How to diagnose the health of your collaboration

When people are authentically and effectively collaborating, it’s an amazing thing to be a part of. But as we know, not all collaborative experiences are quite so positive. Sometimes it feels more painful than it needs to be. While we work hard at working together we continue to come up short on delivery of outcomes. We see argument when we want innovation and low commitment when we want buy-in.

If this feels like you, don’t despair. There are ways to reset and get your collaboration back on track. But first, how would you recognise that it’s time to reset your collaboration? In our experience, strong indicators include:

  1. unsatisfying delivery of outcomes
  2. people agreeing in meetings then disagreeing later
  3. a lack of face to face engagement. People reverting to email ‘wars’
  4. obvious friction in meetings, high stress, low morale
  5. lack of commitment to taking action
  6. people feeling left out and unappreciated in the relationship
  7. people pushing their own agendas and solutions
  8. not much listening
  9. information being hoarded and ‘weaponised’

Most organisations understand the need to work differently in collaborative partnerships and many start well. But there is growing evidence that a lack of understanding about what it takes to collaborate means many well-intended collaborative partnerships struggle over time. In such cases it can be useful to reset the relationship, to get the work and the teamwork back on track.

But a reset can’t happen overnight. It needs more than a workshop. In our next blogpost we will be outlining how to reset your collaboration and get back on track to deliver great outcomes together.

Meanwhile, if you need to reset your collaboration, to find out how we can help to get you back on track.