The Xpragmatic View

The chasm between being and becoming

marc.buyens@xpragma.com — Sat, 5 May 2012 12:59:23 +0200

Following our latest post 'The problem is that there is a solution' and triggered by the opening phrase in a keynote speech by Ross Dawson on crowdsourcing, we wondered what the role is of consultants while "evangelizing" new technological solutions and what this role really should be.

In these on-going discussions about the reasons for the success or the failure of new technological solutions, the focus almost always is on the organizational structure, the "culture" thing, the management not being interested, the CIO not understanding, etc. However, very rarely, the participants in these discussions or the authors of such articles question their own role.

Beware, this does not mean that we think that consultants are a cause for the potential failure of such new solutions. Not at all! It is only so that, very often, our expectations seem to be entirely out of sync with the business reality. More specifically, we want the success now, in the way we think is right, completely and in all cases. Not having that is failure. And this failure will be the basis for our discussions.

Unfortunately, reality is that whatever "transformational" solution eventually gets mainstream, it will never be now or at the moment we are hoping for. Most likely, we will no longer be interested. It will not be in the form of the solutions that are being sold today and it will address different business issues than the ones we are talking about today.

Nevertheless, we are so excited about these new solutions and our vision of what might become possible that we tend to ignore the very obvious.

We forget that we are a unique individual with its own very specific capabilities, education, experience, etc. So, we preach our own perception of the solution as if it were a written law.

We tend to look at the workforce as a homogeneous group of individuals just like us, with the same level of engagement, understanding and motivation. It is not.

And most importantly, we believe that we will solve problems. Unfortunately, real problems rarely get solved. At best, we are curing some of the side-effects of the real problem, but the problem itself will not be solved. Eventually, it will be replaced.

So, then what should a consultant be?

Well, as said above, this post was triggered by Ross Dawson when he gave his definition of what a "futurist" is in the opening phrase of his keynote speech on crowdsourcing:

My definition of a futurist is someone who helps people to think about the future to make better decisions and to act better today.

Now, in theory, consultants are not supposed to be futurists. We all assume that they talk about "the things that exist today". However, when we are involved in "evangelizing" new breakthrough solutions, we somewhat become futurists and then, perhaps, we better should act a bit more like Dawson suggests: more telling and less selling.

About the author

Marc Buyens is analyst, management consultant and owner of Xpragma.
Marc started Xpragma in 1999 after a 20+ years career in the IT sector. Today, he provides advice, training and mentoring services focusing on the intersection of technological evolution, organisational change and business strategy: a messy world of unfulfilled promises.

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The problem is that there is a solution

marc.buyens@xpragma.com — Sat, 7 Apr 2012 11:01:48 +0200

A couple of days ago, we read an interesting post (written in the context of "enterprise collaboration") about how we always have tendency to think and to ask questions in terms of technical solutions, instead of looking for the real needs.

That observation is absolutely correct.

However, then the author gave some examples of "better" questions to ask and then, our enthusiasm was a bit less. Indeed, the list included questions such as:

How can we help users share their opinions, ideas, experiences, knowledge with each other?
How can we help users do their job whenever they need to, wherever they are?

OK, there is no mention of specific products or solutions. However, are these questions really much better? Doesn’t this suggest that the author, while writing this, already had a clear solution in mind?

We don’t mind sharing our opinions, ideas, etc. with our colleagues. When someone walks into our office with a question, or sends us an e-mail or whatever looking for a solution and we are able to help, we will always do. However, is "sharing" the purpose of our life? Is this the thing that gives meaning to our job?

In a similar way, there is this "doing your job whenever you need to, wherever you are". Again, we can indeed work at home. We are also allowed to do so. However, not working at home has this fundamental advantage of keeping a clear separation between work and private. All too often, having this ability to "do your job whenever you need to, wherever you are" ends up becoming a "doing a job whenever THEY want, wherever you are".

