World-wide, leading businesses are increasingly implementing centers of excellence as a means of efficiently and effectively managing specific complex business tasks. Centers of excellence are teams of people with specialized expertise who work together to develop and promote best practices in their area of responsibility. Centers of excellence, apply best practices and competencies and subject matter guidance an enterprise, and deliver tangible business services which in the case of Collaboration, serve to:
- Address fragmentation across organizational departments, tool sets, and vendors
Enhance collaboration effectiveness, realizing cost efficiencies, and keeping ahead of the curve of external pressure - Create a cohesive enterprise collaboration strategy in order to reduce or eliminate duplication of effort, reduce costs, and deploy a common set of tools that meet the needs of end users
- Address collaboration requests on an enterprise-level basis versus on a case-by-case basis by using a systematic approach to optimizing the collaboration
- Assess organizational maturity and readiness for enterprise collaboration across departments.
- Encourage a culture of collaboration across the organization to effectively implement collaboration solutions that resonate with end users, develop high uptake, and deliver concrete business value
- Properly equip external stakeholders with the tools they need to get the job done in an age when the breadth and depth of collaboration tools is greater than ever before
- Establish a centralized training, development and coaching program and appoint “collaboration champions” in targeted teams or business groups
- Develop or realize the network of people and resources currently available and
- Move priorities that have already been identified but are not yet being championed outside specific organizations and to create success through collaboration.
A Center of Excellence will, also, support the need to collaborate within and across businesses and organizations to achieve greater economies of scale and to realize benefits that are shared rather than limited to a select few.
Laura Hummelle, Becky Pelkonen and David B. Savage are creating this Centre of Excellence.
How might this serve you and your organization? What do you need to build your culture of collaboration? Where are the gaps in your organization? Where are the gaps in your skills? Where are the gaps in your links to your stakeholders? What is stopping you from collaborating with others outside your organization to capture your opportunities?
What do you offer to others asking themselves these same questions? Email me:dave@savagemanage.com
TIPS FROM MY CONTRIBUTORS:
| Ken Cloke
Santa Monica, California |
#1 Reason to Collaborate
It regularly results in better solutions, especially to complex problems It makes everyone more successful It eliminates shaming and blaming, allowing people to focus on solving their problems Without it, we will be unable to solve global problems, triggering widespread suffering and death, and mass extinctions It is hardwired into the human brain and an evolutionary advantage for most species It’s fun!
#1 Reason Collaboration Fails Neglecting to involve those who are most immediately impacted by the problem Being too timid and not including strategic or systemic objectives Excluding critics with useful ideas from the process Allowing internal and external conflicts to continue unresolved Not improving skills in communication and conflict resolution Seeing collaboration as an event, rather than something that happens daily Not making collaborative improvements in the design of systems, processes, relationships, communications, and technology Not reducing or eliminating bureaucratic work that takes time and energy from collaboration efforts Not working strategically when facing emergencies or uncertainties Using collaborative language and not implementing it A belief by managers that they will not benefit from collaboration Failing to flatten hierarchies and institutionalize teamwork Not assisting outside stakeholders in understanding the need for collaboration Not making collaboration an objective of each member of the entire group Not changing the culture of aggressive competition to one of collaboration Not implementing the collaboration at all levels Lack of clarity about how to put it into practice Incorrectly seeing collaboration as simple or a cure-all Using it to attack systemic problems partially, piecemeal or episodically Using a “one size fits all” or “flavor of the month” approach Not addressing the underlying systems that created the problems and focusing instead on superficial or isolated problems Failing to transform existing cultures, processes, and relationships, and significantly alter day-to-day behaviors. These ideas have wide applicability beyond economic development. Put more simply, it is the only way billions of human beings can survive and prosper in a globally connected world. |