Making collaboration work
Dr Cinla Akinci, is a Senior Lecturer in Management at the University of St Andrews Business School. Here she reveals her research findings: why shared goals aren’t enough.
We often look to collaboration to solve complex strategic challenges. Whether the aim is to improve efficiency, deliver shared services or respond to political reform, partnering with another person, team, or organisation is an obvious way to produce more with less, right?
Anyone who’s worked on a joint venture or shared service knows it’s rarely that simple.
In our recent study, my co-author, Dr Allan Macpherson from the University of Liverpool, and I examined a real-world example of inter-organisational collaboration between two UK police forces. They had similar structures, served similar neighbouring communities and faced the same financial pressures. In principle, it should have easily worked. In practice, it was far more complex.
Collaboration depends on learning
What became clear very quickly is that collaboration isn’t just about process or policy. It’s about how people learn to work together by building relationships and interactions.
At first, that learning looked like borrowing – sharing knowledge, advice and tools. Then, it shifted into something more dynamic through dialogue and joint action. Teams began solving problems, adapting how they worked and building something new together. That’s when the collaboration really started to take shape.
This kind of learning doesn’t happen by accident. It needs time, space and trust. It also requires leaders who are willing to model the behaviour they want to see.
Tension is part of the process
None of this happened without difficulty. There were different priorities, legacy systems and clashing views. Some staff were enthusiastic, others reluctant. But these tensions weren’t signs of failure – they were part of the process.
What made the difference was how leaders handled these pressures, kept people talking and pushed for clarity but left room for negotiation and compromise. Leaders moved the partnership forward by staying open when closing ranks would have been easier.
Three things that held it together
What kept the collaboration from unravelling wasn’t just effort or intent. It was the combination of three things:
- compatible infrastructure – the systems that made joint working possible
- aligned processes – a clear, coherent and consistent way of doing things
- a shared identity – not just working together, but feeling like part of the same team.
Each element was critical for success. If one fell out of step, the others struggled to hold. It was that simple – and that difficult.
A few things to think about
If you’re leading or supporting collaborative work, here are a few things worth asking:
- Are we helping people make sense of the change or just pushing it through?
- Do our systems support joint working or make it harder?
- Are we investing as much in culture as we are in cost savings?
We can describe strategic partnerships in somewhat grandiose terms as the coming together of institutions to solve problems and achieve shared objectives. But in the end, they rely on people – how they build relationships, solve problems and make decisions together. That’s where collaboration either works or falls apart.
Shared goals matter. But without the right conditions for learning, they rarely go far.