(The 'collaborating trade' is one of four styles of trade those seeking to work with others need to know about and use. To find out about the remaining three trading styles click here.)
To find examples of collaborative trading look for collaborations focused upon objects (or people) of mutual but differing interest: IT companies collaborating with mobile phone manufacturers, where the former sees the mobile phone as a new peripheral platform for their software and the latter sees it as core to their business; health services collaborating with social services to better meet the needs of an individual, where the former sees a person to be cured and the latter sees a person to be supported in their lives; police working with a welfare group focused on the needs of abused women, where the former sees victims of crime and the latter sees vulnerable women in need of ongoing emotional and practical support.
You can also look out for less tangible things of mutual but differing interest, such as knowledge, influence, access and status: where commercial research and development companies collaborate with non-commercial university research departments, the former could see gaining knowledge as about making discoveries that will enhance profit, whilst the latter could see it as about enhancing overall human understanding; where lobbyists collaborate with social enterprises, the former could see gaining influence as about achieving close and productive relationships with key movers and shakers, whilst the latter could see it as about being able to do more to enhance people's wellbeing and quality of life; where multi-national companies collaborate with national governments, the former could see issues around gaining access as about getting to do more business, whilst the latter could see them as about maintaining the integrity of institutions and the security of borders; where political organisations work with voluntary organisations, the former could see gaining status as a means of gaining power and influence and the latter could see it as about enhancing profile and attracting additional donors.
Obviously, the differing ways of perceiving many of the things mentioned above are not mutually exclusive, the behaviours, activities, outputs, and consequences associated with them intermingling and contributing in their own unique ways to whatever a collaboration is seeking to achieve. They do this most effectively, however, when all partners not only appreciate the differing perspectives held but also develop a shared way of perceiving which enables discussion about mutual interests, supports effective action and helps progress towards goals.
An excellent example of the above occurs within complex scientific collaborations, such as Cern's Large Hadron Collider Project, where engineers and scientists with discrete and diverse specialisms, expertise and perceptions need to develop shared ways of understanding and talking about complex areas of each other's work that intersect and have an impact upon the overall progress of the project. Essentially, they create a unique language that encapsulates or 'packages up' the key things all partners need to understand and appreciate about each other's work whilst they collaborate with each other.
A business world example, one that most of us are keenly aware of when it fails to happen, is when IT firms, expert consultants and organisational managers need to work together to develop specialised software or automated systems. Again, all partners need to develop a jointly understood language that they can use to get the job done effectively; the IT firms package their complex software into easily understood descriptions and user friendly interfaces, and the expert consultants and managers do similar with their knowledge and expertise, putting them into forms that IT experts can appreciate, assimilate and manipulate.
Where the focus of a collaboration is less conducive to the creation of a jointly understood language more emphasis is put upon gaining expertise in each other's area of work, interests and way of doing things. This helps collaborators create an empathy for each other's position which can then inform decisions and actions.
For example, when police, special interest groups, community groups and charities work together it is important for each partner to become immersed in the others' worlds as much as possible. Through this immersion each partner gradually develops a feel for how their collaborators might perceive and respond to a specific situation. When the focus of a collaboration is a complex and emotive problem with shifting dynamics and consequences, such as the abuse of women and domestic violence, this sense of what other partners might think and do when presented with a specific situation can be of immense value, helping partners address issues in not only new and collaborative ways but also informed and considerate ones.
In short, to trade collaboratively partners need to gain expertise in each other's work area, special interests and way of doing things. This enables them to find out how their trading partners view and respond to those things of mutual interest. It can also help develop a jointly understood way of describing and talking about things (especially those things of mutual interest) which can be used to enhance the exchange of knowledge and ideas and the overall quality of collaborative working. Where a jointly understood language or way of describing things cannot be developed, the empathy developed by building expertise in other partners' work areas and interests, etc., can be called upon to play a more central role in informing partners' joint decisions and actions.
Where the collaborative trade is particularly effective
The collaborative trade is particularly effective where innovative solutions are required to address unique, often localised problems and it is important or inevitable that, for whatever reason, the trading partners keep their integrity, both structural and moral.
