So a year ago I purchased a subscription to Harvard Business Review.
I loved it. Initially.
Unfortunately over time, it grew to become a stingy, rigid, corporate cesspool. I couldn’t stand it. It went from pragmatic strategic advice to pedantic jargon.
But in this month’s issue titled, “Re-imagining Your Business Model,” HBR has some excellent, practical advice. In the spirit of Dumb and Dumber, “They’ve totally redeemed themselves.”
They redeemed themselves specifically through an article addressing collaboration, “Which Kind of Collaboration is Right for you?”
Now, I’ve read a couple blog posts on collaboration, and I must say, I’m not the biggest fan. Team work, task forces and committees are a joke to me. Historically, I’ve found that those that get the most done are individuals that focus on results, and then make it happen. They do so with little distraction from others. If individuals do, indeed, need help or a team to work through a problem, then host a “Go-To Meeting” or call them 
Simple, really.
“But what about procedures? What about guidelines? What about routine?” These questions were immediately launched at me after stating my opinion on collaboration.
My response: if procedures cost you results, lose them. If guidelines slow you down, throw them out. If you’re relying on routine, wake up. Change and taxes are the only thing permanent on this earth.
Back to committees for a second. What are committees? When a person hears this term, the last thing they think of is “action.”
A committee is quite simple, and if you’ve ever sat on one, you’ll love and understand these quotes:
A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. ~Barnett Cocks, attributed
To get something done a committee should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent. ~Robert Copeland
A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours. ~Milton Berle
To kill time, a committee meeting is the perfect weapon. ~Author Unknown
If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.” ~Dave Barry, “Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn”
If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into committees. That’ll do them in. ~Author Unknown
Our age will be known as the age of committees. ~Ernest Benn
But going back to collaboration again, in some cases (notice the word some), collaboration is vital to getting things done.
Below are some collaboration groups you may want to consider, and better yet, when it’s appropriate to consider them:
1) Elite Circle
This collaboration group centers on the company selecting an “elite circle” of participants to define the problem, and choose the solution.
When it’s appropriate:
- You know the knowledge domain from which the best solution to your problem is likely to emerge
- Having the best experts is important, and you have the capability to pick them
- You can define the problem and evaluate the proposes solutions
2) Innovation Mall
This collaboration group is founded on the idea that the company should post a problem, and let anyone within the company propose solutions. Then, the company chooses solutions that it likes best.
When it’s appropriate:
- You need ideas from many parties, and the best ideas may come from unexpected sources
- The consequences of missing a better solution from an elite player are limited
- Participating in the network is easy
- The problem is small or, if large, it can be broken into modular parts
- you can evaluate many proposed solutions cheaply
3) Innovation Community
This collaboration group is founded on the premise that anyone can not only post problems, but also post solutions to those problems, and then collectively decide which solutions to use.
When it’s appropriate:
- You need ideas from many parties, and the best ideas may come from unexpected sources
- Because you don’t know all possible user requirements, you want to share the costs and risks of innovation with outsiders
- Participating in the network is easy
- The problem is small or, if large, can be broken into modular parts
- You don’t need to own the intellectual property underlying the solution
4) Consortium
This collaboration group is founded on the belief that the best groups are from a “private club,” in which the participants of the club jointly select the problems, decide who will conduct the work, and then choose the solutions.
When it’s appropriate:
- You know the knowledge domain from which the best solutions are likely to emerge
- The problem is large and cannot be broken into modular parts
- Having the best experts is important, and you have the capability to pick them
- Contributors won’t participate unless they share power
- The expertise of all participants is needed
- You can share the resulting intellectual property with the other participants
So that’s that. In some specific cases, collaboration can be beneficial to organizations. The key is determining when it’s appropriate, and when it’s not appropriate…and never, never, become a committee
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