All About Collaboration

Today, collaboration is a current theme in business and government. More and more, there is a buzz about it and exciting examples of organizations learning to work across traditional boundaries. People are wondering, what exactly is collaboration and what makes it work effectively?

The fact is, collaboration takes many forms. It can describe a process, a mind-set, an organizational arrangement, a governance scheme.

Collaboration is…

Two or more parties engaged in an interactive process using shared norms and structures to achieve a common goal.

A process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited version of what's possible.

How to make it work…

Careful attention must be given to managing team member expectations and their sustained attention to the venture, governance arrangements for decision-making, operating agreements, information sharing protocols, course-correction procedures, and task interdependencies.

What's important is that the collaborative approach is often the key to driving results that could not otherwise be achieved. It's a powerful means of addressing a complex problem that is not owned by a single stakeholder. It's a way of linking people and capabilities for synergy and non-traditional outcomes.

Whether on a small or large scale, there are fundamental elements, such as a common vision, agreement to operate in accordance with shared processes, trust, and allocation of benefits between partners. There are known enablers and inhibitors. There is theory and then there is making it happen.

AmTech is about making collaboration happen. It does this by freeing the team from transactional overheads, avoiding team collisions, managing lags, and steering toward concrete mutual benefits.

AmTech has long held that in this age of fast-paced competition and complex challenges, the new management skill will be about aligning and mining groups not under direct control. In this internet-driven age, it will be about creating unprecedented agile organizational forms founded on unusual affiliations. It will be about effective group practices, since the group is becoming the predominant deliberation and decision-making mode throughout government and industry.

To understand collaboration from the inside requires immersion in concepts and real-life experiences. AmTech is an acknowledged leader in the field and has helped scores of organizations realize their objectives through an instance of collaboration that was just right for them.