How much collaboration is taking place at your company? What are the quality and outcomes of that collaboration? If you’re hard-pressed to answer those questions, you may not be fully harnessing one of your organizational superpowers.
Collaboration at work refers to the process of individuals or teams working together, often across different organizational functions, departments, or levels, to achieve a common goal. It involves active participation, cooperation, and shared responsibility.
Innovation is the game-changing outcome of measured and optimized collaboration. Decades of empirical research point to innovation as a key indicator of a company’s flexibility, adaptability, and competitive advantage in the marketplace. So what is innovation? In the context of organizations, it’s the process of introducing new ideas, methods, products, or services that create value and drive positive change. It involves the application of creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking to bring about meaningful advancements or improvements.
Innovation is not limited to groundbreaking inventions or radical transformations; it can encompass incremental improvements, process enhancements, or adapting existing ideas in novel ways. While part of innovation—creativity—is typically an individual process, the fruition of creativity in organizations is innovation, which happens on a social level. Innovation is a dynamic and iterative process that relies heavily on collaboration.
IBM, which once held a 23-year streak for most patents, attributes its success at innovation to its collaborative culture. Innovation can be an arduous process. Ideas generated through creativity face barriers like funding constraints, competition, and technical issues. The process of overcoming these barriers and seeing an idea through to market is innovation. IBM’s ability to collaborate across all levels of the innovation process is what gives the company its competitive advantage. For instance:
- IBM scientists win Nobel prizes,
- IBM engineers turn those ideas into products that thrive in the market,
- IBM technicians help companies implement the technology to improve their work.
Its cross-level collaborative culture allows IBM to identify and act on opportunities.
Quantity vs. Quality
While collaboration can be extremely beneficial, companies hoping to reap those benefits must understand that the quality of the collaboration is much more important than the quantity.
The average employee spends approximately 80% of their work time in meetings, responding to emails and calls, and fulfilling colleagues’ requests. That’s a significant portion, considering that only a small fraction—3% to 5%—of employees contribute 20% to 35% of the most valuable collaboration efforts.
These exceptional contributors, often called “helpers,” willingly and capably offer their assistance. However, their involvement in various projects takes a toll on their own work. To make up for the time spent helping others, they work extra hours, take work home, or arrive early. Consequently, they become overburdened, their personal productivity suffers, and burnout becomes a looming threat. Sometimes, these helpers may eventually leave the organization, while others may stay but contribute to a stressful and apathetic work environment.
Given the current climate of increased employee stress and stretched resources, evaluating the cost of collaboration compared to its value within your organization is crucial. It is worth exploring necessary changes to ensure a balance. The article Collaborative Overload from the Harvard Business Review provides excellent insights about how to do that.
Collaboration Metrics
Monitoring collaboration involves tracking specific metrics to gain insights into the effectiveness and productivity of collaborative efforts. To properly leverage collaboration for innovation, you must:
- first, identify your desired outcomes;
- next, decide how collaboration will support those outcomes;
- then, figure out how to measure that collaboration.
Here are some ways to effectively measure collaboration:
Team Performance assesses how well teams working together meet deadlines, achieve project objectives, and deliver high-quality results.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as project completion rate, customer satisfaction, and revenue generated from collaborative projects can be good indicators.
Communication and interaction-related metrics can be valuable. These metrics can include the number of messages exchanged, frequency of meetings or interactions, response times, and participation levels in team discussions or virtual platforms.
Knowledge-sharing can be an important metric as collaboration often involves sharing expertise. Metrics such as the number of shared documents or files, contributions to shared repositories or knowledge bases, and participation in knowledge-sharing platforms and forums can be useful.
Employee engagement levels and retention rates can indirectly indicate collaboration levels within the organization.
Remember that the choice of metrics may vary depending on the specific goals and context of collaboration within an organization. It’s critical to select metrics that align with your organization’s objectives and regularly review and refine them to ensure they capture your desired outcomes.
Measuring Collaboration
Measuring collaboration at work can be challenging due to its intangible nature. However, here are some common methods that can help measure collaboration:
- Surveys and Questionnaires: Conducting surveys or questionnaires can provide valuable insights into employees’ perceptions of collaboration. Ask questions related to teamwork, communication, information sharing, and the effectiveness of collaborative processes. The responses can provide quantitative or qualitative data to gauge the level of collaboration within teams or across the organization.
- Peer Evaluations: Encourage peers to evaluate each other’s collaborative behaviors and contributions. This can be done through structured assessments or feedback forms that assess qualities like active listening, cooperation, knowledge sharing, and supportiveness. Peer evaluations provide a holistic perspective on collaboration and can identify high-performing collaborators.
- Project Outcomes and Performance Metrics: Collaboration often aims to achieve shared goals. Therefore, assessing project outcomes and performance metrics can indirectly measure the effectiveness of collaboration. Look at metrics like project completion rates, quality of deliverables, customer satisfaction, or financial performance. If collaborative efforts positively impact these metrics, it suggests successful collaboration.
- Network Analysis: Analyzing social networks within the organization can provide insights into collaboration patterns. Network analysis identifies individuals who act as central connectors or bridges between different teams or departments by mapping relationships, communication channels, and information flow. The density and strength of these connections can indicate the level of collaboration.
- Observations and Behavioral Assessments: Direct observation and behavioral assessments by managers or designated observers can capture collaboration in action. Assess factors like participation, contribution, active listening, idea generation, and conflict resolution during team meetings or collaborative projects. These assessments should be conducted with clear evaluation criteria and guidelines.
- Technology-Based Collaboration Tools: Collaboration platforms and tools, such as project management software, document-sharing platforms, or communication tools, often provide data on user engagement, contribution frequency, or interaction patterns. Analyzing these data points can offer insights into the extent and quality of collaboration.
- Occupancy Sensors: Sensors can play a valuable role in measuring collaboration in rooms by providing objective data about various aspects of human interaction. Occupancy sensors detect the presence and movement of individuals within a room. By monitoring the number of people present, the duration of their stay, and their movements, these sensors can provide insights into the level of activity and engagement in a collaborative space.
You should note that collaboration is a complex and multifaceted concept. Combining multiple measurement methods, both qualitative and quantitative, can provide a more comprehensive understanding of collaboration within an organization. Regular feedback, open communication, and fostering a collaborative culture can further support and enhance collaboration at your organization.
In summary, collaboration is a mighty organizational superpower that you can leverage by continuously monitoring and evaluating collaboration to drive innovation, improve performance, and achieve organizational goals in the ever-changing work landscape.
