Executive Interviews: Interview with Jonathan Hughes on Collaboration
March 2008 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Jonathan Hughes
Partner at Vantage Partners, a consulting firm.

While it is certainly true that people are endowed with such competencies in varying degrees, it is also true, (contrary to what is often assumed), that most people can indeed acquire such skills to a very significant degree.Which is to say, I believe strongly in orientation and ongoing development programs that equip professionals with these skills. The key is to recognize the way in which people acquire such behavioral and attitudinal competencies is very different from the way they acquire technical skills like financial modeling or conducting an enzyme assay. Behavioral and attitudinal competencies need to be developed experientially, rather than didactically. People need the opportunity, through role plays and simulations, to become more aware of their current approaches and assumptions; to experiment with new ways of thinking and acting; and to experience for themselves the benefits of changing.

• Are there any lessons, in your view, that the companies can pick up from healthcare industry especially the way a multiple-fracture surgery is carried out for effective collaboration results?
  Healthcare, and the operating room specifically, are an interesting context in which to examine more and less effective practices for dealing with conflict. On the one hand, disagreements are generally directly engaged, and quickly resolved rather than avoided or worked around which is certainly a positive. One factor that enables this kind of collaboration is that operating room procedures are generally governed by very clearly defined roles, and a clear decision-making hierarchy. In addition, all members of the operating room team are focused on the same goals, which are also clearly defined. Conflict, when it occurs, is primarily over means, rather than ends. Butmuch of the collaboration that occurs in the business context does not involve dedicated teams. Instead, roles and levels of decision- making authority are unclear, and those collaborating need to wrestle with the fact that in addition to any common goal, they often have different or even conflicting goals as well. One other point. In the operating room, the costs of inaction are usually both high, and clearly understood by all involved. This helps minimize conflict avoidance by creating powerful incentives for all involved to resolve their differences and make and implement decisions. In the business context, there are often very different views of the costs of inaction, and so a challenge for leaders is how to create a sense of urgency and put in place incentives that can help militate against a common human tendency to avoid conflict.

• Where else do you think companies should look for effective collaboration strategies, maybe for benchmarking their collaboration efforts and imbibing the best practices?
  When it comes to collaboration, there is a lot that the private sector could learn from not-for-profit organizations, NGOs, and the like. Trying to operate with extremely limited resources often creates a powerful incentive to become better at collaborating with others. There are also a number of private sector companies out there that are quite good at collaborating often, though not always, they are smaller companies that really needed to figure out how to use collaboration as a core strategy. Unfortunately, there are not verymany organizations that are really good at dealing with conflict, and I have come to believe that dealing well with conflict is usually at the root of effective collaboration. Many deeply engrained human tendencies, and many characteristics of large organizations, conspire to drive dysfunctional responses to the kinds of complex conflict that need to be creatively addressed in today's business world. So part of the benchmarking challenge is to look at many organizations, and look for pockets of excellence, and specific practices that are effective rather than looking for a single, ideal model. Also, as with any kind of benchmarking, it is important to recognize that successful practices from one organization can rarely be easily transplanted into a new organization.

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