Today, companies must maximize their time, their talent, and their tools to create value in the global economy. To better leverage these things, many companies have begun to design new business models and new workplace models based on one concept -- collaboration. However, too often companies say they have a highly collaborative environment because they've encouraged employees to use specific tools, such as Microsoft's SharePoint. Evan Rosen, collaboration strategist and author of the award-winning book, The Culture of Collaboration, says, that there's a hidden danger in making this type of statement. He says, "You need the culture to support the tools. Just introducing tools into an organization doesn't create collaboration."
Using examples from some of American's top collaborative companies, such as Boeing and Toyota, Rosen, in his book, explores how organizations of all sizes and types can adopt a collaborative culture to create value. Rosen, a former television news reporter and news anchor, spent much time visiting with all of the companies. He is the chief strategist for Impact Video Communications in San Francisco, California.
Enterpriseleadership.org recently sat down with Evan Rosen to discuss the benefits of collaboration, the trend toward real-time collaboration, and the essential elements that go into effective collaboration. Here's what he had to say:
EL: What prompted you to write this book?
ER: I've been involved with collaboration for many years. I planted the seed for the book back in 1999. At that time, I was in Munich, Germany, where BMW was preparing to launch the X5 Sports Activity Vehicle. It was using a highly collaborative process to do so. BMW created what I call mirror organizations between the manufacturing plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and the design and engineering center in Munich. By extending the workday and using the workday in both places, BMW wanted to shorten product development time from 60 months to 35 months. I realized as time went on that this type of collaboration could apply across major businesses. That was the genesis of the book
EL: How does collaboration benefit the bottom line both in hard dollars and in soft dollars?
ER: First off, I define collaboration as working together to create value while sharing virtual space or physical space. If you're not creating any value, what's the point of the collaboration? Value can be in hard or soft dollars. Hard-dollar benefits include reducing product development time, reducing time to a decision, and innovating a production process. Soft dollars really are hard dollars that are difficult to quantify. Soft dollar benefits include engaging people throughout the organization, recruiting and retaining the best people regardless of geography, and having better relationships with business partners.
Collaboration involves breaking down barriers among levels, functions, business units, and regions; and getting broader input into decisions. For example, people feel more engaged if they know their input counts, rather than if they're just handed instructions and told what to do. A highly engaged workforce results in a soft dollar asset. Responding effectively to customers' concerns can result in the soft dollar benefit of enhanced customer relationships.
BMW did accomplish its goal of reduced product cycle time, which resulted in a hard dollar benefit. BMW assembled the vehicle at its South Carolina plant, but engineers in both places collaborated to design the X5 and to support the product. The engineering teams used both synchronous collaboration tools, such as video conferencing, and asynchronous collaboration tools, such as video mail, to leverage both time zones. BMW realized that collaboration wasn't about tools, but about changing the nature of work and the culture of the organization.
EL: What company would you say has done an outstanding job of collaboration besides BMW?
ER: I'd say Boeing because it's an excellent example of what I call a global collaborative enterprise or an extended enterprise. It consists of a collection of independent companies that engage in a shared creation of value, often in real time. Boeing collaborates closely with global design partners, suppliers, and customers.
For the new 787 Dreamliner, Boeing has moved away from designing and manufacturing planes by itself and, instead, has transformed itself into a large-scale systems integrator. The move from linear design to concurrent design supports this shift. Take the linear design of the Boeing 777, the first digitally designed airplane. Boeing's engineers first designed the aircraft; then the sub-systems followed by the assemblies, the sub-assemblies, and the parts; and lastly they designed the manufacturing processes. For the 787, Boeing's engineers designed the parts, plans, tools and processes plus the assemblies, the sub-assemblies, and sub-systems all at the same time. To design and to produce the 787, Boeing had engineers in Everett, Washington, working with contract engineers at the Moscow Design Center. This shift mirrors what happens today in other industries. We're moving from the pass-along approach to work and interaction to do it now together through real-time collaboration.
EL: Did Boeing have to make any internal culture shifts to support the concurrent design workplace model?
