Lately I have been thinking a lot about the difference between collaboration and cooperation as it pertains to teamwork and collective excellence.
First of all, what is collaboration anyways?
Wikipedia defines collaboration as occurring “when two or more people or organizations work together to realize or achieve a goal.” The definition also states that “Structured methods of collaboration encourage introspection of behavior and communication. These various methods specifically aim to increase the success of teams as they engage in collaborative problem solving.” (If you read the whole definition, they suggest that it is “very similar to cooperation” which I agree with stylistically but not in actuality.)
One of the keys elements of collaboration is that it is decentralized. True collaborative work generates a product that is difficult to tag to one owner. While leadership is imperative to successful collaboration, it is not necessarily the result of one person leading the process, rather anyone in the group or everyone in the group can take a leadership role as long as they are willing to be altered by the other people in the group. (This basically means that you are willing to recognize and accept other people’s ideas or suggestions even if those suggestions alter your idea of what is possible.)
The promise of collaboration is the creation of something that is more than the sum of the parts. Improvisation games use this assumption to create both funny and dramatic stories that can surprise and amaze not only the audience but the people involved. Much like kids playing on an Ouija board, the feeling can be as if there were an invisible force directing the action toward a specific outcome.
(That outcome being “freaking out teenagers.”)
Cooperation on the other hand doesn’t require anything from the participants, except perhaps obedience to a directive.
This is why I discourage organizations from using phrases like “get on the same page” or “bring people along” because they tend to have a passive implication (much like “getting everyone on the same bus” is a passive objective). Cooperation is something that we ask of people when it doesn’t really matter whether they understand or agree with the ask. For example, when a new stop sign is put up on a road, we don’t expect collaboration in how we use it. There are very specific rules to what people are supposed to do when they come to a stop sign and we expect people to cooperate along with those expectations.
(See, he’s following the rules…)
Another example (and perhaps a clearer one) is the example of a water bucket brigade.
This action isn’t asking anyone to add anything creative to the process. Instead, the success of the action is dependent on everyone being focused and following the rhythm of the group. Get out of rhythm and you can cause a lot of problems for the team. This action is powerful and capable of moving large amounts of water in a short period of time, but it is not collaborative in nature. One person could organize this and instruct everyone how to do it. In some ways, this is what certain team sports are like (Crew for instance):
(See how they work in unison?)
Cooperation is on the whole a passive compliance with a direction on how the group is going to achieve an objective, and collaboration requires that the members of the team be engaged together in solving a wicked problem (a problem that is inherently too difficult to solve) without necessarily having one leader guide that process.
I want to point out that there is nothing wrong with cooperation. It is just that when we confuse it with collaboration, we wind up asking people to be engaged and feel “a part of a process” that has already been decided and which does not need or want their input. This is demoralizing and is a great way to destroy team morale and push away great talent.
Collaboration is also not something that you can just do with a bunch of strangers. (Ask Congress how all that collaborative law-making is going in DC…) The less we know and understand the motivations of our collaborative partners, the less likely we will trust them enough to be influenced by their ideas. Without insights into other people and without a deeper understanding of what drives them and how they think about the world, we will not be vulnerable and open enough to create things in a collaborative sense. When people distrust each other all you get instead is a lot of status activity, with people trying to fight for the right to be the “leader” of the group and to dictate how and what the group does.
Without understanding how to listen, the ability to clearly articulate your ideas and thoughts and a genuine willingness to be vulnerable with other people, nothing will be created except frustration and mediocrity.
Sadly, this is the state of many “collaborative” teams. If you want to learn how to work with others in a more collaborative and creative way, you will first need to learn how to communicate with clarity and listen with an open mind.
The opportunity for any organization that allows its leadership teams to become more collaborative is that it will then be accessing not only the individual excellence of the group but also that magical, combined excellence that comes from a group of talented people who are willing to build and grow their ideas and thoughts together.
As the famed dancer and choreographer Karole Armitage says about collaboration: “It takes enormous generosity of spirit–it’s not about one’s ego. It’s about giving something wonderful to the audience.”
When we collaborate on a shared goal, we are able to use the best of our individual talents to create something beautiful, unique and more powerful than any one of us could have created alone.