5 Reasons to Say No to Collaboration
We are often told to collaborate more. But collaboration isn’t always the answer when it comes to addressing opportunities or challenges within our communities. The hard truth that people in my business – the business of supporting civic collaboratives – are sometimes reluctant to acknowledge is that civic collaboration isn’t always necessary, and it is rarely possible.
Getting diverse groups of people to work together to achieve a shared purpose is difficult. And sometimes it’s best to reject calls for collaboration. Here are five reasons not to collaborate:
1. The solution is in a checkbook. Technical problems need technical solutions and such solutions can usually be found in a checkbook. Building a neighborhood health clinic, for example, is a technical problem that can be solved with money. Of course, designing the programming within the clinic so it fully meets the needs of the people of the neighborhood, is more of an adaptive challenge and may well need a collaborative effort. Plenty of challenges can be addressed with a technical solution and don’t require collaboration. Learn more about adaptive challenges and technical solutions from Ronald Heifetz.
2. There’s only one checkbook. Civic collaboratives require resources and capacity. And if only one funder is willing to help pay for those resources and capacity, more than likely the collaborative will fail. Civic collaboratives should have diverse funders, including public, private and philanthropic entities. If there is only one funder, the members of the collaborative may fall into the trap of pleasing the funder, rather than meeting the needs of the community. Learn more about funder-grantee dynamics at Nonprofit AF.
3. Too many average players. Collaboration is only successful when the members of a collaborative are high performing. Organizations that are unable to produce strong results won’t suddenly be high performers because they are sitting at a collaboration table. Funders interested in catalyzing a collaborative would be well served by helping the potential members elevate their own performance first. Learn more about what it means to be a high-performing organization from the Leap Ambassadors. (Disclosure: My daughter works with the Leap Ambassadors.)
4. Low trust. Collaboration moves at the speed of trust. Some communities have long histories of low trust – or even distrust – within and across sectors. If that is the case, champions of collaboration should first work to build trust with and among the players before trying to launch a collaborative. Building trust is done one-to-one, not in group settings. Don’t assume trust is high in your community. Take the time to understand the levels of trust, particularly the trust levels of those people that the collaborative is intended to serve. Learn more about how to build trust at the Speed of Trust.
5. Unhealthy power dynamics. Collaboration is an exercise in giving up and sharing power. Control freaks, turf protectors and the power-hungry cannot collaborate. If the players needed to collaborate fit those descriptions, don’t waste your time trying to start a collaborative. Instead, engage in explicit conversations about what it will take to build a healthier power dynamic in your community. Adam Kahane’s, Collaborating with the Enemy, and Peter Block’s, Community, provide good starting points for addressing power dynamics.
Often the answer to calls for more collaboration should be “not now,” rather than a yes or no. Spending the time to encourage more funders to support the collaborative, helping the players become high performers, building trust and addressing the power dynamics can not only pave the way for future collaboratives, but also elevate our ability to achieve enduring, positive community change.