So, what happened in this post is an illustration of this fundamental handicap that we humans have: a thinking that is severely conditioned by what we know, by the things that we know are possible, by the solutions that we know are available.

As such, there’s nothing wrong with that. It makes absolutely sense. However, this behaviour has the inherent risk of scanning our world for problems and matching them with the solutions that we know, without really asking whether we are addressing a root cause problem or just the symptoms of a much deeper problem.

Sharing and working wherever and whenever we need are great, but they serve no purpose unless done in the right context. Without that context, we are just creating noise and complicating our life. Therefore, always focus on creating the right context, not on solving the symptoms of a problem.

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Collaboration as it is - Working together, alone - Part 7

marc.buyens@xpragma.com — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 09:11:22 +0100

This is the last one in this short series about collaboration.

In our previous post, we identified "collaboration intent" as the fundamental variable for successful collaboration. Collaboration intent, the resultant of our perception of the risks, inconveniences and potential rewards that the collaboration will bring.

Of course, creating the organisational conditions that make that such collaboration intent is maximised is not a straightforward undertaking. Too many rules, roles and structures in today's organisations are roadblocks for creating such conditions.

However, that is a discussion that would lead us too far. So, let us assume that we have the right conditions for our collaboration intent. Will collaboration then happen seamlessly?

Unfortunately, it does not. At least, not always. After all, collaboration remains an act of a group of individuals and these individuals will all have their own individual "ability to collaborate".

Collaboration ability

If there is one fundamental flaw in nearly everything that is said or written about Enterprise 2.0, social business and other social enterprises, then it is this thinking about groups and not about individuals. In nearly every discourse, there is this underlying assumption that the workforce is like a set of communicating vessels where knowledge will automatically flow, be replicated and be absorbed by all that are interconnected. Give us more connectedness and we have a better enterprise.

Well, that is absolute nonsense.

It is not because a group consists of multiple individuals that we must start thinking in terms of averages. That only blurs our view on what makes things really work (or not).

We ourselves are old enough to have worked in a company, be it also large and geographically dispersed, with nonetheless a great, open spirit. All conditions for great collaboration intent were there. Never seen better. However, was it perfect?

Of course not! Even in such organisation, there were colleagues that were a real pain to work with. Nothing about social networking or social tools would have ever changed that. It is hard-wired.

Therefore, we must stop thinking about "social" as something that raises the "average" competence level. Mathematically, it does, of course. However, that improvement will not at all be distributed equally. Same as for Nielsen's "participation inequality" theory or the so-called "1% - 9% - 90%" rule, competence improvement will be distributed in a very unequal way.

Digital and networking and connectedness are great amplifiers and therefore, offer great opportunities for learning. However, it is not because all these posts, status messages and tweets get into your timeline that it makes you any better or smarter. It's not about what you get, but about what you do with it. And finally, that remains the decision of the individual and not of the group.

And most likely, it is also better so.

Collaboration is the participation of independent actors in mutual interactions to deliver a specific result, either chosen or not. The so-called collaboration is the outcome of the interactions that occur, initiated by the different participants for their own good reasons, but collaboration is not the purpose.

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Collaboration as it is - Working together, alone - Part 6

marc.buyens@xpragma.com — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 09:06:16 +0100

Is Enterprise 2.0 a game changer?

In the past posts of this short series, we have examined the “system” of collaboration, first, between companies and then, between individuals within an organisation. And we assume that the Enterprise 2.0 fans who have read these posts often have wondered: “When is the meat coming? When are they finally going to talk about Enterprise 2.0?”

Indeed, enabling more and better collaboration has always been the mantra of the Enterprise 2.0 message.

What is happening? How to collaborate? How can I influence? How to share? Who knows what? Where do I find…? When should I contribute?

These are some of the questions and issues that we picked up from a presentation given at a recent E2.0 event. Questions and issues that Enterprise 2.0 is supposed to address.

