Accelerate collaboration in your organization

A global law firm with a strategic initiative to increase revenues from key clients used the Smart Collaboration Accelerator with client leadership partners. It helped develop their ability to collaborate with other partners, overcoming barriers such as lack of knowledge about other practice groups as well as competence and interpersonal trust. 

The openness and trust generated from conversations around two of the collaboration dimensions measured (Concrete vs Complex, Close vs Distant) enabled them to reflect on how to be better collaborators. Insights on how they engage with clients stimulated curiosity around how they could adapt their approach to collaboration. 

When new teams are formed, most team members have not previously worked together. Companies use the Smart Collaboration Accelerator with these new groups so they have knowledge of each other’s skills and understanding of their working styles, with the goal of establishing a culture of collaboration right from the start.

For example, one particular team that was tasked to manage a critical business opportunity, found that contrary to their expectations, the group were naturally high Trust and also high Individual. The leadership team was asked to identify where collaboration would be essential to achieving their business goals and understand how their role could facilitate this. When all members did the Smart Collaboration Accelerator, they were able to set expectations around collaboration and establish the required collaborative processes to succeed with their objectives.

A world-leading organization faced a challenge: increasing the effectiveness of its business services in executing strategic cross-department initiatives. There had been ongoing complaints from management that crucial tasks were not being actioned. Essentially, the lack of collaboration meant important work was not getting completed. 

To address this, the Smart Collaboration Accelerator was implemented with teams working on strategic initiatives. It identified gaps in leadership and processes hindered by misaligned cross-silo collaborative behaviors. For example, the tool measured the Close vs Distant dimension, indicating who needed to communicate more frequently and who did not. By breaking down silos and improving collaboration, significant value was added to the organization.

A professional service firm's leadership recognized it had missed significant growth opportunities by not offering a broader range of services to existing clients across its practice groups. Clients were seeking more holistic solutions that integrated expertise from multiple specialists rather than sourcing it from various providers. The Smart Collaboration Accelerator addresses this need by bridging practice group silos and fostering a shared understanding and language around collaboration tendencies, along with specific strategies to enhance teamwork. The practice group identified as having the highest revenue potential was the first to use the Smart Collaboration Accelerator. The Leader Insights Report highlighted specific actions to take, such as highlighting a sub-group leader’s need to develop internal capabilities to tackle complex, high-value challenges faced by clients. 

After identifying the current barriers to collaboration and aligning with the firm's strategic priorities, the Managing Partner decided to expand the use of the Smart Collaboration Accelerator to additional practice groups.

Collaboration was a central challenge for a large technology company building out global cloud infrastructure. Cost and time overruns were significantly impacting the business and needed to be addressed. Understanding the root cause of these issues required improved collaboration between the teams tasked with delivering these projects. Communication between these groups was hampered by lack of time, overcommitted colleagues, and the underlying motivation to make sure their part of the deliverable was not an issue. 

The insights on barriers to collaboration led to constructive problem-solving on how to communicate and collaborate so the likelihood of unexpected surprises was minimized. This led to the roles that facilitated the early collaboration and ongoing communication during each project.

The Smart Collaboration Accelerator is used for new hires to accelerate new partner relationship development across firms. It enabled new partners to reflect their strengths and watch-outs in their styles of collaboration behaviors. It allowed the newly hired to consider how they can build trusting relationships inside and outside the firm. 

The use of the accelerator provided a shortcut for partners to get to know each other and think about how to develop collaborative relationships. It continues as shared language to talk about their strengths and differences.

The newly combined professional firm's Managing Partner wanted to rapidly integrate the two businesses and deliver new solutions for clients. She recognized this would require senior employees to collaborate on innovation projects, client acquisition/servicing, and back-office operations. Quickly building interpersonal and competence-based trust was crucial for successful post-merger integration. 

The Smart Collaboration Accelerator helped the firm's leaders understand their own tendencies around trust and develop strategies to improve trust across the organization. It also uncovered other important collaboration tendencies and identified actions to leverage the strengths of both legacy companies. 

For example, the firm structured innovation teams with a mix of employees drawn to complex/creative thinking as well as those strong in concrete, execution-focused skills. This balanced approach helped ensure successful implementation of new ideas.

An organization knew they needed to prioritize collaboration but they didn’t know how to develop the necessary awareness and skills at scale. The Smart Collaboration Accelerator was a tool that could provide personal insights on the catalysts and watch outs for collaboration – and give leadership the necessary insights on team/group dynamics around collaboration. The Leader Insights Reports with aggregate analysis and recommendations was a key to broad adoption of the initiative by senior stakeholders to improve collaboration across the organization.