The failure of collaboration

We are all geographic recidivists. It reveals itself in the fact that, despite the mobility that modern life supports, so few of us stray too far from home. And it is why, even when we do create new orbits, we return so often. Some of it is place, some of it is family and some of it is the comfort of what is familiar.

But what is laudable during the holidays, can be limiting in business. The same urges that make us like homing pigeons, make us resistant to an essential element of professional success – collaboration.

This can be particularly acute when viewed from the perspective of a geographically distributed professional services firm where what people know trumps the length of the lever. In such settings, collaboration is a “must have.” The more complex the client problem, the broader its reach, the larger the pay-off and the fewer the analogies, the greater the need for firms to call upon the right people no matter where they work or to whom they report.

Adding to the importance of collaboration is that, again, especially for professional services firms, in such businesses there are only two essential costs to be managed, people and place. And without a commitment to collaboration, both are bound to get out of control.

And that commitment, uttered as an oath, is often unmet. Why?

First, consider people. They are often slotted geographically – New York, Chicago, LA – and functionally – finance, manufacturing, consumer. This alignment can work against a system wide approach to problem-solving. If people are judged – and rewarded – for work as measured by those geographies or functions, there is little encouragement to look beyond those groups.

This is a recipe for disaster when client needs wax and wane. It hoards too much of the benefit in good times, burdens too few in worse times and leads to hiring people with overlapping skill sets; replicating capability rather than expanding it..

And with the cost of people understood as to sum total of compensation, benefits, perquisites, even the bagels on Friday as well as the occasional free lunch, the more people you have, the higher these costs. People don’t scale; neither to people-based businesses.

To squeeze these costs below market is to create turnover, the biggest problem a people-driven business can endure. Another common problem is paying a premium to keep the staff together. This, too, can crater the bottom line.

Collaboration guarantees the best client service teams, allows the staff to be comprised of fewer people (therefore less susceptible to short-term financial shifts) and with a better sense of community (leading to lower turnover and higher innovation).

Second, consider place. It has been said that form can dictate use. And the form of most companies is a distributed set of offices in key market locations. In a business where it is imperative that cost of the square feet, heat, light, desks and the rest be kept as low as possible so as to drive investment in people; the size, shape, number and location of a company’s places can inhibit collaboration.

In an attempt to grow any single place, the whole place can suffer. And even if costs are controlled by balancing Spartan digs and creature comforts see point one above: People. When teams are built locally, whether in one office of a network or one functional unit of a single location, they circumvent a commitment to collaboration and undermine the success of the firm.

Some changes to business models and compensation triggers can encourage collaboration. But these are merely checks on natural behavior; we manage best what we can touch. The trick is to create the sense that our reach really is beyond our grasp.

We need to know our colleagues as if we worked in the same place. That’s why the investment a company makes in bringing its people together – group meetings, secondments, re-location and the rest – help create a relationship, a link that eliminates time zones and distance. Smart companies know that creating this sense of kinship will create real value for clients, colleagues and the firms themselves.

If we don’t, we will be unable to deliver on our promises, hold on to our people or control our costs. That is a terrible trifecta.