This blog is the first in a short series of blogs covering collaboration in the context of cross-sector partnerships. Over the series I'll be covering collaborative advantage, what influences success and failure in cross-sector collaboration and helping you understand how to navigate these factors.
Why am I writing this blog?
Firstly, as the past-chair of one of the largest NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups in England, this topic was always on my agenda. The concept of collaboration in NHS circles has long been discussed and has gained a lot of traction over the past few years. One of the core principles for NHS Integrated Care Boards - which were introduced across England in July this year - is that they work to produce a plan in collaboration with NHS trusts/foundation trusts and other system partners for meeting the health needs of the population, managing the NHS budget and arranging for the provision of health services in the defined area.
Second, I am in the final stages of completing an MBA in Leadership Practice at The Open University. During this time I've learned a lot - but I've been particularly interested in the concepts of co-producing value, cross-organisational collaboration and systems theory. My research dissertation explores the concept of collaborative advantage in the context of collaboration between the NHS and organisations from the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector. Having conducted an extensive literature review on the topic, I thought I'd share my learning on this subject in an easy to read format.
How might it help you?
Having worked in and studied the collaboration space for several years, I've seen great collaborations and witnessed those that have wilted. I am keen to share my understanding and experiences to help a wider audience build better collaborations.
Collaboration and 'collaborative advantage' - What is it all about?
Collaboration is defined as the action of working with someone to produce something. In this article we are discussing collaboration in the context of working across organisations: the situation where people work across organisational boundaries with the intent of producing a positive outcome (usually in the form of a positive pay-off for each partner, although it could be a positive pay-off for society).
So what is collaborative advantage?
In the text, Managing to Collaborate: The theory and practice of collaborative advantage, Huxham and Vangen discuss collaborative advantage as being the benefit that is achieved when individuals or organisations achieve more than they would have done independently, by working effectively with each other. In their theory they also discuss the tension between collaborative advantage and collaborative inertia - when progress slows down or the collaboration begins to fail. A core concept running through their theory is managing these tensions.
Many of you who work in industry or have management backgrounds will be familiar with the concept of competitive advantage - being ahead of your competitors in the market by creating goods or services better, faster and more cost-effectively than your counter-part organisations. However, in a complex, interconnected and rapidly changing world, keeping pace with all the resources and capabilities your organisation needs to remain competitive might be less easy. Therefore, collaboration with others offers something different. In the world of public services who are trying to solve 'wicked problems' - such as health inequalities, crime, poverty - collaboration offers a potential solution to tackling society's big issues. In the business world, it can offer new routes to R&D, joint promotion, building your brand image... A term that is sometimes used when being collaborative offers a competitive advantage to all members of an alliance is coopertition.
What forms do collaboratives take?
Collaborations are often called collaboratives, alliances or partnerships. There are different forms of collaboration and they are often described in terms of their governance arrangements. Collaboration varies in the degree of commitment and the degree of integration required of each partner. These can range from highly integrated and highly committed arrangements such as joint ventures, to looser arrangements such as working with preferred providers in your supply chain. Sydow et al., summarise these arrangements in the chart below.
Collaboration can come in the form of strategic alliances (business, military, public services), operational alliances, learning alliances and informal collaboration between partners.
Why bother collaborating?
The obvious answer to this question is to create collaborative advantage. But what motivates organisations to collaborate? In their book, Strategic Alliance Management, Tjemkes and colleagues, set out several motivations for entering into a collaborative alliance: gaining new resources, creating economies of scale, sharing risks/costs associated with investments, geographic expansion, building reputation, sharing knowledge and learning - and finally getting to know each other.
At the heart of collaborative advantage is creation of value - whether that is value for your customers (through experience), value for your organisation (profits), value for your employees (satisfaction) or public and societal value.
Five of these key themes are summarised below.
- A problem shared is a problem halved:all organisations face risks to their strategy and operations. Collaboration with other organisations in other sectors can help reduce financial and reputational risks and bring a greater degree of assurance to the organisations involved.
- Working with what we have between us: not all organisations have the resources or capabilities to meet their goals. This is particularly true in public services where the goals of individual organisations are often beyond the reach of their capabilities. An example from my own area was the creation of a health-led employment programme - employment is a major determinant in health, but neither the NHS nor local government could have got people into work alone. The same is true in the business world. A good example was the alliance between uber and spotifyto enable people to stream music whilst on their uber-ride.