One can see, for example, how keeping a clear distinction between the police and the groups they collaborate with to combat domestic violence would help reassure victims about being perceived as uniquely vulnerable people in need of help rather than just one more crime that needs to be dealt with, so encouraging them to engage more readily with the agencies offering support.
Similarly, multinational businesses and organisations seeking to address environmental and social issues in the developing world search for national, regional and, perhaps most importantly, local organisations with which to collaborate. These 'in country' organisations possess independent identities, reputations and credibility which make them trusted 'go to' and 'listened to' presences within their areas or sectors.
They also have knowledge and perspectives that can lead, when combined with the resources and expertise of international businesses and organisations, to ground breaking solutions to challenging problems.
For example, Hewlett Packard partners with entrepreneurial businesses and individuals in Kenya to ensure that ewaste (old computers, etc.) is sustainably disposed of or recycled. This has resulted in an innovative and sustainable approach that uses shipping containers not only as collection points but also as hubs of networks of local microbusinesses and individual ewaste collectors.
Another good example is the collaboration between CAFOD (an international charity) and AWARD (a regional community group in Pakistan), which helps and encourages women to start their own businesses so they can support themselves and their families. AWARD's local knowledge and experience enables an innovative, regionally focused approach that involves training and encouraging women to start up businesses that are truly sustainable, such as selling local produce and rearing local livestock. AWARD's local profile and credibility, which is further enhanced by the success of the businesses it helps to create, also enables it to have a positive impact on wider issues affecting women, such as access to education and healthcare and awareness of women's rights.
So, acknowledging, valuing and exploiting the boundaries between partners (and likewise the separate identities that help maintain them) is a crucial aspect of the collaborative trading style, playing a significant role in not only generating innovative solutions but also implementing them effectively within local environments.
Available at Amazon 'Sleeping with the Enemy - Achieving Collaborative Success' (Third Edition)
Monday, 14 September 2015
Saturday, 12 September 2015
Trade with style: the four trading styles and when to use them
A very short story about a collaboration
A start up software company is innovatively rich but financially poor. A global IT company offers its financial backing but at the cost of the start up agreeing to surrender some of its intellectual property rights. The start up, in the absence of any other viable and timely offers, feels its hand is forced and so accepts the offer.
Over the coming years the start up develops into an established 'niche' software company and its relationship with the global IT company becomes less about financial backing and more about day-to-day collaboration. As a result, each company gradually gets to know how the other likes to go about doing things, and they build up a jointly understood way of talking about and approaching tasks and projects that helps them work together effectively.
The global IT company increasingly values the creativity and innovativeness of its young and energetic partner. It also values the 'street cred' it gains with teenagers and young adults as a result of its arms-length association with a young and fashionable company.
In its turn, the young but maturing company is enjoying its growing independence and succeeding in establishing its own unique brand and identity, which it considers to be an urgent and ever more important priority.
At this stage, the need for innovation and creativity (mostly on the part of the global IT company) and the need for independence and brand creation (overwhelmingly on the part of the young 'niche' company) ensure that a collaborative approach develops between the two companies that on one hand encourages innovation but on the other safeguards organisational independence and identity.
Time goes by...
After about five years the niche company has an established but still vibrant brand which is very credible with its market and becoming increasingly international. The older global company is still benefitting significantly from the innovation and 'street cred' it gains from its association with its partner.
However, the software and IT world have moved on and new challenges and competitors have focused the minds of the leaders of both companies. They decide they need to work more closely together in certain key areas, combining and integrating their expertise and resources to develop new products and cast their net more widely in search of new markets.
The niche company is now sufficiently confident of its brand and ability to maintain its independence to allow and indeed welcome closer collaboration. This confidence is enhanced by the fact that closer joint working will be focused upon new products and new markets, not established ones. Also, in return for closer collaboration, the niche company has been able to secure agreements about future intellectual property rights that are very much in its favour. The global company is relieved that it can now look forward to key areas of its business receiving an energising injection of creativity and innovation.
A few more years go by...
Both companies are now working hand in glove. When the niche company (now more of an international market leader in several totally new areas of software) identifies an opportunity for a new product or service the older global company can swiftly get the people and resources in place to support its development and introduction to the market.
The net worth of the previously 'niche' now market leading company has steadily grown, outstripping that of its older partner, even taking into account the losses incurred by the forfeit of intellectual property rights demanded in return for financial backing.
