The fundamentals of effective collaboration: what the research says | Article

The case for collaboration is well-understood. But, despite the myriad of complex, interconnected challenges facing the UK, the act of cross-sector collaboration remains elusive. We speak to Nigel Ball and Ian Taylor, researchers and authors of WIG’s recently published Collaboration Playbook, to discuss the misconceptions and often-forgotten fundamentals of collaboration, and why having a ‘language’ to talk about it will help us make progress.    

To download your free copy of the Collaboration Playbook: A leader’s guide to cross-sector collaboration please visit: Collaboration Playbook (wig.co.uk) 

Why should collaboration and this Playbook be of interest to leaders?  

Nigel: “The challenges we’re facing today are so acute and deep and frightening that it’s impossible to believe that any organisation could work to solve them on its own. Organisations have to collaborate with others in the sector and across sectors. But this is not how any of the sectors and industries are wired at the moment. It is going to require some pretty fundamental shifts.

“Our research at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, has shown that current approaches to tackle large social issues are flawed. We’ve done a lot of work and thinking around how government works with other sectors to deliver better social outcomes. Our evaluation and research highlighted that for the type of problems the government is trying to solve – complex social problems, the climate emergency – the traditional approach of contracting and commissioning services through formal relationships wasn’t working. What was needed was a very different approach, one based on relational working and a stronger sense of partnership.   

“It led to a broader question about what it looks like to collaborate successfully across the sectors, and how leaders can initiate work to tackle the difficult problems that they can’t tackle alone. There’s a lot of research out there, but it’s not well-known or brought together in a single place. What was needed is an understanding of: 

1. When to collaborate 
2. How to collaborate and what to consider  

“That’s what we’ve attempted to provide through this Playbook. It was important that the Playbook would land in the real world, so we had input and support from practitioners to interpret the literature and make sure we were producing a practical guide."  

“If you’re a leader who has the appetite to collaborate, the Playbook can give you a way to think and talk about it.”   

What is there to gain from collaboration? 

Ian: “The Playbook outlines four drivers of collaboration - the factors and influences that can make it worthwhile collaborating - representation, knowledge generation, economies of scope and economies of scale. All are linked to improved outcomes, but while the latter two emphasise the efficiencies that can come from collaboration, the former two drivers help collaborating organisations understand where they’re trying to get to and how they must address inherent bias to overcome blind spots if progress is to be made.  

“Leadership today is in an information rich environment, but we’re largely stuck with organisational structures that are designed for an information scarce environment, which subsequently favours a ‘command and control’ approach to delivery (albeit not always effectively). Now we have the volume of information to get a rich picture, but don’t have the computational capacity to really understand it – the rise of machine learning isn’t yet in a position to give us a proper understanding. This distinction between information and knowledge is where collaboration can help – it can act as a filter to help turn one into the other."   

Why is collaboration not done more often?   

Nigel: “It’s misunderstood and it’s not easy. There are two common misconceptions. Firstly, people often think ‘it’s always better to collaborate if you can’. This is definitely not the case; there’s lots of evidence that shows you can be wasting your time and everyone else’s.” 

The Playbook contains a set of ‘moderating points’ for the drivers of collaboration, to help leaders decide whether a collaboration is the right approach.  

“Secondly, there’s the misconception that collaboration is always nice and friendly. I don’t think anyone thinks collaboration is easy, but people misunderstand the nature of the difficulties – with any successful collaboration there’s going to be conflict, misalignment, it’s going to be very hands-on, and, as a leader, you’re going to have to take risks and step beyond your organisational mandate. These are hard things to do at a personal and professional level.” 

“It’s important to know when to pursue a collaboration and understand what it takes.” 

Collaboration entails an element of risk that cannot be avoided if you want to reap the benefits of collaboration. The Playbook uses game theory as a model to demonstrate the need for collaborative leaders to display a level of vulnerability and accept risk.  