And of course, to some extent, it really does. Some of these tools can really bridge the collaboration gaps that exist in today’s global enterprises, streamlining information flows and, in general, making information more available and findable.

However, in the context of our discussion about the “collaboration system”, we also must be well aware of the fact that the advantages of Enterprise 2.0 essentially play at the level of the “collaboration act”, but that it adds very little that will address the “collaboration intent”.

Collaboration intent

Whatever the evangelists might claim, the success of collaboration is only to a limited extent a function of the quality of the tools that are being used. Instead, collaboration success is essentially a function of the matching of the collaboration intent, of the commitment of the various participants. And that collaboration intent is the resultant of their perception of the risks, inconveniences and potential rewards that the collaboration will bring. When the right intent is there, even e-mail will do.

In addition, as the countless adoption discussions of the past have clearly shown, the introduction of collaborative tools is only a minor trigger for participation and for more collaboration. The greatest “successes” are essentially seen in contexts where the tools can really be used (or have to be used) “in the flow” of the daily tasks, streamlining interactions and information flows.

However, that is what we call “improvement”. While valuable, does this give us the transformation that will create the agility that is needed in today’s fast-paced, complex business environment?

Reality is that E2.0 tools can surely improve the “technical quality” of the collaboration act, but they do not fundamentally change the “depth” of the collaboration. For that to happen, individuals must be allowed to reach outside their restricted context as an employee, enabling them to adjust their perception of potential risks, inconveniences and rewards, hence, their collaboration intent and commitment.

However, that also means exploring new paths, trying new approaches, doing different things. To what extent is there room for this in today’s organisations?

Especially in the larger corporations, where E2.0 tools are often essentially used to “patch” the deficiencies of isolation, poor information flows and disconnectedness, resulting from the size and the geographical spread of the organisation, there is little room for exploring new paths. Such companies are essentially focused on the replication of existing capabilities, not the discovery of new capabilities and therefore, leave little room for reaping the benefits that real collaboration can bring.

So, Enterprise 2.0 will not be the game changer for collaboration. It can be an enabler to support new forms of organisations, but it will not transform the enterprise into a “social enterprise”.

For the social enterprise to exist, companies have to be organised and managed based upon other values and principles than what we have today. And getting there, if ever we can, will not be a matter of tools or technology.

Fundamental change is never a matter of tools, always a matter of people.

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Collaboration as it is - Working together, alone - Part 5

marc.buyens@xpragma.com — Sat, 3 Mar 2012 11:55:56 +0100

OK, let us return now to individuals. However this time, individuals who collaborate in an enterprise context.

And before doing so, let us clarify our view on what collaboration really is. As we wrote before, the word 'collaboration' can be used to refer to various flavours of "working together". However, for the sake of this discussion, we will assume the following characteristics:

The task at hand requires the involvement of several individuals; no single person is able to deliver the final outcome on his own.
The final outcome is largely undefined; there might have been similar tasks before and there certainly is a "high concept" definition, but it remains a unique deliverable, not done before.
The path to the solution is largely unknown. There might be past experience, best practices, methodologies, etc. that provide guidance; however, the real path will unfold as the group proceeds.
Due to the above, there is the need for intense interaction between participants, exchanging information, making decisions and agreeing on next steps.

OK, this is a bit challenging, but it is also the type of collaboration that can deliver the greatest results for the company. The more everything is known and predefined, the less there is potential for a real breakthrough.

The "system" that is shown here isn't much different than the one we discussed earlier for the collaboration between companies. Instead of companies, we now have a number of employees who have been assigned to the task of realizing this objective, likely chosen based upon their skills, previous experience, etc. The successful completion of the task will bring all parties closer to their individual goals. In theory.

However, we all know that things aren't always as simple as they look. So, why is there this feeling that collaboration within the enterprise often doesn't work as easy as it seems to work in other social contexts?