One year goes by...
The innovations of the young market leading company are now the lifeblood of the older global company, which devotes the majority of its extensive resources, technical know-how, and well developed administrative and marketing processes to ensuring that their partner's innovations are quickly developed into products and services and effectively introduced to market.
The boards of the two companies meet for their yearly stock take. The boards congratulate each other on a long and profitable collaboration. The CEO of the younger company then makes an unexpected announcement. She says that the increasing success of her business will force her to look elsewhere for administrative, technical and marketing support that can be more easily tailored to the needs of her ever-growing and ever more successful company. That is unless, of course, her old and trusty partner is willing and able to show some flexibility and make a few changes to accommodate her needs, one of them being about aligning old, out of date agreements about intellectual property rights with those more recently put in place...
Trading with style: the four trading styles and when to use them
Trading is an integral part of collaborative working: trading knowledge and ideas, time and resources, people and their expertise, rights and royalties, power and influence; the list can go on and on...
Also, focusing upon the concept of trading reveals important insights into the various forces and dynamics that can influence partners' relationships and actions as they work with each other. Trading styles and approaches change with the ebb and flow of collaboration, so knowing the styles one is likely to encounter and how they develop or 'phase in and out of' each other is of immense value, helping avoid damaging misunderstandings between partners and assuring the effectiveness of joint decisions and actions.
Anyone collaborating with others needs to know about the characteristics and dynamics of the following four trading styles:
The coercing trade
The coercing trade is focused upon a person or group and what they are required to comply with and/or give up. The relationship dynamics of the trade are imbalanced, the coercer having high power and the coerced having low power.
A coercing style of trade can be used effectively when swift and unambiguous action is needed; epidemics, refugee crises, outbreaks of conflict, environmental disasters, etc., all present opportunities for its justified use.
The financial crisis of 2008 provides examples of the appropriate use of coercive trading. Governments offered emergency funds to banks and similar institutions but only on condition that they agreed to and implemented reforms to their rules, regulations and procedures. The threat of withholding funds, which would have left many financial institutions to fail, was enough to ensure that the deals were done.
A coercive trade is ongoing between the European Union and Greece. The financially powerful EU is offering to trade capital in return for swinging public sector cuts and reforms and, by implication, threatening to do violence to the Greek economy by withholding the funds. (This is a case where allowing something to happen is pretty much the same as making it happen,)
Given Greece's perilous financial situation, its government has no option but to agree to the trade. This is a clear example of a coercive trade being used for, arguably, the greater good of the European Union and its financial health, particularly that of the Euro Zone.
Within the business world, international pharmaceutical companies use a measure of coercive trading when, leveraging the economies of scale associated with their large multinational operations, they seek to drive down the cost of the raw materials they use in manufacturing their drug products. This use of coercion is justified because it enables pharmaceutical companies to sell 'at cost' priced drugs (e.g., vaccines and anti-malarials) to poor and developing countries. Another justification for a measure of coercion is that low supplier costs enable drug companies to increase investment in research and development, which speeds the process of finding new cures for diseases.
The collaborating trade
To find examples of collaborative trading look for collaborations focused upon objects (or people) of mutual but differing interest: IT companies collaborating with mobile phone manufacturers, where the former sees the mobile phone as a new peripheral platform for their software and the latter sees it as core to their business; health services collaborating with social services to better meet the needs of an individual, where the former sees a person to be cured and the latter sees a person to be supported in their lives; police working with a welfare group focused on the needs of abused women, where the former sees victims of crime and the latter sees vulnerable women in need of ongoing emotional and practical support.
You can also look out for less tangible things of mutual but differing interest, such as knowledge, influence, access and status: where commercial research and development companies collaborate with non-commercial university research departments, the former could see gaining knowledge as about making discoveries that will enhance profit, whilst the latter could see it as about enhancing overall human understanding; where lobbyists collaborate with social enterprises, the former could see gaining influence as about achieving close and productive relationships with key movers and shakers, whilst the latter could see it as about being able to do more to enhance people's wellbeing and quality of life; where multi-national companies collaborate with national governments, the former could see issues around gaining access as about getting to do more business, whilst the latter could see them as about maintaining the integrity of institutions and the security of borders; where political organisations work with voluntary organisations, the former could see gaining status as a means of gaining power and influence and the latter could see it as about enhancing profile and attracting additional donors.