ER: Every successful collaboration model always involves culture. To support the global collaborative enterprise, companies including Boeing have leveraged what mirror zones, which are time zones that are opposite or nearly opposite with some overlap in the workday. They allow for a nearly 24-hour production environment. People in different continents may share a job. When one time zone is sleeping, the other is working. Collaboration occurs in real time during the shift overlap and asynchronously at other times. The real-time collaboration involves, not only the ability to see and to hear one another, but to design everything from airplanes to 3D animation, regardless of geography.
EL: When it comes to collaboration or social networking, how do you deal across boundaries of managers and supervisors without someone getting their nose bent out of joint?
ER: It gets back to culture and the degree of transparency, or how well people are informed on business matters. Transparency can frighten a command-and-control oriented organization. The culture needs to support the kind of behavior such social networking tools allow and encourage. A company that has already embraced some attributes of information democracy will have an easier time with social networking. For example, one manufacturing company I've worked with provides all employees with key business information, such as the day's sales and the amount of inventory. In many companies, only key managers get that kind of financial information. If the depot person loading the product on railroad cars knows how much inventory awaits shipment, then this person can do his or her work more effectively and can contribute to decisions. Information flows both ways. Leaders can quickly gain insight from people anywhere in the company so everyone has a voice into decisions.
EL: What is the one element that can make or break how well people in an organization collaborate with each other?
ER: Collaboration tends to fail when the organization lacks common goals and when culture doesn't support the kinds of tools being forced into the organization. Before you can effectively collaborative, you need to build trust into the organization. It means moving away from a culture of internal competition that prevails in too many organizations. These organizations will pit the so-called star employees against other employees. Some competitive cultures don't encourage a lot of trust among employees. In this type of an environment, collaboration becomes fragmented. A good collaborative organization understands the values of long-term strategic relationships and that all partners must have a stake.
EL: IT people often get accused of not speaking the language of business, and business people don't always understand what IT is all about.
ER: How do you start overcoming barriers like this?
A company's survival, especially in tough economic times, requires breaking down barriers among functions, business units, levels, and regions. IT people who work for highly collaborative companies often get involved in decisions made by the business units. Likewise, these companies often engage sales, marketing, and engineering, as well as IT, in their key decisions. Organizations have many interrelated and interdependent parts. For example, redesigning the workplace environment involves facilities, IT, HR, corporate communications, and business units. Companies need to get these cross-functional groups engaged early in the decision-making process so that everyone has a stake in the outcome.
EL: How are companies redesigning the workplace to improve collaboration?
ER: Good collaboration consists of three components: -- culture, environment, and tools. The interplay of these three things determines effective collaboration. When it comes to physical environment, some companies have replaced cubicles with more flexible workspaces. Likewise, some organizations have created dedicated collaborative spaces that are designed to bring cross-functional teams together and to encourage them to brainstorm. The typical meeting room and conference room aren't necessarily equipped to encourage collaboration.
Mayo Clinic's dedicated collaborative space is part of its SPARC program, or See Plan Act Refine Communicate. The program's purpose is to do prototyping with new patient services by involving many different functions, ranging from doctors to marketing specialists to facilities people. Mayo Clinic has created an informal environment optimized for cross-functional brainstorming where people can relax and share ideas.
EL: When should an organization bring in an expert to improve collaboration?
ER: The answer depends on a company's background in collaboration. Some companies have built a collaborative culture from day one and have the knowledge and resources internally to extend collaborative culture. On the other hand, companies with less collaborative cultures that want to become more collaborative may need to bring in experts from the outside.
EL: What problem does an emerging company have with collaboration?
ER: A company's age doesn't determine how well employees collaborate. The Mayo Clinic, which is about 125 years old, has always had a collaborative culture. In fact, Mayo was founded on principles of collaboration. Many organizations view collaboration as a division between younger workers and older workers. Sometimes older people who've been with a company longer than younger workers view collaboration as a challenge to their authority and to their expertise. It's a destructive perception. On the other hand, some people who've been with the organization longer than others can collaborate more than people starting in the workforce can.
EL: How do companies measure the degree of collaboration?
ER: I'm going to address that topic in my next book.
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Author: Elizabeth M. Ferrarini - She is a technology writer from Boston, Massachusetts. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com.