Of course, all risks and inconveniences that we listed in the context of the collaboration between companies are also present here in some way: uncertainty / inability, dependency, loss of control, diversity. However, that doesn't yet explain the difference. There are always risks and inconveniences in any context.

No, what is different here is our perception of these risks and what we can do about them, hence our willingness to really take on the challenge.

In the inter-company context, we essentially have collaboration between autonomous agents. Likely not completely true, but certainly, to some extent.

However, in our scenario of collaboration between individuals, these individuals are employees. We might think that they also are acting as autonomous agents, but in reality they are well aware of their restricted context as an employee.

And that restricted context as an employee means two things:

First, your perception of risk will be heavily biased because you will be held accountable for the result, without however having final authority.
Second, your ability to adjust your "collaboration context" is limited. Unlike the individual participating in the Web 2.0 space, you did not really opt in and you cannot opt out. It's your job. In addition, many of the easy options that are otherwise available, such as avoiding the individuals you don't like, are not really an option here.

In addition, unlike the scenario of the inter-company collaboration, here the parties involved haven't really chosen the intermediate objective or deliverable. In most cases, it is a given horse. Part of your job. Therefore, the likeliness that this objective is really aligned with your personal goals is small. At least, for most employees in most companies.

Companies are artificial constructs that do not adhere to the laws of 'normal' complex social systems. Collaboration is a complex social system trapped in an artificial context that disables most of the agility that is really needed for collaboration to succeed.

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Collaboration as it is - Working together, alone - Part 4

marc.buyens@xpragma.com — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 10:59:20 +0100

In the previous post, we described how individuals participate on Web 2.0 platforms or in social networks and how this sometimes, such as in the case of Wikipedia, delivers tangible, valuable outcomes.

This "participative collaboration" model also exists in business contexts and, to some extent, it has proven to be one of the more successful models in the Enterprise 2.0 space.

One of the best known examples of such participative collaboration model in a business context is crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing, the act whereby a company, directly or indirectly via a platform such as Innocentive, tries to attract an expert with the right knowledge and expertise to address a specific business issue.

For the company, finding this expert with the right solution allows it to move further on its road to success. For the expert, being able to deliver the solution means a financial reward and perhaps, some form of recognition. Both sides win.

This model has been proven successful and therefore, it has been used at length (or should we say: abused?) as the "proof" that the Enterprise 2.0 concept really delivers results.

Well, nothing really wrong with that. We don't mind that we see crowdsourcing as part of the Enterprise 2.0 space and we don't mind that we call it "collaboration". However, as we have written before: Words are an extremely poor representation of our reality and it only gets worse when we write them down. And we'll add to that: especially in PowerPoint.

The problem with putting everything under the same umbrella or calling it all "collaboration" is that it clouds our view on what makes a certain model successful or why it simply can work.

In this case we see "a form of" collaboration that delivers results simply because this model avoids many of the obstacles that we experience in "real" collaboration contexts.

Same as for the individuals participating in the Web 2.0 space, the "participative collaboration model" introduces few of the risks or inconveniences that we discussed earlier in the context of the collaboration between companies. The only one that essentially remains is addressing the problem of finding and selecting the right expert. However, this is largely addressed by the platform and since the expert brings the right solution, this is not really a big issue.

For the rest, very little consequences. After the deal, both parties continue on their own path. No questions asked.

"That expert really was a bit weird!"

"Yes, but now he's gone. Glad I don't have to work with him!"

"Anyway, he would not fit in this company."

A nice solution indeed, but therefore, also very little interaction and mutual influence, hence little opportunity for learning and for improving. Somehow, a missed opportunity.

But it works.

To be continued.

