Do You Collaborate?

To collaborate means to work together, to cooperate, to build coalitions, to join forces, or to team up.

At work, at school, and in relationships, there are often opportunities to collaborate. How can you improve and expand on these chances, both within your organization and with external stakeholders?

Benefits of Collaboration Learn More

Can feel good and rewarding
Stimulates engagement, resulting in higher satisfaction and loyalty
Encourages better and more efficient problem-solving and achievement
Allows people to learn from each other
Eliminates vertical hierarchy

Downsides of Collaboration Learn More

May take more time and resources
Participants may not carry their weight or get their preferred way
Can lead to conflicts and diverting of energy
Complexity in decision-making and loss of autonomy
Potential lack of awareness of legal obligations

My Story

Throughout my work and life, I have brought people and organizations together with a purpose, realizing that in both public and private sectors there is a need to collaborate to achieve goals.

THE CHALLENGE. As CIO of the State of Colorado, I needed to build an effective coalition, both internal and external, to meet the goal of serving Coloradans through a modernized Colorado Benefits Management System.

CONTEXT. The Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS) is the critical system that determines eligibility for vulnerable Coloradans who rely on food, medical, and cash assistance. CBMS requires a coalition with many players, including state agencies, the Governor’s Office, county health departments that administer and run the system, the federal agency administering and funding Medicaid, the Colorado legislature overseeing and funding the systems beyond Medicaid, system integration partners, and more.

ACTION. To ensure the smooth operation of CBMS and its enhancements, there is a complex governance structure used among the coalition partners requiring ongoing communications, collaboration, and interpersonal skills to build high integrity and honest relationships. As the CIO, CBMS was my largest IT system as measured by the number of county users, coalition partners, teammates, strategic partners, lines of code, and budget.

I actively participated in and initially led the CBMS Executive Steering Committee with the coalition partners. We worked to strengthen and streamline this structure, where agencies would be accountable, own the system, and lead the Steering Committee, rather than only have OIT manage it. We needed to let go of one way of collaboration and be open to other ways.

When challenges in the CBMS enhancement project occurred, the Executive Directors including me met weekly to partner, problem-solve, negotiate, collaborate, and determine action plans for success. My team and I met with county leadership and explored how best to meet their needs.

I regularly met with my OIT staff (over 100 members alone working on CBMS) and our strategic partners to ensure we were efficiently working toward common goals. There were many other opportunities to collaborate.

RESULTS. OIT completed the three-phased CBMS Transformation Project to modernize the 15-year-old system by moving it from locally maintained servers to Amazon Web Services, a secure, cloud-based platform, and launching significant enhancements to make the system easier to use. This robust, scalable system enabled the state to be more responsive to county and client needs. Collaboration is essential.

Practical Pointers for Improved Collaboration

Harvard Business Review summarizes eight findings to Build Collaborative Teams. I added a ninth that has proved useful to me.

Build bonds among staff, in memorable ways.
Role model collaboration among executives, which helps cooperation trickle down to the staff.
Mentor employees by mentoring them daily.
Provide relationship-skills training, such as communication skills and conflict resolution.
Build a sense of community by sponsoring group activities.
Have leaders who are both task-oriented and relationship-oriented.
Populate teams with members who know and trust one another.
Define individual roles sharply but give teams latitude on approach.
Create psychological contracts. Identify and discuss expectations of working together with other people as described by Dr. Wayne Boss, organizational leadership professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Summary

Collaboration offers many benefits including efficiency, engagement, and enjoyment. While there can be risks and obstacles, try the above approaches to improve collaboration.

Theresa M. Szczurek, Ph.D. is a tech and cybersecurity-savvy C-level executive, 3x tech entrepreneur, Certified Management Consultant (CMC®), and Certified Corporate Director (NACD.DC) who is the Managing Director of Government Sourcing Solutions. She is the former State of Colorado Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Colorado CIO of the Year. She researched, authored, and speaks about her best-selling book Pursuit of Passionate Purpose: Success Strategies for a Rewarding Personal and Business Life.