Obviously, the differing ways of perceiving many of the things mentioned above are not mutually exclusive, the behaviours, activities, outputs, and consequences associated with them intermingling and contributing in their own unique ways to whatever a collaboration is seeking to achieve. They do this most effectively, however, when all partners not only appreciate the differing perspectives held but also develop a shared way of perceiving which enables discussion about mutual interests, supports effective action and helps progress towards goals.
An excellent example of the above occurs within complex scientific collaborations, such as Cern's Large Hadron Collider Project, where engineers and scientists with discrete and diverse specialisms, expertise and perceptions need to develop shared ways of understanding and talking about complex areas of each other's work that intersect and have an impact upon the overall progress of the project. Essentially, they create a unique language that encapsulates or 'packages up' the key things all partners need to understand and appreciate about each other's work whilst they collaborate with each other.
A business world example, one that most of us are keenly aware of when it fails to happen, is when IT firms, expert consultants and organisational managers need to work together to develop specialised software or automated systems. Again, all partners need to develop a jointly understood language that they can use to get the job done effectively: the IT firms package their complex software into easily understood descriptions and user friendly interfaces, and the expert consultants and managers do similar with their knowledge and expertise, putting them into forms that IT experts can appreciate, assimilate and manipulate.
Where the focus of a collaboration is less conducive to the creation of a jointly understood language more emphasis is put upon gaining expertise in each other's area of work, interests and way of doing things. This helps collaborators create an empathy for each other's position which can then inform decisions and actions.
For example, when police, special interest groups, community groups and charities work together it is important for each partner to become immersed in the others' worlds as much as possible. Through this immersion each partner gradually develops a feel for how their collaborators might perceive and respond to a specific situation. When the focus of a collaboration is a complex and emotive problem with shifting dynamics and consequences, such as the abuse of women and domestic violence, this sense of what other partners might think and do when presented with a specific situation can be of immense value, helping partners address issues in not only new and collaborative ways but also informed and considerate ones.
In short, to trade collaboratively partners need to gain expertise in each other's work area, special interests and way of doing things. This enables them to find out how their trading partners view and respond to those things of mutual interest. It can also help develop a jointly understood way of describing and talking about things (especially those things of mutual interest) which can be used to enhance the exchange of knowledge and ideas and the overall quality of collaborative working. Where a jointly understood language or way of describing things cannot be developed, the empathy developed by building expertise in other partners' work areas and interests, etc., can be called upon to play a more central role in informing partners' joint decisions and actions.
Where the collaborative trade is particularly effective
The collaborative trade is particularly effective where innovative solutions are required to address unique, often localised problems and it is important that, for whatever reason, the trading partners keep their integrity, both structural and moral.
One can see, for example, how keeping a clear distinction between the police and the groups they collaborate with to combat domestic violence would help reassure victims they are perceived as uniquely vulnerable people in need of help rather than just one more crime that needs to be dealt with, so encouraging them to engage more readily with the agencies offering support.
Similarly, multinational businesses and organisations seeking to address environmental and social issues in the developing world search for national, regional and, perhaps most importantly, local organisations with which to collaborate. These 'in country' organisations possess independent identities, reputations and credibility which make them trusted 'go to' and 'listened to' presences within their areas or sectors.
They also have knowledge and perspectives that can lead, when combined with the resources and expertise of international businesses and organisations, to ground breaking solutions to challenging problems.
For example, Hewlett Packard partners with entrepreneurial businesses and individuals in Kenya to ensure that ewaste (old computers, etc.) is sustainably disposed of or recycled. This has resulted in an innovative and sustainable approach that uses shipping containers not only as collection points but also as hubs of networks of local microbusinesses and individual ewaste collectors.
Another good example is the collaboration between CAFOD (an international charity) and AWARD (a regional community group in Pakistan), which encourages and helps women to start their own businesses so they can support themselves and their families. AWARD's local knowledge and experience enables an innovative, regionally focused approach that involves training and encouraging women to start up businesses that are truly sustainable, such as selling local produce and rearing local livestock. AWARD's local profile and credibility, which is further enhanced by the success of the businesses it helps to create, also enables it to have a positive impact on wider issues affecting women, such as access to education and healthcare and awareness of women's rights.