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Collaboration as it is - Working together, alone - Part 3

marc.buyens@xpragma.com — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:04:53 +0100

In the two first posts of this series, we briefly described the "system" of collaboration between two companies. This was a very high-level overview that didn't touch on many of the specifics of business collaboration, but it is sufficient to identify some of the basic rules:

In order to collaborate, the companies do not need to have identical world views.
For most companies, collaboration will introduce elements that are seen as risks or inconveniences, which can be a burden to act and to perform.
By definition, collaboration is a confrontation of different perceptions, which is both a nuisance and an opportunity for learning and improving.

Now, let's move on to individuals.

However, in this post, we will not yet examine individuals in a business context. Instead, we will look at how individuals "collaborate" in a social media context or, as it was previously coined, in a Web 2.0 context. As we all know, the visible success of Web 2.0 platforms has been the incentive for people such as Andrew McAfee to wonder what marvels would happen if similar tools were deployed within the enterprise. And he coined it Enterprise 2.0, the dawn of emergent collaboration.

As we all know meanwhile, it wasn't a homerun. And the reason for this is, again, very simple: we thought that we saw expressions of real collaboration in the Web 2.0 space, but in reality, there were none.

It is about the individual: it is not about collaboration

What follows here is not new. We already wrote this in July 2009 in our 'Enterprise 2.0 - Enter the dark force' post, until today still the post with the all-time highest number of pageviews on our website.

"The essence of Web 2.0 are individuals who make use of some form of technology (wiki, social network, etc.) to gain a personal advantage.

With Web 2.0, we are always talking about social networks, social media, collaboration, but in reality, the main driving force of the social web is not social. It is selfish personal interest. People want to participate because it fulfils some of their desires. This can be a desire for contact, self-expression, self-promotion, recognition, escaping the daily rut, whatever. However, always because they want to, because this participation delivers a direct, personal benefit.

When multiple individuals participate using the same platform, interactions will occur. The individuals can/will mutually influence each other's experience and this will result in "something", in some kind of side-effects. It will create a new context for each participant that will influence the willingness for further participation. In addition, once a platform reaches a certain level of participation or starts delivering sufficient "side-effects", this can become the reason for non-participants to get attracted to the platform anyway. But, of course, it can also work the other way.

So, the expressions that we commonly use such as "social" or "collaborative" are in fact not very well chosen. They refer to our perception of the potential outcome of the joint participation, but blur our view on the real mechanism behind."

OK, that was 2009, but these statements are still equally valid today. Web 2.0 or social media are not about collaboration, they are about participation for a personal interest and all these participations create a "context", some form of deliverable, which, such as in the case of Wikipedia, can be seen as valuable.

However, we must not confuse this participation with real collaboration. The difference might seem subtle, but think about the risks and inconveniences associated with collaboration that we discussed in our previous post.

Are you experiencing such things when participating on a social platform? Of course not! The nice thing about these social networks is that they are essentially opt-in. You participate because you choose to and if the thing doesn't suit your needs, you quit. No questions asked. It is essentially a zero-commitment environment.

Unfortunately, business is different and that is where it all starts to go wrong. The power of "social" is enormous, but social does not work unless a) you have the authority to decide whether you participate or not and b) the final deliverable is not set beforehand.

As we all know, none of these conditions fits very well with the reality of today's enterprises.

To be continued.

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Collaboration as it is - Working together, alone - Part 2

marc.buyens@xpragma.com — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:34:44 +0100

Let’s move on. As we discussed in the first part of this series, we now have the reassuring understanding that we still can collaborate while more or less disliking each other. So, why is it still so difficult?

This thing called "confidence"

Collaboration is a fundamental human behaviour. The race wouldn’t have survived without it. So why does it seem so often a problem in a business context?

Well, the answer is quite simple. Technically speaking, collaboration in a business context is not really more difficult than it is in our private life. Only, our perception of the level of control we (think to) have over the situation is completely different.

Also in our private life, our level of "real" control is limited. To a large extent, we are "lived" by our context: the family we are part of, the society we belong to, the neighbourhood where we live, our education, our job. Still, in most cases, we do not really feel constrained by this context and we are willing to take the necessary risks: getting married, getting kids, buying a house...

