Leading Across Boundaries: Creating Collaborative Agencies in a Networked World

9

Dealing with People Problems in Collaboration

Don’t fight forces, use them.

—Buckminster Fuller

 

There’s an old joke: collaboration is a series of unnatural acts committed by nonconsenting adults.

It’s far too cynical for my taste, but you get the idea. Collaboration goes against our personal and organizational DNA. In this chapter I’ll discuss some of the “people problems” you’ll encounter in your collaboration efforts. I’ll begin with a major collaboration initiative that fell well short of its goals, largely because it didn’t anticipate certain people issues. Then I’ll describe a systematic approach to dealing with difficult people and behaviors, and finish with an example of collaboration that successfully addressed some major people ...