So acknowledging, valuing and exploiting the boundaries between partners (and likewise the separate identities that help maintain them) is a crucial aspect of the collaborative trading style, playing a significant role in not only generating innovative solutions but also implementing them effectively within specialised or localised contexts.
The combining trade
The combining trading style is most effective in the following circumstances: an enhanced focus upon a new area is required; the size and scope of the collaborative activity increases significantly; the collaboration begins to attract and involve additional partners and collaborators from outside the original membership.
Given this, a combinatory trading style may prove to be the next logical step from a collaborative trading position. Having explored each other's perceptions and joint areas of interest, and having created a jointly understood language and way of working together, trading partners may naturally move towards a fusion of ideas and outlooks that is mutually beneficial, utilising the best of all the partners' worlds and encouraging and enabling the exploration of new areas and opportunities.
The trading partners eventually fuse into one trading group that looks outwards, finding new people, organisations and areas with which to connect and trade.
This outward focus is the combinatory trading style's most significant. This is because it makes the style's activities more strategic, wide ranging and ambitious than that of the first two trading styles, which are arguably more tactical, localised and perhaps inward looking in their focus.
Scientific collaborations often evolve a combinatory trading style, the ever-growing complexity and entanglement of the areas researched leading to new fused focuses and new branches of science that eventually become discrete new disciplines. Biochemistry and biotechnology are well known and well established examples of this. More recent fusions of disciplines have led to synthetic biology, quantum biology and organic electronics. As these and other new disciplines continue to combine and fuse they attract and create new knowledge and skills that lead to new insights (and ever more scientific disciplines!).
Within the business world, the UK high street combination of Curry's and PC World is an obvious and relatively straightforward example of a combining trade, where both companies have complementary knowledge, skills and resources that are to the benefit of both and which enable the combined entity (in the form of combined retail outlets) to look outward toward new customers and opportunities. (However, the fact that both companies share a parent company may point to a measure of coercion having being applied to the relevant decision making.)
Closer working between health and social services has led to the creation of combined teams which can offer a seamless service to patients, benefit from cross-sector expertise and experience and, because of their increased spread of activities and connections, discover new partners to work with and new areas to work within.
This has especially been the case where health, social and other services have become associated with GP multi or 'super' practices where the increased and diverse expertise and resources available, together with the enhanced reach of GP activities, have added significantly to opportunities for discovering new partners and new areas of contribution.
The subverting trade
The subversive trading approach, just like the coercive approach, is focused on people and organisations and harvesting what they have to offer. However, rather than relying on blackmail or the threat of violence to encourage people into giving up what they have it relies on a mix of seduction and deception. It is most effectively used when an issue or problem is important and is likely to become urgent in the future.
A person or organisation using this style will make tempting offers of things that, on the face of it, are attractive and valuable to have or be part of. However, once people are seduced into accepting these offers and hooked upon the apparent benefits, they are more easily persuaded into giving up things of value in return for further benefits. What is often most valuable, i.e., a person's or organisation's independence of action, is also the most eagerly subverted.
The subversive trading approach can be likened to a virus which fools its host into believing it is beneficial to the host body but then, having gained access, proceeds to change the surrounding cells into clones of itself, subverting the host's resources and energies towards exponential and damaging viral growth rather than sustainable and beneficial healthy growth.
It could also, of course, be likened to a vaccine that similarly fools a disease, but this time to benefit rather than harm the host.
An audacious example of a subversive trade focused upon an issue that is important and likely to become urgent is the European Euro project, which seeks to encourage European nations to trade control of their national currencies in return for the acquisition of a pan-European currency promising enhanced financial security and wealth.
This promise may or may not be delivered. It is, however, virtually certain that a trade made for economic reasons will increasingly be subverted to the cause of 'ever closer (political) union' between European nations. This is because the increased power the Euro gives to European institutions, especially its central bank, can easily be transformed into the power to shape European society and culture.
