At last weekends Ohio Public Media camp I had an interesting conversation about the purpose of collaboration. I was speaking with an educator who is interested in using more collaboration tools (things like wiki’s or google docs) as a way of getting more out of her students in their group projects. While discussing the merits of different tools we came to a point where we realized that collaboration does not, in itself, mean working together for a larger goal – or at least it isn’t being taught (or interpreted) that way in many cases.

Consider how people come into a collaboration. First, there is the idealized way; people see an opportunity to create something new that can only be done with help from each other and so they come together to create this greater thing – giving of themselves what they can with that singular goal in sight. 

The other way is the market based collaborative effort.

This market based effort is more about trading one thing (skill, money, goods) for another to create something that couldn’t have been done by one person. This is still collaboration but the end result for those involved is usually less about what they are creating and more about that creation giving them each individually something in return (fame, fortune, a good grade).

The difference is subtle but I think important. When you are considering collaborative efforts are you looking to create a better community or are you looking to exploit the project to expand your revenue stream?

I’ve had the unfortunate experience of being in a position where the management provided no guidance but actively stifled attempts by the workers to, themselves, implement innovative changes. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Worse, have you also survived such an organization?

During a staff meeting the administration proclaimed, “This is not a democracy, it is a dictatorship!”

That is all well and good. Clearly a single decision point allows for decisions to be made very quickly. Unfortunately, in the world we work in there are few decisions that can be made thoughtfully and wisely by one single person. Proclaiming yourself a dictator has strong connotations toward the fact that you will not be looking for help in making decisions or coming up with ideas.

What is most important in these scenarios is the declaration statement itself. You see, at the point you feel the need to declare your dictatorship – your supreme power over all decisions – you have already lost the ship.

Positive Leadership

Some leaders are much more comfortable taking the responsibility of decision making upon themselves, even in the best of times. This is effective in certain scenarios, and when done  from a stance of mutual respect can weather most storms.

To be a truly effective leader one must surround themselves with staff and advisers who are creative and motivated. Instead of fearing these peers they empower them. Instead of disregarding their ideas they develop a pool of solutions which can then be selected from. Even though the decision ultimately rests with that one administrator, that “dictator”, they will not be perceived as such because they have created a field of mutual respect.

In the most progressive of cases (the style that I teach), the leader will not be a dictator at all because they will use consensus to arrive at the solution. Instead of making an educated decision they can truly know that the wisdom of the group has spoken and delivered the solution to them.

I am Dictator – Hear Me ROAR

Sadly, when management roars out, “This is not a democracy, it is a dictatorship!” there is a reason that the organization shuts down around them. That is because the statement is only made when the leadership has decided it has a lowered (or zero) value for the staff. It does not trust the staff and, rightly so, the staff may be responding with a reduced trust of the leaders. Where staff has come forward with ideas to right the ship the leadership choose instead to run-aground out of fear that by changing course they show weakness.

Ultimately however this power struggle is already over and the leaders have already lost control. If the staff stays with them after not having their voices heard then the staff will know that they are not valued and will in turn work down to that level of diminished value. Whenever possible, the staff will leave and soon your organization will be competing with your past employees – some of whom will gladly exploit your fresh weaknesses.

Developing Positive Leadership Patterns

Transparency and honesty are the most direct ways to developing positive leadership patterns. If you are worried that your organization is on the verge of proclaiming itself a dictatorship please contact Andrew Miller Consulting for a free brainstorming session to break out of your negative leadership patterns.

Recently I’ve been talking with people about organizational changes and how the implementation of them is often done in one of two ways.

1. Change done to you or,
2. change that you are a part of implementing.

In life we all know that change occurs that, as individuals, we feel is being forced upon us; that feeling of something being done to us. This may be something such as a lover breaking the romance off or a boss giving you a pink slip. Needless to say, having change “done to you” doesn’t usually feel good.

Organizational Health

When we think about communities and organizations we generally think in terms of the organizational “health”. What does a healthy organization look like? Every organization will have their own checklist but a couple pretty standard ones that I can think of are that they:

• are producing enough output to maintain or expand the organization;
• are maintaining an environment that fosters good morale; and,
• are innovative and create a vibrancy.

The Death of Morale

One sure way to kill innovation, vibrancy and eventually production is to kill morale. When your organizations chooses to operate using a process of “doing to” instead of “doing with” you run a very high risk of killing morale. In the short-run you will realize the change you hoped to implement but consider the costs associated with killing morale.

• Employee turnover = organizational knowledge deficit.
• Employee silence = workers will no longer feel that their opinion matters and will stop providing innovative ideas; instead they’ll look for outside opportunities to share those ideas.
• Employee revolt = consider all of the opportunities employees now have to express their opinion about thier personal lives (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Can your organization overcome 10-100-1000 employees spreading the word-of-mouth opinion that your organization is broken? Imagine each one of those employees has an average of 150 friends that might not just read that message but re-link it?

Changing Together

So how do you avoid the “doing to” type of change? There’s no single answer but here’s the general idea.

• Include everyone in the path of the possible change an opportunity to share their knowledge with the work group that is ultimately tasked with making the decision.
• Use technology to provide those people with a chance to follow the decision process as closely as they choose.
• Clearly show how their concerns are being addressed (either with a bulletproof explanation about why something can’t be done or an acknowledgement that a change came about due to a specific person or groups suggestion).
• Never assume that a person within the organization knows about a change that is coming; be explicit with announcements and be overly inclusive in your change initiatives.

Remember, the change you do to someone else is an open invitation to changes your organization might not be able to afford.

Do you need help managing change? Contact Andrew Miller Consulting today.