Myths of Collaboration

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The Myths of Collaboration

Elizabeth Rayer, Principal Carol Bonett, Senior Consultant

Mission: Drive measurable business results by transforming the way companies negotiate and manage relationships with key business partners

Practice Areas: Strategic Alliances, Sourcing and Supplier Management, Corporate Education, Sales Effectiveness

Spin-off of the Harvard Negotiation Project

Faculty at Harvard University, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and the US Military Academy at West Point

Leaders in international conflict resolution through CMG (now part of Mercy Corps) Arias Peace Accords Post-apartheid South African constitution

About Vantage Partners

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Vantage Partners publications


Type in one or two words that come to mind when you think of collaboration within your organization?

What does collaboration mean to you?

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Matrix Corporation is the world's top provider of products and services. Among the leaders in almost every market in which it competes, the company focuses primarily on its growing services business, which accounts for well over half of sales.

Welcome to Matrix Corporation

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Meanwhile…

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How can we serve complex accounts that require seamless internal collaboration?

For any given sale, four or more lead salespeople and their teams have to agree on issues of resource allocation, solution design, pricing and sales strategy

Boots-on-the-ground view of Matrix’s challenges…


Sales people from eight of Matrix’s product and service groups have been called on to design and sell integrated solutions to their customers

The answer…


Better Collaboration!

Matrix finds that a large sale generates so much internal conflict its actually getting harder to close deals

Results: wasted time and damaged relationships

This just isn’t working!


What’s the right result and how do we get to it?

In an attempt to avoid conflict people begin to avoid having to collaborate at any cost

Or they become confrontational, fighting over who’s right and who’s wrong or haggling over small concessions

The Results? No real value gained as people either “split-the-difference” or find themselves in outright deadlock

Frustration takes over…


Matrix makes a plan to improve collaboration


They run hundreds of managers and individual contributors through an intensive two-day training on teamwork.

“Teamwork” training


Breakdowns occur not on actual teams but in the rapid and unstructured interactions between different groups within the organizations

Breakdowns almost always result from fundamental differences among business functions and divisions. Teamwork training offers little guidance on how to work together in the context of competing objectives and limited resources

People who need to collaborate more effectively typically don’t need to align around a common goal. They need to quickly and creatively solve problems by managing inevitable conflict

Myth 1: Effective Collaboration means “teaming”


Sales people will receive bonuses not only for hitting targets for their own division’s products but also for hitting cross-selling targets

Staff in corporate functions like IT and procurement will have part of their bonuses determined by their ability to get positive feedback from their internal clients

So teamwork training didn’t get the results Matrix hoped for…


Let’s try a new incentive system to encourage collaboration.

Sales people still focused on the sale of their own products to the detriment of selling integrated solutions

Employees continued to perceive IT and procurement as difficult to work with - too focused on their own priorities

Why? Individuals believed if they performed well in their own

departments/operations they would be “taken care of” by their bosses

The costs of working with individuals in other parts of the organization – the extra time and aggravation – greatly outweigh the rewards for doing so

Myth 2: An effective incentive system will ensure collaboration


New structural and procedural solutions: Cross-functional task forces Collaborative “groupware” Webs of dotted reporting lines

on the org chart to create greater internal collaboration

So the bonuses didn’t help either…


Let’s try restructuring. That will help them to

collaborate more.

Matrix decides to form cross-unit account teams to drive collaboration

Account Management, Delivery and Service are redeployed to form a core team to service key accounts

This new structure will serve to mitigate intra-department conflict and increase cooperation

The core team will now be able to prioritize projects and optimally deploy resources

Results are disappointing To avoid conflict around prioritization, core team members quickly learn

to bring their requests to their own solid-line managers The extra layer of dotted lines adds complexity to decision making

without any measurable productivity gains

Myth 3 – Organizations can be structured for collaboration


You can’t improve collaboration if your goal is to eliminate conflict

Recognize that efforts to increase collaboration (especially in the case of restructuring) will mostly likely produce conflict

Conflict is inevitable and important Disagreements sparked by different perspectives, competencies,

access to information, and strategic focus within the company actually generates much of the value that can come from collaboration across organizational boundaries

Root cause?


Clashes between parties are the crucibles in which creative solutions are developed and wise trade-offs among competing objectives are made

Instead of trying to simply to reduce disagreements, Matrix Senior Executives have decided to embrace conflict, and institutionalize the mechanisms for managing it

Matrix’s new perspective…


Manage conflict!

