Collaboration: a key ingredient for successful development of professional services organizations?
Earlier in the year, after writing an article about narcissistic behavior in professional services firms (PSF’s), “For the Greater Good or Eat What You Kill”, I promised a piece on the importance of collaboration and the impact it has on the overall development of PSF’s. The subject has been on my mind ever since. Recently though, I experienced a few events which have reinforced my strong belief in the idea. One of them is a meeting with the managing partner of a mid-sized PSF who, much to my pleasant surprise, not only understood the value of collaboration, but was also able to demonstrate the direct and impressive business progress as a result of it. You see, most of the PSF’s I’ve worked with employ the “eat what you kill” mentality. If you’ve read my previous pieces you’d know I believe this mentality has mostly counterproductive effects on the development of PSF’s. My conversation with that managing partner was one of the most positive experiences I’ve had in a while. I can’t help but ask myself what’s different about that firm, its culture and its leadership team that allows them to embrace collaboration and sets them apart from the rest and, in my opinion, makes them “progressive.” That, however, is a different question I’ll leave for another time and perhaps an interview with that managing partner.
Before I move on to the other event that pushed me to write this piece, let me take time to articulate the importance of building a collaborative environment in PSF’s. It encourages learning and development, critical for knowledge-based organizations such as PSF’s, turns knowledge into action, which closes “knowing-doing” gaps, and increases the chances to grow business and succeed in the market place. To elaborate on the latter, PSF’s collaboration provides confidence to existing clients that the firm will provide the necessary resources to support them along with richer ideas and solutions; for new clients, collaboration means a stronger and deeper team and higher chances for both the client and the advisor to identify someone to connect with and build trust, and this builds stronger, better relationships between clients and advisors…after all, people like to work with people who they like and trust. When it comes to client development, collaboration helps alleviate the burdensome stigma of sales. Working as a part of a team makes that experience less onerous, and promotes best practice sharing, while keeping everyone accountable. Those are all significant factors for successful and sustainable business growth.
The merits of collaboration within PSF’s are countless. The real question is how to build and nurture such collaborative spirit. I discovered an answer that supports my hypothesis in the most unusual place. I recently stumbled upon an article in the Scientific American, from July 2012, titled “Why we help,” and this article provided the final push I needed to write this piece. The author, Martin Nowak, a professor of biology and mathematics at Harvard University, argues that contrary to what the majority of us might think of evolution and the “dog-eat-dog” concept of survival as its underpinning, cooperation is the driving force for evolution. Using the game theory paradox called the “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” the scientist runs a number of simulations to identify five mechanisms for the evolution of cooperators: direct reciprocity (the “tit for tat” concept), special selection (neighbors or friends in social network tend to help each other and develop a snowball effect), kin selection (think “The Godfather”), indirect reciprocity (based on reputation and “pay it forward” principle) and lastly, group selection (for the greater good). Nowak draws on a number of examples from the animal kingdom and makes a surprising conclusion that humankind is the most cooperative species, mainly driven by the principle of indirect reciprocity, or reputation and the ability to tout achievements. So, would that mean a bit of narcissistic thinking, boasting and peer pressure is not only healthy, but necessary for evolution and collaboration? Yes and no. The professor employs game theory again, this time a series of games called “Public Goods Games” designed for multiple players, to demonstrate that when in a group environment, even when starting with good intentions, collaboration often fails. Individuals will often act in a manner where self-benefit, rather than group benefit, becomes the individual’s preferred option, ultimately resulting in a loss for everyone. With further experiments, and to save my faith in the goodness of humanity, the author offers a solution to fostering collaboration: people need to be convinced that there’s a real problem threatening them in order to adopt “for the greater good” behavior and also be publicly praised and pressured in line with the reputation principle. One could see this sort of framework helping in many different kinds of situations – from officials trying to solve the European debt crisis or U.S. fiscal cliff negotiations, to any kind of business organization including PSF’s.
In my previous writing I suggested making the system / organization the star to build and foster collaborative environments instead of promoting and rewarding individual performance. Applying the principles articulated in Nowak’s work, I can now expand and prescribe that PSF’s constantly must demonstrate and communicate the importance of growing the organization and the danger of not doing so to the business; become vocal in celebrating client development accomplishments and equally so to learn from failures; and nurture an environment where experimenting with innovative ideas is welcomed.
© 2010-2013 Copyright Mira Ilieva Leonard / iStile All rights reserved
"How Collaboration Tools Can Improve Knowledge Work": an HBR article, demonstrating the importance of collaboration in professional services firms.
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Collaboration creates deeper friendships and relationships. It also makes work a lot more fun.
ReplyDelete"Is Collaboration the New Greenwashing?": excellent tips on fostering collaboration.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/03/is_collaboration_the_new_green_1.html
Interesting research from HBR to support the power of collaboration when it comes to growing professional services firms, and my hypothesis outlined in ONE FOR ALL : ALL FOR ONE https://lnkd.in/_nqhtp and FOR THE GREATER GOOD OR EAT WHAT YOU KILL https://lnkd.in/e9s6ZGE | https://hbr.org/2015/03/when-senior-managers-wont-collaborate?utm_content=buffer98a13&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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