Collaboration
How much time and money do you waste re-inventing the wheel? When a good practice pops up in one part of the organisation, how quickly is it shared around? Do people know who to turn to when they have problems...can they easily locate “the experts” in a given area.
Every organisation contains a wealth of skills, ideas, experiences scattered amongst the individuals it contains. Excellent organisations are able to tap into this intellectual capital and use it productively.
There are different types of knowledge that exist in an organisation. Explicit knowledge is visible and tangible – data, procedures, guidelines, manuals etc. Explicit knowledge can be managed through formal information systems like libraries, intranets, portals etc.
Tacit knowledge is the experience and insights that reside with individuals. It is much less visible than explicit knowledge, but there is much more of it. This sort of knowledge is difficult to write down, and is often transferred through conversation.
To collaborate means to work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort. Here collaboration has been used to describe the processes that facilitate the sharing of tacit knowledge. Collaboration is about people actively seeking out and sharing knowledge with others in the organisation so that better results are achieved with less effort.
For collaboration to occur, a number of conditions must be met:
- People need to be able to find other people whose skills and experience they need, at the time they need it.
- People need to feel comfortable to approach others for advice.
- People need to be willing to give of their time and experience to others.
Relationships are at the centre of this process. We all have a network of friends and acquaintances that we use when we want to find out something. Rather than letting these networks develop by accident, or on the basis of personal interests or traits, we want to deliberately encourage relationships that meet the needs of the company. This relationship-building can be encouraged through the use of:
- Dating agency-type directories where people can search for other people with particular skills or experience.
- On-line discussion forums or wikis.
- Interest group workshops or meetings.
- Knowledge champions who have defined accountability for promoting collaboration on particular topics.
- Internal benchmarking activities and inter-site visits.
It is important for collaboration to be championed and actively supported at the senior levels of the organisation. Leaders must send the clear message that “collaboration is a valuable use of your time”. They must also create a culture where people are rewarded for adopting and / or adapting the ideas of others, not just inventing things themselves.