The characteristics of an effective collaborative culture: No.2

A collaboration's power will be distributed amongst the wider network of partners, and a collaboration's sources of power will be diverse

Power will be imbued in the network of partners; this network will be empowered and able to get things done and solve problems, and leaders will develop within and emerge from it. This process will encourage web networked rather than star networked power to develop: power and the ability to get things done will be spread throughout the majority of individuals and organisations in the network rather than focused upon one or two star players who pull the strings or to whom all network paths lead.

This webbed network of partners will pulse with diverse sources of power that can be tapped into as required. Partners possessing the power to broker, bridge divides and make trades; partners possessing the power of essential expertise, experience and skills (and the credibility to make others appreciate these things); partners possessing the power of the pioneering spirit (the risk takers, the creative and innovative); partners possessing feminine power (the empathetic, the intuitive and emotionally literate): all these people (and many others with differing sources of power) can step forward to take the lead and express their unique powers as and when beneficial to the collaboration.

Having said all this, the above webbed network of diversely powerful partners is eventually likely to coalesce around a hub or platform of key partners who can guide and lead the collaboration and provide the required stability and resources, etc.

This process of coalescing, however, will strengthen rather than weaken the networked, diverse and emergent nature of collaborative power. This will happen because the collaborative network will push partners towards the platform and, where and when necessary, pull them away from it; the ebb and flow of the network sea will cast partners as leaders upon the platform and sweep them off as necessity dictates. The platform will become a dynamic and powerful manifestation of the power of the collaborative network.

To read about the other characteristics of an effective collaborative culture, click here.