The issue of 'ever closer (political) union' becomes important with the potential to become urgent when it is considered in association with the consequences of past and current conflicts within mainland Europe. Considered in this context, 'ever closer (political) union' could, for some, become a necessity for safeguarding peace within Europe.
A characteristic of the subversive trade (and also the coercive trade) is that its appropriateness is very much 'in the eye of the beholder': what one person sees as appropriate in terms of coercion or subversion may not seem so for others. Hence the passionate arguments within the European Union about the necessity for 'ever closer (political) union' and the resentment people feel when, having allowed themselves to be tempted into accepting an apparently attractive trade, they find their efforts and contributions increasingly subverted towards the achievement of unexpected and probably unwelcome agendas.
These feelings of resentment and the damaging effects they can have upon relationships between people and organisations, etc., emphasise that the coercive and subversive trading styles should be used with great care.
The key question to ask when thinking of using either of these styles is:
'How would those on the receiving end of the coercive or subversive styles of trade react if they knew the motivations for using them?
If the reactions are ones you can manage, or at the very least live with, their use may prove effective. If the reactions are ones you cannot manage or live with, then their use may prove at best ineffective and at worst terminal to your cause and relationships.
Another example of a subversive trade is one that many businesses are making with social media. Where previously businesses would have launched products or advertised their services on their own websites, many now prefer to do this using Facebook. Facebook's ease of use, the professional and consistent presentation of its pages, its worldwide following and overall attractiveness make it a very seductive tool.
However, this could eventually lead to individually branded and independent businesses becoming subverted to the Facebook cause, transforming them into unofficial franchises contributing to Facebook's ongoing social feed and appetite for personal data it can exploit.
The important issue that could become urgent here is all on the Facebook side; it needs to keep its pre-eminence as a social network and continually grow its store of personal data to ensure its long-term profitability and success and avoid gradual decline and failure.
So far, the almost 1.5 billion Facebook users seem happy to be seduced into the above trade (including the author!).
The four trading styles can develop out of and move between and through each other
From reading the above it is probably already clear that it is important to not only recognise the above trading styles and the appropriateness of their use but also realise that they develop out of and move between and through each other as relationships change, evolve and transform according to need and context.
What begins as a coercive trading style may, when circumstances, attitudes, interests and motivations permit, become more collaborative. This releases creativity and innovation from the bonds of coercion and liberates all partners, enabling each of them to play an equal and, more importantly, unique role in things.
Gradually, the creative and innovative insights and solutions stimulated by the collaborative trading style may coalesce into new areas of focus or even new, discrete activities and disciplines. These will then probably need to be supported by an enhanced, more combined and integrated collaboration and new, wider ranging expertise which can only be provided by additional collaborators.
Once established, the above combining and integrating trading style is, for good or ill (dependent upon motivations), ripe for subversion. The first sign of this will be an increasing imbalance of power and influence within the collaboration, with perhaps one of the partners achieving dominance over why, how and when things are done.
This could happen for many reasons and be either good or bad for partners and the collaboration overall dependent on context and motivations: perhaps the collaboration's activities dovetail most naturally with one particular partner's interests; perhaps a partner has connections or relationships that make them very influential; perhaps a partner has the most money and resources, or the most relevant knowledge and expertise.
Whatever the reasons, one partner can begin to dominate the now closely integrated and combined collaboration's internal market of ideas and resources. Eventually this transforms the essence and culture of the combined trading group and subverts its efforts towards the needs and purposes of the dominant partner.
Available at Amazon 'Sleeping with the Enemy - Achieving Collaborative Success' (Third Edition)
References not previously given:
Chandler, M./2011/Novartis Executive Describes the Battle Against Malaria in Africa/https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/novartis-executive-describes-battle-against-malaria-Africa/August 2015
Lines, C./2014/The Less the Cost the More the Value/http://cuttingedgepartnerships.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-less-cost-more-value.html/August 2015
Lines, C./2015/A deceptively Simple Approach to Collaborative Working/http://cuttingedgepartnerships.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/a-deceptively-straightforward-approach.html/August 2015
Galison, P./1997/Image and Logic: A material Culture of Microphysics/USA/Chicago University Press
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDMQFjADahUKEwjujJ6a1_HHAhVTOdsKHZGvBl8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cardiff.ac.uk%2Fsocsi%2Fcontactsandpeople%2Fharrycollins%2Fexpertise-project%2FFOR%2520PUBLICATION%25204%2520trading%2520zone.doc&usg=AFQjCNFptss7xFoU7reU4_XjeG--LElPUA&sig2=takCaaR7HQAGmQQo35_0JA /August 2015
A start up software company is innovatively rich but financially poor. A global IT company offers its financial backing but at the cost of the start up agreeing to surrender some of its intellectual property rights. The start up, in the absence of any other viable and timely offers, feels its hand is forced and so accepts the offer.