In general, in our private life, we have a rather low awareness of potential risks and high confidence that we will manage, even when things go somewhat wrong. In a business context, which is by definition a much more controlled and planned environment, we have a much higher awareness of potential risks and a much lower confidence that we will manage.

Why this difference?

Well, the main reason for this is that a company is not a natural system. A company is an artefact, which existence is governed by specific laws that allow it to exist as a whole at the size and the level of complexity that it has. By definition, every non-natural system is fragile since it does not exist close to its natural "balance point" and every uncontrolled change can make it collapse. It’s an elephant on long thin legs.

To some extent, collaboration is an act of being open for uncontrolled change.

Stepping into a discussion with a stranger

The collaboration "system" that we presented in our previous post is simple enough. However, applying this in the business context of a company with a high degree of "need for control" introduces quite a number of perceived risks.

Inability / uncertainty

First, and this is not something the company has full control of, there is the challenge of finding and selecting the right partner. This problem cannot be completely solved today. Despite all our communication capabilities and our access to company information in various forms, finding and selecting the right partner remains a challenge.

This challenge will not be easily addressed. A main issue here is openness. Having a good partner is an asset that you do not readily want to share with everyone.

Dependency

A second challenge is dependency. Companies do not want to depend too much on other parties. Although many of them have grown to large collaborative ecosystems with suppliers and subcontractors, most of this is strictly hierarchical and allows for little mutual influential interaction.

Loss of control

A bit in the same context, there is the aversion for too much loss of control.

This concern is of course completely expected in the context of the discussion we have here but to a large extent, it is a false feeling. Indeed, most companies that want to have a high degree of control will in reality overdo it, adding unnecessary layers of authority, procedures and rules that only slow down the pace of activity without substantially improving the "safety" of the system.

Having to loosen up some part of the formal control can improve the operational performance of such company.

Diversity

Finally, there is diversity. Differences in the mutual "culture" of the collaborating companies can be a significant burden for success. Bringing in a partner that can complement your own capabilities or that is more efficient in the delivery of certain services, will by definition mean that this partner will be "different" in some way and most likely, this will necessitate some changes in your own default behaviour in order to make the collaboration succeed.

At the same time, such confrontation of different cultural views can also be an opportunity to detect new possibilities, new ways of addressing certain problems, which can benefit both parties.

Alone, together

OK, this is only a very brief and incomplete overview and much more can be said about this. In essence, none of these perceived risks really should be a major problem. However, they become problems to the extent that we want to keep our "context" identical.

So, this brings us to this interesting dualism:

On the one hand, as we described in the previous post, collaboration is perfectly possible while both parties have completely different visions about their final destination. They only have to agree on the intermediate objective or deliverable.

On the other hand, if we want to maximize the value that the collaboration can bring, we cannot restrict our context to what it was before, which might mean that we have to review the vision we have about our final destination.

A bit like marriage, but without the pheromones.

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Collaboration as it is - Working together, alone - Part 1

marc.buyens@xpragma.com — Sat, 4 Feb 2012 12:12:27 +0100

The collaboration thing

This is the first of a short series of posts in which we will explore the inner workings of the thing called "collaboration".

Over the past months, we have been writing and thinking frequently about collaboration: what it is, what it means, how it can be used, how it can be improved. Most of this was done in the context of discussions on Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business, where more and better connectedness is often preached as being the Holy Grail for more and better collaboration.

That is true to some extent. However, it does not tell the complete story. Therefore, in some of our posts, we have been arguing against such thinking. However, after a while, we had to discover that also our own ideas were not always as accurate or as complete as we initially thought.

So, this paper is a thinking exercise about what collaboration really is. The purpose is not to get the ultimate proof for our own ideas, but simply to get to a better understanding, a deeper insight and hopefully, a more correct view on how this might create more meaning in our life. As always, we welcome your comments and ideas.

