Collaborative Leadership and Organizational Performance

“Never underestimate the power of a small dedicated group of people to change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”- Margaret Mead

For years since the F.W. Taylor introduced the Principles of Management, tradition has been to make key decisions at the top level and communicate it down the hierarchy to those who execute them. But, now, Gary Hamel, ranked by The Wall Street Journal as the world’s most influential management thinker argues that the traditional hierarchy no longer fits into today`s organizations. Advocating new management principles like ‘reverse accountability’, he makes a clarion call for management innovation where, I believe, collaborative leadership plays a central role.

In an interview with hbr.org on leading collaborative groups, John Abele, Cofounder of Boston Scientific narrates a great story about a guy who led a skunk-works group at a famous Massachusetts company called Data General.  At the time, this company vied with Digital Equipment. Inside Data General this group competed with a much larger group to invent the first 32 bit computer. Led by this smart guy, this small group of ten engineers, who hardly got along with each other at all, ended up beating that larger group and also Digital Equipment to create the first 32 bit computer. He  played them like a violin and led them to achieve that amazing feat.

What this story tells us is that people may not like each other at all. They may have differences in terms of knowledge, attitude, experience, values and the likes. But, through collaborative leadership, we can get them to focus on the mission and harness the collective intelligence to achieve great results.

To achieve collaboration, the first thing a leader has to do is create trust in the environment. But, the traditional command / control leadership can do but little here. It is someone who leads from behind that can cultivate trust among the people in the organization to coax collaboration from them. True, they do not have a title or formal authority. Still, they lead from behind and accomplish splendid results. According to Gary Hamel, organizations today require this kind of leaders. He argues that if someone can persuade other people in the organization to contribute to achieve their mission without a title or formal authority, he is a real leader who can propel the organization towards success.

Collaborative leadership, I believe, involves listening to people, respecting their ideas, showing empathy, taking collective responsibility when something goes wrong, sharing credit and other rewards when the team has pulled it off and so on. Look closer and you find that there is a momentous concept encompassing all this: Emotional Intelligence. Even if EI covers a much broader area than collaborative leadership, it goes without saying that these basic skills hallmark the successful leaders.

Also, collaborative leadership is not just about leading employees in an organization. In fact, it involves collaborating with all stakeholders. John Abele, in his Harvard Business Review article, ‘Bringing Minds Together’ published in HBR July, 2011 issue, tells a cool story about Jack Whitehead, CEO of Technicon who made the bold decision to buy the patents and prototype of a machine that automated the process of analyzing certain chemicals. It was useful for testing blood, urine and other body fluids.  The clinical chemist who invented this amazing creation originally tried to sell this amazing instrument to big companies. But it was the early 1960s and physicians were ordering few tests. And there were plenty of lab assistants to carry them out.

Jack, however, had the courage to manufacture this machine even if Technicon was originally a tissue-processing equipment maker. Using his outgoing personality and powers of persuasion, he came up with a radical sales process for the new product. Arguing that it was new and would remain unique as it was protected by the patents, he told all interested buyers to spend a week at his factory to see how it worked and asked for  payment in advance.

The training would cover how the instrument worked, what might go wrong, how to set it right, how to use it for different applications and how to develop new applications and so on. Customers even had to put their own machines together. All this might appear to be counter-intuitive. But every industry has early adopters and Jack was determined to attract them. This bold move created extraordinary dynamics among them. They came to know Jack and his staff well. They came to know each other well. They collaborated like they were partners, like they were all one family.

Writes Abele, “….When the week ended, those relationships endured and a vibrant community began to emerge around the innovation. The scientist-customers fixed one another’s machines. They developed new applications. They published papers. They came up with new product ideas. They gave talks at scientific meetings. They recruited new customers. In time, they developed standards, training programs, new business models, and even a specialized language to describe their new field….”

Thus, it is evident that collaborative leadership is a catalyst for the successful performance of a business or of any organization for that matter. Also, it helps build organizations that are fit for the future and fit for human beings as Gary Hamel says. Building a collaborative culture is certainly not a walk in the park. But, at the end of the day, it’s worth all that effort.