Over the coming years the start up develops into an established 'niche' software company and its relationship with the global IT company becomes less about financial backing and more about day-to-day collaboration. As a result, each company gradually gets to know how the other likes to go about doing things, and they build up a jointly understood way of talking about and approaching tasks and projects that helps them work together effectively.
The global IT company increasingly values the creativity and innovativeness of its young and energetic partner. It also values the 'street cred' it gains with teenagers and young adults as a result of its arms-length association with a young and fashionable company.
In its turn, the young but maturing company is enjoying its growing independence and succeeding in establishing its own unique brand and identity, which it considers to be an urgent and ever more important priority.
At this stage, the need for innovation and creativity (mostly on the part of the global IT company) and the need for independence and brand creation (overwhelmingly on the part of the young 'niche' company) ensure that a collaborative approach develops between the two companies that on one hand encourages innovation but on the other safeguards organisational independence and identity.
Time goes by...
After about five years the niche company has an established but still vibrant brand which is very credible with its market and becoming increasingly international. The older global company is still benefitting significantly from the innovation and 'street cred' it gains from its association with its partner.
However, the software and IT world have moved on and new challenges and competitors have focused the minds of the leaders of both companies. They decide they need to work more closely together in certain key areas, combining and integrating their expertise and resources to develop new products and cast their net more widely in search of new markets.
The niche company is now sufficiently confident of its brand and ability to maintain its independence to allow and indeed welcome closer collaboration. This confidence is enhanced by the fact that closer joint working will be focused upon new products and new markets, not established ones. Also, in return for closer collaboration, the niche company has been able to secure agreements about future intellectual property rights that are very much in its favour. The global company is relieved that it can now look forward to key areas of its business receiving an energising injection of creativity and innovation.
A few more years go by...
Both companies are now working hand in glove. When the niche company (now more of an international market leader in several totally new areas of software) identifies an opportunity for a new product or service the older global company can swiftly get the people and resources in place to support its development and introduction to the market.
The net worth of the previously 'niche' now market leading company has steadily grown, outstripping that of its older partner, even taking into account the losses incurred by the forfeit of intellectual property rights demanded in return for financial backing.
One year goes by...
The innovations of the young market leading company are now the lifeblood of the older global company, which devotes the majority of its extensive resources, technical know-how, and well developed administrative and marketing processes to ensuring that their partner's innovations are quickly developed into products and services and effectively introduced to market.
The boards of the two companies meet for their yearly stock take. The boards congratulate each other on a long and profitable collaboration. The CEO of the younger company then makes an unexpected announcement. She says that the increasing success of her business will force her to look elsewhere for administrative, technical and marketing support that can be more easily tailored to the needs of her ever-growing and ever more successful company. That is unless, of course, her old and trusty partner is willing and able to show some flexibility and make a few changes to accommodate her needs, one of them being about aligning old, out of date agreements about intellectual property rights with those more recently put in place...
Trading with style: the four trading styles and when to use them
Trading is an integral part of collaborative working: trading knowledge and ideas, time and resources, people and their expertise, rights and royalties, power and influence; the list can go on and on...
Also, focusing upon the concept of trading reveals important insights into the various forces and dynamics that can influence partners' relationships and actions as they work with each other. Trading styles and approaches change with the ebb and flow of collaboration, so knowing the styles one is likely to encounter and how they develop or 'phase in and out of' each other is of immense value, helping avoid damaging misunderstandings between partners and assuring the effectiveness of joint decisions and actions.
Anyone collaborating with others needs to know about the characteristics and dynamics of the following four trading styles:
The coercing trade
The coercing trade is focused upon a person or group and what they are required to comply with and/or give up. The relationship dynamics of the trade are imbalanced, the coercer having high power and the coerced having low power.
