Collaboration is a partnership between people and or groups intended to generate a product or achieve a singular objective that is mutually beneficial to all parties involved. Collaboration tends to move forward any kind of work or goal faster than any other approach because it is powered by skills, knowledge, expertise, experience, and insight of many people, not just one person.
It is particularly critical in public service industries because the needs and demands in these industries are complex, multidimensional, and in industries such as health care, filled with severe risks and often times, dire consequences. In a laboratory, for example, a “simple” blood test involves multiple staff, processes, and knowledge areas. All of these units or players must work together not only to deliver the service (blood test) but also to achieve an interdependent goal (accurate and timely test results). A lack of cooperation (an element of collaboration) by team members in any step in this service process results in various negative outcomes, such as patient dissatisfaction, staff frustration, and delay or error in diagnosis or treatment.
More often than not the lack of collaboration surfaces as ineffective behaviour, not deficiencies in technical knowledge and capacity. At the extreme, ineffective behaviour is dysfunctional and includes poor communication, sabotage (conscious or unconscious) of existing processes, refusal to work with or participate in teams, gossip-mongering, apathy, procrastination and disregard for time frames, constant complaining, argumentativeness, rudeness, and resistance to constructive feedback.
That being said, collaboration as a performance improvement strategy, is a necessary ingredient in today’s complex, ambiguous, fast and every-changing workplaces. If the corporate culture goal is for a collaborative workforce, then the critical factor is that everyone – from the top to the bottom – is crystal clear on the types of behaviours that are acceptable and desired, and more importantly, the types of behaviours that are ‘relationship killers’. For most people, it seems this should be common sense, but because we’re unique human beings, what’s common sense for me, and for you, is never the same. People behaviour is at the heart of any corporate culture and must be ‘owned’ by the company. People behaviour is a dynamic ever-changing phenomenon of all healthy organizations and must be addressed, developed and entrenched as often as people move and change roles within the organization.
There are thousands of training sessions out there touting to change workplace behaviours, but it won’t stick until each and every individual takes responsibility for their own behaviour and for the environment within which they work. To do that, a person needs a deep understanding of themselves – the way they think and feel – and how they affect others around them. It is a matter of creating a common ‘behaviour language’, and then learning how to change one’s thinking to produce the necessary behaviour habits that are needed for a positive, happy and productive team, at every organizational level. It is a matter of developing the skill of Positive Presence in every individual at every level of the organization. The skill of Positive Presence is innate in every human being, and with this skill comes the mindset, the vocabulary and the skills needed to take both yourself, your team and your company to the next level.
When we understand that cognitive dissonance (the uncomfortable feelings that accompany the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it) is in essence a biological reaction to the way feedback is delivered to us, then we are in a much better position to deal with it. If we’re on the receiving end, it takes awareness and preparedness to keep one-self open to what is new and different. When we can do that, the feedback process is said to be constructive and effective. If we’re on the delivery end of the feedback, then we have control of the delivery and an opportunity to ensure that feedback is given with an intention to coach and inform in a positive and familiar manner that will elicit a constructive and effective result.
Giving and receiving feedback is probably one of life’s greatest challenges both personally and professionally. As leaders, it is critical to continually develop our capacity for both giving and receiving feedback, both positive and negative. Most would agree that giving or receiving positive feedback is relatively simple in comparison to giving or receiving negative feedback. In reality though, negative feedback (the stuff we’re not doing or we need to do better), is essential if we are to learn and grow, and how we behave in the face of feedback is where the learning must begin.
Whether you are in a formal role of leader or not, you are always an influential leader. Influential leaders understand that how they think and behave affects the way they lead. They must be committed to all kinds of improvement and solicit regular feedback from their colleagues and followers. Influential leaders fully support the organizational mission and vision, and they ensure that their personal values and purpose, and the values and purpose of those they lead, align with those of the organization.
As leaders we must always be pursuing new avenues that can improve or enhance our overall leadership influence. In today’s global economy, we must continually transform our own leadership effectiveness, the performance of our people, and the overall productivity of our organization.
A cooperative attitude inhibits destructive competition. While competition among teams can be healthy in that it brings out personal and team bests, energy and commitment to work, it can quickly lead to negative or dysfunctional behaviour. Competition can turn some people into fanatics, so single minded in their pursuit that they become blind to the consequences of their actions. They desire to win at all costs, so they turn to unfair practices, manipulate or alienate those around them and ignore rules or stated guidelines. In addition, destructive competition can impact workers in ways a boss might not anticipate. Destructive competitive behaviour has no place in a cooperative and collaborative work environment. Organizations with teams that cooperate gain greater rewards than those who compete. 
A cooperative attitude is performance power. And a cooperative attitude is critical to building strong, sustainable teams. We know that when teams are engaged by their leadership in a cooperative environment not only is there in an increase in employee morale but increased productivity, improved safety, and greater quality with fewer incidents of error and rework.
Remember that communication starts and stops all collaborations. We cannot begin to collaborate without effective and functional conversations. Of greatest importance is for team members to be able to share vital information without fear of experiencing intimidation, retaliation, rude, demeaning, and condescending behaviour. They also need to be able to ask questions without being made to feel inferior and uneducated.
Communication starts and stops all effective collaborations. Some of the causes of ineffective communication are a mixture of both organizational and human factors. The human factors are mental, behavioural and emotional, such as the following:
Can we place too much emphasis on the need for open and effective communication? There are entire books, lectures, and even professional organizations dedicated to researching and improving overall communication in the workforce. What all this attention on communication says to us is first, it is critical to individual and organizational performance and second, we all still struggle with open and effective communication.