Please leave your comments on our new book

Have a look at a write-up of our recent presentation at the Institute for Government as part of their Making Coalition Government Work programme http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/our-events/55/preview

Have a look at this article on collaborative working across the public sector. It has a nice quote from our clients at the Judicial Studies Board. http://www.guardianpublic.co.uk/coalition-central-local-government-rees

On April 7th Renault, Nissan and Daimler announced the sort of wide ranging strategic that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago in the ultra-competitive world of car manufacturing.
Across many industry sectors leaders have learned that they can’t survive this recession on their own and yet until now our politicians haven’t had to face up to the same challenges of collaboration. The old ‘master of the universe’ model of leadership has had its time it politics as in business. People understand that successful leaders now need to be able to share control, to handle conflict constructively and build a wide ranging network of relationships. The lessons of good collaborative leadership are out there if politicians want to lean them.
Read the full article what policitians can learn from the motor trade
David Archer & Alex Cameron April 2010

The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) has published two pieces about our work in their recent journal. The paper copy of the journal has an interview and profile of David Archer, and discusses why ‘strong characters are not always the best bosses’.
The on-line version of the journal has a longer article entitled ‘Collaborative Leadership in times of change’ which is based on the book and looks at the parallels between President Obama’s first acts in office and the 6 attributes of a collaborative leader.
You can read a copy of the article at http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/features/features/collaborative-leadership-in-times-of-change

One of the things that many people ask us when talking about collaboration is ‘What makes a good collaborative leader?’

Sometimes they are asking for themselves and the question is really – ‘Am I a good collaborative leader and what do I need to get better at?, and sometimes they are asking on behalf of their organisation – ‘If I’m promoting, or developing people into roles that require lots of collaborative leadership capabilities, what should I be looking for?’

Over the years we’ve used (and created) lots of 360° feedback tools and so when we were writing the book one of the things we were thinking about in parallel was how to measure the attributes and competencies of collaborative leadership. To answer the question we’ve now produced our own 360° questionnaire to help leaders gain new insight into their collaborative strengths and weakness.

At its heart, collaborative leadership is about the dilemma of sharing control. From the research that we undertook in writing the book we based the questionnaire around 6 attributes:

·        Patience

·        Collective decision making

·        Quick thinking

·        Tenacity

·        Building relationships

·        Handling conflict

We can also combine this 360° feedback tool with our MBTI and collaboration profile to give people an additional view point on their leadership style and its impact on others. If you want to know more you can look on tools pages of the Socia website 

We believe that this is a great new tool and we are looking for individuals and organisations who are keen to adopt the ideas in the book to try it out as a useful addition to their leadership development toolkit. Please get in touch via the Socia contact page.

Welcome to the collaborative leadership blog written by David Archer and Alex Cameorn. It’s based on our book of the same name and aims to promote the emerging body of knowledge on how to deliver results across boundaries and get more from your business critical relationships.

 

We officially launched the book last night at the Royal Society of Arts in London in front of a great audience. Mike Brown COO of Heathrow airport (and ex COO of London Underground) gave a fascinating keynote speech. I was particularly struck by what he had to say on why customers are right to think of him as the person ultimately responsible for their whole experience of using Heathrow and the complex web of contracted and un contracted relationships with dozens of other organisations that he has to work through in order to deliver that customer experience.

 

We gave a short presentation of some of the ideas in the book which is summarised in the previous couple of postings.

 

I caught snippets loads of great conversations in the room and overheard lots of positive stories of partnership success. Elsevier sold out of signed copies of the book on the night. (You can order copies now either direct from Elsevier (http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/716687/description#description), from Amazon or from your local bookshop).

 

We started this blog because we want your feedback on the book and your own experience of what makes collaborative leadership work. So please comment on this posting or post your own views. We’d love to hear from you.

 

David Archer 14th Jan 2009

The life form that really excites us from the collaborative point of view is pretty unprepossessing – it’s slime mould, the nasty reddish jelly-like stuff you sometimes find under half-rotted bark. Slime mould has fascinated scientists for decades. It’s hard to classify, as it’s not a mould at all. Cellular slime mould is a single-celled, amoeba-like organism that spends most of its time minding its own business. But when resources are scarce, individual slime mould cells start to cooperate to form a more complex organism that behaves as one. What’s more, when slime mould cells get together, they can display surprising levels of apparent ‘intelligence’ – like solving the puzzle of a maze by stretching between two food sources at either end. Then when the crisis is over, they split up and go back to existing as single cellular organisms once more.

Steven Johnson tells the story of slime mould brilliantly in his book Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software. His point is that slime mould displays emergent behaviour – the ‘intelligence’ it demonstrates comes about from aggregating a mass of relatively simple elements. No one element is directing the show: rather, this complex behaviour emerges from the level of individual cells.

The reason we like slime mould so much is rather different. It’s because it has clearly got the hang of how to be a good partner. Slime mould knows when to be independent and when to collaborate. It doesn’t spend all its time as a team – each single cell manages perfectly well on its own for large stretches of time. But when slime mould cells get together, they can do amazing things.

In the 8 years since we founded Socia we have seen Politicians and Directors putting more and more reliance on new forms of cross-organisational structures – there are called many things PFI, business partnerships, joint ventures, multi agency initiatives. But they all involve delivering results across boundaries between organisations in long term relationships.

As a nation we are betting the future of our public services on the ability to make Public Private Partnerships work, international corporations are betting their reputation on their ability to collaborate with a worldwide network of suppliers, and increasingly we are betting the future of the planet on the ability of nations to work together to tackle global problems such as climate change, terrorist threats and international financial instability.

But throughout this change the qualities of leadership that are promoted has gone largely unchanged. There is still a widespread assumption that effective leadership is based on; controlling your resources, inspiring your people, delivering for your customers. The common theme is that the determinants of success are yours and you can control them. The truth is that in today’s interconnected world they aren’t and you can’t.

Through the last 8 years, under the radar, we’ve seen a new form of leadership emerging (and because you have chose to come here tonight I suspect many of you will have seen it too) – a collaborative form of leadership – un-showy often working behind the scenes to make connections and build relationships. And now with the scale of the global financial crisis biting we believe it’s time for this collaborative leadership to emerge.

David & Alex 13th Jan 2009