What is collaboration?

As some have mentioned in the comments on our blog, collaboration has many facets and consequently, the inner workings of collaboration are not always the same.

That is true. When thinking about how people work together when facing a disaster, it is clear that this has little to do with the way we work together in the context of a business project.

So, the scope of this paper is limited to collaboration in a "regular" business context, be it within a single company or between companies and therefore, the starting point for the discussion is this Wikipedia definition:

Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, (this is more than the intersection of common goals seen in co-operative ventures, but a deep, collective, determination to reach an identical objective)

This definition is OK, but as we will see, it is really insufficient to clearly understand the reasons why collaboration sometimes will work and why it so often won’t work at all.

The "system" collaboration

To get to this deeper understanding, we must look at the larger picture, at the "context" of the collaboration, at the "system" that drives the interactions and therefore, the success or the failure of collaboration.

We’ll do so by looking at how and why two companies work together. For the reasons that will become obvious later on, this is a more simple and straightforward model that we then can extend to understand why individuals work together (or not).

As always, the basic premise is a company looking for a solution to a problem. In this case, Company A that has its corporate goals and ambitions and that has identified an intermediate objective or deliverable that will help it on its path towards success.

If Company A can get itself to this intermediate objective or deliverable in an efficient and effective way, there is no need for collaboration. Of course, reality is different and often, a company has to reach outside to complement its own capabilities.

So this brings us to the next picture where we see our Company A working together with Company B, in some way, in order to jointly get to this intermediate objective or deliverable.

As the graph suggests, only the intermediate objective or deliverable is shared. There is no need that the corporate goals of both companies are identical. In theory, they can be completely different and even competing.

However, both companies view the intermediate objective as something that adds value, something that will help them on their path to success, be it perhaps for different reasons.

The dirty secret of collaboration

OK, most likely, this will seem rather obvious.

However, is it?

For most of us, collaboration is seen as a very positive act. "Working together to achieve a common goal". Could it be nicer?

However, reality is that in most collaboration acts "nice" only is a "nice to have" characteristic. For collaboration to work, it isn’t really necessary that all parties involved really like each other. In most cases, they don’t. Just have a look at how you work together with your colleagues. Do you really like all of them?

If collaboration would require that the parties involved really "like" each other, little productive would happen in this world. But fortunately, collaboration is a rather selfish act that you participate in because it will bring you closer to your GOAL, your own chosen selfish GOAL. And that behaviour is also called "economy".

To be continued.

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Deciding together, alone

marc.buyens@xpragma.com — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:53:50 +0100

The past couple of weeks have been rather hectic. Very busy, which is of course good, but a busyness that also had its drawbacks. We have been dealing with a couple of projects that had the label "problem" stamped all over them.

Critical projects with strict deadlines that required the involvement of several individuals, all with their own specialism, but whereby nobody had any experience or background with the complete "context" of the challenge we were dealing with.

It should have been a prime example of collaboration but, as we experienced, it was the fast lane to disaster.

Even the greatest specialist freezes when asked for a commitment for something that slightly reaches outside his/her expertise domain.

The net result is a standstill, lengthy discussions about details and conclusions that nobody agrees with.

It seems to be a "feature" of our race.

Accidentally, or not, we then read this post by Andrew McAfee on the HBR blog: 'The Surprising Benefits of Solitude'.

An interesting post indeed and somewhere, the reassuring feeling that our past experience is not really an exception but rather the standard rule.

Unfortunately.

We are quite sure that there must have been times where simple gestures were sufficient for the group to clearly understand the upcoming danger or challenge at hand and get to action. Otherwise, they wouldn't have survived as a group and, most likely, our race wouldn't exist anymore.

But somewhere along the path of our evolution, we seem to have lost that basic skill of simple, fast decision-making.

So, now we need consultants to guide our decisions and get the blame when things don't work out as planned.

The comforting feeling of being liked.

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