- Knowledge is powerful:information and knowledge are important resources in enabling organisations to understand the environment and context in which the operate. New knowledge can help shape strategy, as well as helping to create new capabilities.
- Working in harmony: co-ordination of activities can be an important outcome from collaboration. It avoids duplication, missing things out, pursuing conflicting activities and diluting capacity of individual organisations. This approach also has the potential benefit of being more efficient. In my world, a good example of this is the team around the personapproach between health and local government which co-ordinates a multi-professional team from different organisations to help prevent people's health and care needs deteriorating - ultimately aiming to keep people out of hospital or care homes. In the business world, think about the party planner who provides a one-stop-shop service in collaborating with venues, caterers, musicians etc to create a special experience (value) for their customers.
- The moral imperative: sometimes there are issues that affect society at large. These include the wicked problems that no one organisation can solve alone. They range from poverty, drug use, climate change, economic development and inequalities that exist in our populations. The very nature of these issues means that collaboration is essential in addressing them. Tackling these issues forms part of an organisation's social responsibility - even if it is not the primary purpose. In Scotland, the Scottish Business Climate Collaborative has been created to tackle climate change and accelerate net-zero across its membership.
So how do you create collaborative 'advantage'?
There is a lot of literature on what makes collaborations work (or not). Here I will introduce you to four key perspectives on this topic.
Perspective 1: Use toolkits for collaboration. Multiple toolkits exist to facilitate collaboration, such as this guide from Harvard University and Project Zero or this one from NIVCA. These how-to guides are helpful in understanding the tools and techniques that collaboration managers and members can use to work in a more effective manner.
Perspective 2: Understand the make or break factors.A lot of the literature focusses on what works and what doesn't in collaboration. Key factors for success include matters such as trust, shared goals, forming relationships, mutual respect, leadership, and agreed rules and governance.
Perspective 3: Understand collaboration as a process. Some authors have proposed that collaboration is a process, with steps that can be followed. In his book, Collaborative Advantage: How collaboration beats competition as a strategy for success, Paul Skinner outlines "The Outside In" framework which involves 5 steps: finding common purpose, create opportunities, engage participation, integrate and accelerate, and finally build partnerships.
On the academic front, Kanter compares collaboration to marriage, arguing that there are five phases: courtship, engagement, 'housekeeping' (working out how the collaboration should operate), bridging and finally 'old marrieds' - when the organisations realise they've changed as a result.
Perspective 4: Understand and manage themes in collaboration. Huxham and Vangen take an alternative approach to the first three perspectives. Their Theory of Collaborative Advantage is constructed around themes in collaboration practice - those factors that cause people working in collaboration pain and reward. Whilst there is an overlap with the other perspectives, the focus is on understanding the themes and managing the tensions (dilemmas) that arise.
No single perspective provides the right answers. Collaborations come in many forms, as do the solutions to how to effectively collaborate to create advantage.
Collaborations come in many forms, as do the solutions to how to effectively collaborate to create advantage.
Collaboration sounds great! ... but there might be some reasons not to collaborate...
Whilst collaboration might sound a superb proposition, there are some factors you might wish to consider before embarking on your organisation's next collaborative effort.
Collaboration is resource intensive: A Harvard Business Review article from 2016 estimated that between 20 and 35% of all collaborative benefits come from less than 5% of employees. Employees can easily become fatigued by the intensity and suffer from collaboration overload -especially when working to understand goal interdependence, forging relationships and building trust between partners.
Collaboration takes time - and this risks collaborative inertia!
Your organisation won't be in control:The nature of collaboration means that organisations need to carefully consider power dynamics in collaborative relationships. How much it is willing to cede control and what share power will you share? Trust is something which is hard won, but easily lost.
Image credit: simon terry.com
Most collaborations fail:
Studies show that the number of collaboratives increases by around 25% every year. However, approximately 60-70% of business collaborations fail. The next blog article will be discussing some of the critical factors which contribute to collaborative success or failure. Building on Kanter's comparison of collaboration with marriage, Andrew Hill from the Financial Times discusses why some collaborations end up in divorce. If you're thinking about entering into a collaboration, what is going to make yours different to the 70%?If you're thinking about entering into a collaboration, what will make yours different to the 70%?
I'll leave you with a final key message from Huxham and Vangen: "Managing to collaborate involves actively managing (in order) to collaborate".