Strategies for managing disagreements at the point of conflict

1. Devise and implement a common method for resolving conflict

2. Provide people with criteria for making trade-offs

3. Use escalation of conflict as an opportunity for coaching

Strategies for managing conflict upon escalation

1. Establish and enforce a requirement of joint escalation

2. Ensure that managers resolve escalated conflicts directly with their counterparts

3. Make the process for escalated conflict resolution transparent

Six Strategies for Managing Conflict


Establish a companywide process for resolving disagreements Reduce transaction costs (wasted time, accumulation of ill will) Increase chances of innovative outcomes

Clear step-by-step process

Integral part of existing business activities

Strategy 1: Devise and implement a common method for resolving conflict


Provide a common method for solving conflict…may still need to make zero-sum trade-offs between competing priorities

Top management needs to clearly articulate the criteria for making such choices (not easy but worth it)

Even if its not straightforward, guidelines can foster productive communication

Example: tell sales people that five points in market share is more important than a ten point increase on in customer satisfaction on a survey

Strategy 2: Provide people with criteria for making trade-offs


Starting point:

At Matrix, employees learned the best thing to do with cross-unit conflict was to toss it up the management chain

Managers at Matrix spend much of their time playing the organizational equivalent of hot potato

They take a quick pass at resolving the issue, but being busy themselves, they typically toss the problem upstairs

Senior managers are a number of steps removed from the source of the controversy and rarely have a good understanding of the problem…and subordinates have little opportunity to learn how to deal with conflict

Strategy 3: Use escalation of conflict as an opportunity for coaching


Coaching for conflict: Executives get training on conflict management and are offered online resources to help them coach others.

Strategy 3: Use escalation of conflict as an opportunity for coaching


One tool on the corporate intranet walks managers through a variety of conversations they might have with a direct report who is struggling to resolve a dispute

Equipped with common conflict resolutions, trade-off criteria and supported by systematic coaching…but certain complex disputes will inevitably need to be decided by managers

Matrix managers needed to make sure that, upon escalation conflict is resolved constructively and efficiently

To avoid hearing “one-sided” stories and the subsequent deadlock, subordinates must present a disagreement jointly to their boss or bosses

Goal: reduce or eliminate the suspicion, surprises, and damaged personal relationships associated with unilateral escalation

Strategy 4: Establish and enforce a requirement of joint escalation


Managers refuse to respond to unilateral escalation

Subordinates must jointly write up a description of the problem, what has been done so far to resolve it and its possible solutions

Send it to their bosses and stand ready to appear together to answer questions

Result? Requirement of systematically documenting the problem helped people think through and solve the problems themselves with fewer needing to be escalated

Strategy 4: Establish and enforce a requirement of joint escalation


Starting Point:

Not unusual for Matrix managers to escalate problems that had been brought to them

In the end the decision was usually made unilaterally by the senior manager with the most organizational clout, which bred resentment back down the management chain

A sense of “we will win next time” took hold

Set a poor example and wasted time

Strategy 5: Ensure that managers resolve escalated conflicts directly with their counterparts


Commitment by managers (codified by a formal policy) to deal with escalated conflict directly with their counterparts

Created standing calls for managers from across the company to discuss and resolve cross-unit conflicts that were hindering important sales e.g. the difficulty sales people faced in getting needed technical resources from overstretched product groups.

Strategy 5: Ensure that managers resolve escalated conflicts directly with their counterparts


A problem is escalated, solved jointly and the decision is delivered down the chain of command…then what? How was this decision made? Based on which assumptions?

A frank discussion of the trade-offs involved provided guidance to people trying to resolve similar conflicts in the future

Clear communication about the resolution of a conflict can increase people’s willingness and ability to implement decisions

Strategy 6: Make the process for escalated conflict resolution transparent


On a scale of 1 – 10, how well is your company using these six strategies?

Poll


Conflict is a valuable resource to be managed and exploited

Recognize patterns and trends from recurring disputes as unaddressed strains within an organization

Conflict can provide new perspectives on a variety of issues

Key Takeaways


We are undertaking a study about the dynamics of working in a matrixed organization and the prevalence and effectiveness of different influence strategies, and welcome your participation

This survey is completely anonymous; responses will only be reported in aggregate and will not be attributed to any individual or company

The survey will take approximately ten minutes to complete and you will receive a complimentary report of our findings

www.surveymonkey.com/s/Vantage20130409

Working in a Matrix – Survey


http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Vantage20130409

A spin-off of the Harvard Negotiation Project,

Vantage Partners helps companies achieve breakthrough

business results by transforming the way they negotiate with,

and manage relationships with, their suppliers, customers,

and alliance partners — and enhancing collaboration across

internal organizational boundaries.

Vantage Partners

10 Guest Street Boston, MA 02135 USA T: +1 617.354.6090 F: +1 617.354.4685

www.vantagepartners.com


Myths of Collaboration

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