Beyond Teams:
Toward an Ethic of Collaboration

By Mark E Haskins, Jeanne Liedtka, John Rosenblum
From Organizational Dynamics - Spring 1998

(The full article is available in the executive directors's library)

Collaboration is characterized by what can be rightly called an ethic—a system of moral principles and values grounded in a sense of calling and stewardship. This ethic creates what one interviewee referred to as a "thermonuclear reaction," producing enormous energy that enables colleagues to achieve lofty individual and collective ambitions, and that helps them to learn and grow in a continuously self-sustaining way.

Transactional vs. Relational Collaboration

We see the creation of a collaboration ethic as allowing colleagues and organizations to move beyond popular notions of teamwork into something more powerful—a higher order level of working together.

In transactional teamwork, the key managerial concern is with intra-group dynamics—with coordinating the efforts of a group of people around a stated purpose. Individuals in the group possess different skills and are assigned different roles, tasks, and responsibilities according to some notion of skill and task fit.

Relational collaboration moves beyond the creation of transactional teams. Relational collaboration becomes embedded as an aspect of the firm’s culture and lives beyond a single event or engagement. It establishes an infrastructure for working together that transcends specific teams and specific projects.

A Basic Collaboration Dichotomy

	Transactional	Relational
Timing	Episodic	Continuous
Focus	Project/Task	Person
Foundation	Roles	Shared Values
Key Activity	Coordination	Partnering
Dependency	Roles/task fit	Person/organization fit

Context For An Ethic of Collaboration

Person-Centered Elements...

The Sense of Calling. A compelling need to serve.

Caring Attitude. A genuine caring about the development and well-being of colleagues. A sense of pride in one’s work, calling, colleagues, and firm.

Organization-Centered Elements...

Coherent Intent. "A link to motives, to the will and drive to focus on and achieve goals [that] captures the hearts and minds of people." Intent provides an internalizable, understandable, personally valid beacon of clarity as to purpose that helps galvanize action, pre-empts the extraneous, and focuses energies.

Capital for Learning and Relationships. A willingness to invest in learning and colleagueship.

Congruent Systems. Decision-making, performance/reward, and recruiting systems communicate what an organization values, and thus must be congruent with the ethic of collaboration for that ethic to germinate and flourish. An unswerving determination and investment in a process for identifying, recruiting, hiring, and retaining high potential, performance-oriented team players.

An Expanded Collaboration Dichotomy

Transactional Relational

Nature of the Work itself

Work is viewed as a task requiring completion in order to accomplish some outcome of significance.

The work itself is viewed as intrinsically valuable and worthwhile—a calling that is enabling.

Focus of Care

Caring is directed towards completion of the task at hand, and toward the group’s goals.

Caring is for client, colleagues, and firm simultaneously.

Nature of the Obligations to the Firm

Obligation is to the task group in a quid pro quo joining of self interest and group interest.

Belief that the organization is held in trust for others—conscientious stewardship is an obligation of all members.

Type of Outcomes Desired

Emphasis on efficiency and commitment to hard work to produce appropriate solutions.

Professional pride drives level of creative energy that focuses on innovation at the leading edge of practice.

Linkage with Institutional Intent

Group tasks are primary and not necessarily linked closely with larger institutional strategy or intent.

Pursuit of goals is closely linked with the institution’s clear and coherent intent.

Investment Process

Investments are made on a group-by-group basis, without regard to between-group learning.

Capital for investment of time and resources occurs at institutional level where larger infrastructure is built to support collaborative thinking.

Research and Decision-Making Systems

Individuals participate in group level decision making and are rewarded based on group performance.

Both reward and decision making occurs within congruent systems focused on larger institutional outcomes and processes.

Who is Trustworthy?

Belief that one’s teammates are talented and trustworthy.

Belief that the organization, as a whole, represents a community of the best, and that hiring, training, and retention policies sustain this.

Transactional teams succeed by breaking the larger institutional whole into a series of small groups as a primary vehicle for accomplishing organizational aims, in a process that we have likened to nuclear fission—the splitting of atoms. Energy is unleashed as the empowered teams develop a sense of allegiance and trust among their members, commitment to team goals and participative decision-making, and are rewarded for accomplishing team objectives.

Relational collaboration is an institutional-level phenomenon; uses transaction-based teams as appropriate for specific tasks, primary allegiance is to colleagues, the firm, and client service. Organizational strategic intent and infrastructure, as well as decision-making, reward, and recruiting systems involve and connect each individual with the whole, in a process that we have likened to nuclear fusion—the joining of atoms. This type of collaboration, with its combined focus on personal calling, connection, and stewardship, leverages the energy for innovative solutions and significant collaborative learning.

Achieving such collaboration requires that the firm, as a whole, act like an empowered, high-performing team. Maintaining effective intra-team dynamics and effective inter-team dynamics is the essence of the challenge. We might hypothesize that the stronger the intra-team relationships—i.e., fission is a more natural inclination than fusion.

As Peter Block has stated:

There is a longing in each of us to invest in things that matter, and to have the organizations in which we work be successful…Our task is to create organizations we believe in…to be part of creating something we care about so we can endure the sacrifice, risk, and adventure that commitment entails.

We are convinced of the validity of Block’s assertion. We believe organizations should strive to go beyond teams, should seek the synergies of "nuclear fusion" that only comes from a firm-wide ethic of collaboration.

	Transactional	Relational
Nature of the Work itself	Work is viewed as a task requiring completion in order to accomplish some outcome of significance.	The work itself is viewed as intrinsically valuable and worthwhile—a calling that is enabling.
Focus of Care	Caring is directed towards completion of the task at hand, and toward the group’s goals.	Caring is for client, colleagues, and firm simultaneously.
Nature of the Obligations to the Firm	Obligation is to the task group in a quid pro quo joining of self interest and group interest.	Belief that the organization is held in trust for others—conscientious stewardship is an obligation of all members.
Type of Outcomes Desired	Emphasis on efficiency and commitment to hard work to produce appropriate solutions.	Professional pride drives level of creative energy that focuses on innovation at the leading edge of practice.
Linkage with Institutional Intent	Group tasks are primary and not necessarily linked closely with larger institutional strategy or intent.	Pursuit of goals is closely linked with the institution’s clear and coherent intent.
Investment Process	Investments are made on a group-by-group basis, without regard to between-group learning.	Capital for investment of time and resources occurs at institutional level where larger infrastructure is built to support collaborative thinking.
Research and Decision-Making Systems	Individuals participate in group level decision making and are rewarded based on group performance.	Both reward and decision making occurs within congruent systems focused on larger institutional outcomes and processes.
Who is Trustworthy?	Belief that one’s teammates are talented and trustworthy.	Belief that the organization, as a whole, represents a community of the best, and that hiring, training, and retention policies sustain this.

Beyond Teams:Toward an Ethic of Collaboration

By Mark E Haskins, Jeanne Liedtka, John Rosenblum From Organizational Dynamics - Spring 1998

(The full article is available in the executive directors's library)

Transactional vs. Relational Collaboration

A Basic Collaboration Dichotomy

Beyond Teams:
Toward an Ethic of Collaboration

By Mark E Haskins, Jeanne Liedtka, John Rosenblum
From Organizational Dynamics - Spring 1998