So what are the fundamentals to consider?  

Ian: “Of all the elements of collaboration, we identified and focused on five that are probably the most significant –Leadership, Trust, Culture, Power and Learning. Within each of those five themes, there are a number of ‘Plays’ for leaders to consider to help them establish and navigate a successful collaboration.”  

The five themes are discussed in detail in the Playbook, and leaders are encouraged to move around the themes as needed to explore the topics of interest and relevance.  

Leadership: a collaborative leader must be effective at bringing together disparate sources of information and opinion to improve understanding and develop better solutions. The role of a leader is critical for setting and maintaining clear ground rules, building trust, facilitating dialogue and exploring mutual gains.  

Trust: while long acknowledged as a prerequisite for a successful collaboration, in reality, many collaborations begin with no foundations of trust or a lack of it. The Playbook offers methods for collaborations to build and enhance trust between partners.  

Culture: successful collaborations require culturally diverse partners but there is a risk of cultural clashes which can hamper progress. A collaborative leader must be able to understand and manage the different ‘institutional logics’ that a cross-sector collaboration brings to the table. 

Power: imbalances in power are common in collaborations. While the balance may shift over time, marked power disparities prevent the full participation of all collaborators and undermines the benefits of collaboration.  

Learning: leaders are advised to use two types of evaluation when managing collaborations – formative and summative – so that performance can be assessed in terms of function and outcome.  

“We’ve gone much deeper with these themes to understand the ‘Positive Chemistry’ of collaborations. It’s what makes this Playbook distinctive; these issues are always present in a collaboration but not always understood or even acknowledged.” 

Through all the research and evidence, what takeouts did you find most surprising or stand-out?  

Ian: “Comprehensive communication stood out to me. Coming from business, it was really quite different from the way I had assumed it would be best to operate. Having done the research, it’s not about forging a consensus, it’s about making space for everyone to surface their differences because part of the value of a collaboration is understanding these differences and having everyone bought in, in a genuine way. Also, the importance of informal communication channels, particularly inter-organisationally - there’s not much set up despite the technology available. There is work to be done to connect operations.”  

“In a similar vein, it’s been interesting and useful to put a language around collaboration. Even those who had spent a lot of time thinking about these things weren’t precise or clear in defining what they were doing and how that differs from other things. The Playbook gives multiple frameworks to help people narrow down what they’re doing and give it a name to distinguish it from other things.” 

Nigel: “An interesting question that the research raised was ‘What does collaboration say about your goals? What’s the ethical dimension to collaboration?’ There’s diverse literature on wisdom which is an interesting idea – it’s about the sense of doing good and thinking about the human and planetary consequences of everything we’re doing.”  

Ian: “Collaboration should make sure that what you’re working on is wise: is what you’re working on right for everyone? It’s a critical part of the knowledge generation phase."  

“In part, a reason for collaborations starting and failing is that there is a cultural expectation that we should collaborate – we get kudos for doing that. But, in reality, we haven’t reached a cultural state where we all understand what is involved and what it means in practice.” 

What do you hope the Playbook will do?  

Ian: “I hope that the UK’s leaders talk to each other about the Playbook and start structuring conversations around its elements – ‘Are we bringing enough people in?’, ‘Do we need to be more flexible?’, ‘What are the expectations of our core and periphery partners?’, ‘Yes, we’re going to move to the periphery because we don’t have the resources right now.’ If leaders are aware of the frameworks and can talk about it, there’s a much better conversation to be had to make successful collaborations a reality."  

“A leader is no longer expected to have all the answers. Their job is to empower others who have the knowledge and can make a better judgement. It’s a different version of leadership.”  

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To access your free copy of WIG’s Collaboration Playbook and learn more about effective collaboration practices, please visit: Collaboration Playbook (wig.co.uk) 

Get in touch: If you or your organisation is an active collaborator, we’d love to hear from you about your experience and learnings. Please get in touch: [email protected] 

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