The Fifth Face of Innovation: The Collaborator
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed”
This is part of a multi-part series about the book, The Ten Faces of Innovation, written by Tom Kelley. You can read the other parts in this series here, here, here, here and here.
In Tom Kelley’s book, The Ten Faces of Innovation, he starts with the above quote by Charles Darwin to introduce the fifth face of innovation, The Collaborator. I really like this quote because looking back, the best moments in my life occurred when I collaborated with someone else: a wife, a child, a parent, an advisor, a colleague, a teacher, a student, etc. There might be a few things of value I squeezed out of life by myself, but the vast majority was when I was working with someone else.
A Collaborator is an interesting role because they may be surrounded by colleagues that are individually superior in some way to that Collaborator, but only they can bring them together to get the job done. As Kelley opines, “Collaborators know that the race is won in the baton pass.”
The Collaborator knows that “magic happens in the middle.” between domains, and often through the integration of completely disparate fields and by people that wouldn’t normally meet or interact with each other. If cooperation is working beside someone, collaboration is working with someone. A Collaborator seeks to elevate that cooperation to a new level.
Kelley shares a particular Collaborator’s technique called “Unfocus Groups.” Everyone has likely heard of focus groups where a company brings in a group of moms, for example, and they all discuss design features of a potentially new baby product like a stroller. The target audience is narrowly established and the company wants to make sure they are responding to their specific customer’s needs. In Unfocus Groups, one seeks for much more diversity, that is, less focus in the type of people brought in to the meeting. The example story of one Unfocus Group that occurred at IDEO included limo drivers, firewalkers, and lounge singers coming together to discuss their different perspectives on the aesthetics, comfort, and functionality of shoes. IDEO wasn’t interested in designing limousines, starting fires, or writing songs, they brought these people together because of their shoes. The value from this Unfocus group came from the trends and themes identified between the disparate individuals who would otherwise never, or at least rarely, have a reason to be in the same room. The group’s facilitator even broke them up into smaller groups, further extracting detailed and surprising results from collaborations between very different people. Kelley concludes the example with the encouragement to “cast your group with a wide range of characters - people with passion and highly unique interests.” Collaborators do just that and reap the benefits in kind.
Since any team, by definition, will be composed of different individuals, regardless of how similar they are, every team can benefit from a collaborator. In fact, the more collaborators the better. More importantly, the Collaborator’s role doesn’t have to be performed by the leader, boss, or project manager. Any member of a team can take on the role of a Collaborator. So, be one. There is always at least one friend, one contact, or one relative( and often many more) that can provide some perspective or feedback on your project. I know of students and professors who ask their children and spouses to give feedback on their research, project assignments, and business ideas. They might not realize that they are bringing together people or topics that are usually kept apart. After all, everyone talks about expanding their network for career opportunities but more rarely do they discuss using the network for collaborations. We all could be better in that respect.
The image of passing the baton, mentioned previously, in Olympic relay races is an apt description for how collaborations should work. There are different positions and roles that each runner holds on the 4-member team. Some must receive and pass the baton while others perform only one of those two actions. Some must accelerate at the beginning and some in the middle of the race. But regardless, the success or failure of the team is ultimately found in the passing of the baton. Historically, no team can recover from a dropped baton, even if all the runners are world-class sprinters (since everyone else is). Analogously, the exchange of ideas, data, and concepts must be smooth between team members for a design project to be successful. All the team’s individuals will need to take on roles of Collaborator and practice those passing techniques. There still might be a leader (and coach) appointed, but the specific actions must be performed by every individual. True, collaboration can be facilitated by a third party, but it’s more effective when performed by everyone. This, of course, is easier when you share the same room, same building, or same city, but as the trend of globalization of markets and companies continues, “passing the baton” to teammates in other countries and in other time zones will become a necessary skill for future design engineers.
Kelley invokes another sport analogy to consider: Soccer. During game time, a good coach rarely has to interfere with the action. This is in contrast to basketball and football where the coach might make a decision for every possession. In soccer, the play is more fluid and near continuous. There isn’t time to call a play or to set-up a defense. Each player must be united in their strategy and play within their own positions. They must have had enough practice time with everyone else on the team, so that they can seamlessly collaborate by passing the ball at the right time or properly covering different zones on defense. Furthermore, the players will have different strengths and abilities but will collaborate as necessary and will cover for each other as the game progresses. Corner or free kicks might still require directed leadership from the goaltender, but everyone should be willing to do their part, by standing and playing where they are needed, even if in a non-traditional position, to effectively resist the attack. Design teams should enjoy a similar phenomenon; there will always be various roles to play but that doesn’t mean the manufacturing engineer can’t brainstorm some design concepts or the computer programmer can’t glue something together for a prototype.
The discussion of the Collaborator ends with a story about collaborating with one’s own critics. Our critics are not often viewed as part of our team or network( in fact the exact opposite!)- but they also play a role and we can leverage their opinions and should thus adjust our perspective of them as “unique Collaborators.” Interestingly, they may be even more honest with us in sharing real-world data, counterfactuals, and legitimate barriers and obstacles than our own teammates, because our critics may not want us to succeed. Frankly, we should want to know their opinions and access their information, which is an invaluable resource to help us identify weaknesses in our designs. That sounds like a unique Collaborator to me, whether they want to be one or not.
