Collaboration Quagmire
I have a facilitator colleague who uses the term ‘collaboration chaos’ to describe the problem he helps solve. But the term ‘collaboration quagmire’ might be better. Chaos feels a bit unfair, since it describes utter confusion, a total lack of organization.
In fact when teams or groups of people are collaborating, there’s usually some order. There’s an idea, probably a plan, however thin. But it isn’t working because it’s bogged down, it’s stuck on an awkward or complex point. Enter ‘quagmire’: a boggy area that gives way underfoot; an awkward, complex, or hazardous situation. Better match!
Collaboration Quagmire, let me count thy ways.
Whether it’s an in-house team, a multi-organisation partnership, or a cross-functional group, there are common challenges that a facilitator helps you solve. Here I’ve grouped them into three: boundaries, messy topics, and people dynamics.
Boundaries
Everything is connected, so sometimes it’s hard for working sessions to stay on track. At the same time, once ‘everything’ gets on the table, it’s easy for meetings to run way over time without accomplishing anything. This is where facilitation techniques that bring structure and timing can really help you get out of the quagmire. One session can’t solve everything, but with boundaries it can thoughtfully solve some things and get you on the right track for others.
Messy topics
As much as everything is connected, it turns out that even within a single topic, people may use entirely different words or frameworks to talk about the same thing. That happens in ‘interdisciplinary’ settings, but also among cross-functional groups.
Consider the example of traffic congestion. An engineer is focused on traffic flow, vehicle type, road capacity and technical infrastructure, whereas a planner is looking at broader land use patterns and the quality of places. An economist is looking at the business and personal costs of congestion and how to price it. These kinds of messy topics are also where groups get stuck.
In these cases, facilitation can really help develop shared understanding and work through ‘stuck-ness’ with careful scoping. With clarity and structure, the participants are free to delve into a process with their experience and knowledge.
People dynamics
Speaking of participants, people dynamics are the third main challenge that facilitation helps solve. From my experience, there are several main challenges in this area. First is the problem of bias, where participants give more credence to ideas that come from the group’s leader or experts, when often enough, insights from ‘left field’ (people who are not leaders or experts) result in new approaches. Bias may also cause other participants to suppress their own ideas in favour of the leaders.
A second challenge comes from dominant voices. There may be a person or people in the group, whether or not leaders or experts, who dominate any group conversation, often without contributing to progress. Facilitation structures and timings can manage dominant voices in a way that is recognisably neutral and fair for all participants.
Opposite the challenge of the dominant voice is the challenge of the quiet participant. This person may be shy, a new hire, or use observation as a way of working. For whatever reason, this person often doesn’t contribute. A facilitated process creates clear and defined moments for every participant to contribute, again in a way that is neutral. It becomes natural to hear from each person.
What’s your quagmire? quicksand? chaos?
Having made a case for quagmire, I admit that ‘chaos’ sounds better in the phrase. What about collaboration quicksand? or collaboration calamity? What’s your favourite phrase, and what kind of quagmire does your group or organisation experience most?