goal.

Conventional enterprise technology that accelerated people’sproductive 10 years ago no longer has the same impact, and in fact iscounter-productive for many workers in today’s global, informationoverloaded environment. The classic example here is the systemicoveruse of email as the means to facilitate each of the ‘C’s. Whilstemail doesn’t necessarily need to be replaced, it does need to be putin its place. And with the range of social tools presently available,companies’ competitiveness will depend on identifying and adoptingthose tools which best suit their work processes. In fact, whenintegrated in a platform, social tools can facilitate new models ofinteraction, co-creation, collective intelligence, networking and userparticipation, whilst supplementing traditional face-to-face, telephoneand email communications.

This is precisely what Gary Curtis of Accenture was reporting in yesterday’s Financial Times (5 November 2008):

At Proctor & Gamble … an internal social networkmodeled closely on YouTube is proving effective for communicatingcomplex programme initiatives and for better connecting large,geographically dispersed teams. … Other consumer-oriented [socialtools] are proving equally beneficial in enterprises. Members of a teamat a multinational had been sending as many as 150 emails a daydiscussing their project while never being certain of involving theright people. When they moved the discussion to a blog, their emailboxes emptied, and the key team members joined in as needed.

These examples illustrate how efficiencies can arise fromfacilitating better communications and coordination of efforts. We arealso seeing improvements to these ‘c’s through the use of personaldashboards. They are ideal for allowing people to easily add content,and organise their feeds and information widgets. As a result, peoplehave precisely the information they want, in the manner they want toreceive it, which helps increase their productivity and connections.And because people’s activities and interaction with content areaggregated, everyone has a clear up-to-date picture of each other’swork, status, interests, favourites and connections with other peoplein the firm.

Enabling people to interact with information and each other in thisway has a dramatic (measurable) effect on people’s productivity, byreducing the amount of time spent looking for information andexpertise, or re-doing work completed in another business unit. It alsomeans that people send and receive fewer emails and instead get moreprecise requests for assistance.

We have also seen how teams are better able to co-ordinate theirresources through group spaces (e.g. in wikis) and online discussions (e.g. in group blogs).Those tools give people visibility of a range of information, includingrecent or important projects, actions, discussions, comments, news andevents, and ensure people know who’s working on what. With greaterdelivery of information, and its filtering using tags and ratings, theimmense flow of information which now inundates people can instead betailored to their needs, put into context (e.g. of a project, clientmatter, pitch or operation issue), and made more relevant to daily work.

Instead of broadcasting information in mono-directional newsletters,people can engage in discussions. And through those discussion, viewscan be debated, actions negotiated and common goals established. Butthat requires the creation of spaces where people feel confident aboutparticipating and that it is worthwhile to do so. In other words, to’get with the group’ there needs to be a culture which accepts thatpeople don’t necessarily add value by contributing non-contentiousthoughts. Consequently, ‘cooperation’ in the enterprise 2.0 senseprovides the space and leadership to cope with challenges to existingnorms, processes and assumptions.

Improvements to each of the above ‘c’s set the stage for a cultureand organisational structure conducive to creative and collaborativework practices. Practices that thrive on spontaneity and interaction,and result in the types of innovative products and processes which givea company its edge. Practices that are so well supported by new socialtechnologies, such as facilitating social connections between employeessplit by geographical and organisational distance, increasing people’speripheral vision and thereby enabling them to stay up-to-date with andshare information, ideas and expertise, and ensuring they can easilycreate communities of practice built up around conversations and commoninterests revealed through on and off line activity.

Therefore, providing workers with more flexibility in how theycommunicate with each other, and customers, can result in new forms ofcooperative action, more fruitful collaboration, fasterdecision-making, and greater productivity. And whilst it’s a question of’when’ rather than ‘if’ companies introduce social tools, having aclear view of the driver for their introduction (i.e. tending towardsefficiency or value-added/innovation) will ensure the appropriatetechnologies are implemented and organisati
onal behaviours nurtured.