A coercing style of trade can be used effectively when swift and unambiguous action is needed; epidemics, refugee crises, outbreaks of conflict, environmental disasters, etc., all present opportunities for its justified use.
The financial crisis of 2008 provides examples of the appropriate use of coercive trading. Governments offered emergency funds to banks and similar institutions but only on condition that they agreed to and implemented reforms to their rules, regulations and procedures. The threat of withholding funds, which would have left many financial institutions to fail, was enough to ensure that the deals were done.
A coercive trade is ongoing between the European Union and Greece. The financially powerful EU is offering to trade capital in return for swinging public sector cuts and reforms and, by implication, threatening to do violence to the Greek economy by withholding the funds. (This is a case where allowing something to happen is pretty much the same as making it happen,)
Given Greece's perilous financial situation, its government has no option but to agree to the trade. This is a clear example of a coercive trade being used for, arguably, the greater good of the European Union and its financial health, particularly that of the Euro Zone.
Within the business world, international pharmaceutical companies use a measure of coercive trading when, leveraging the economies of scale associated with their large multinational operations, they seek to drive down the cost of the raw materials they use in manufacturing their drug products. This use of coercion is justified because it enables pharmaceutical companies to sell 'at cost' priced drugs (e.g., vaccines and anti-malarials) to poor and developing countries. Another justification for a measure of coercion is that low supplier costs enable drug companies to increase investment in research and development, which speeds the process of finding new cures for diseases.
The collaborating trade
To find examples of collaborative trading look for collaborations focused upon objects (or people) of mutual but differing interest: IT companies collaborating with mobile phone manufacturers, where the former sees the mobile phone as a new peripheral platform for their software and the latter sees it as core to their business; health services collaborating with social services to better meet the needs of an individual, where the former sees a person to be cured and the latter sees a person to be supported in their lives; police working with a welfare group focused on the needs of abused women, where the former sees victims of crime and the latter sees vulnerable women in need of ongoing emotional and practical support.
You can also look out for less tangible things of mutual but differing interest, such as knowledge, influence, access and status: where commercial research and development companies collaborate with non-commercial university research departments, the former could see gaining knowledge as about making discoveries that will enhance profit, whilst the latter could see it as about enhancing overall human understanding; where lobbyists collaborate with social enterprises, the former could see gaining influence as about achieving close and productive relationships with key movers and shakers, whilst the latter could see it as about being able to do more to enhance people's wellbeing and quality of life; where multi-national companies collaborate with national governments, the former could see issues around gaining access as about getting to do more business, whilst the latter could see them as about maintaining the integrity of institutions and the security of borders; where political organisations work with voluntary organisations, the former could see gaining status as a means of gaining power and influence and the latter could see it as about enhancing profile and attracting additional donors.
Obviously, the differing ways of perceiving many of the things mentioned above are not mutually exclusive, the behaviours, activities, outputs, and consequences associated with them intermingling and contributing in their own unique ways to whatever a collaboration is seeking to achieve. They do this most effectively, however, when all partners not only appreciate the differing perspectives held but also develop a shared way of perceiving which enables discussion about mutual interests, supports effective action and helps progress towards goals.
An excellent example of the above occurs within complex scientific collaborations, such as Cern's Large Hadron Collider Project, where engineers and scientists with discrete and diverse specialisms, expertise and perceptions need to develop shared ways of understanding and talking about complex areas of each other's work that intersect and have an impact upon the overall progress of the project. Essentially, they create a unique language that encapsulates or 'packages up' the key things all partners need to understand and appreciate about each other's work whilst they collaborate with each other.
A business world example, one that most of us are keenly aware of when it fails to happen, is when IT firms, expert consultants and organisational managers need to work together to develop specialised software or automated systems. Again, all partners need to develop a jointly understood language that they can use to get the job done effectively: the IT firms package their complex software into easily understood descriptions and user friendly interfaces, and the expert consultants and managers do similar with their knowledge and expertise, putting them into forms that IT experts can appreciate, assimilate and manipulate.
Where the focus of a collaboration is less conducive to the creation of a jointly understood language more emphasis is put upon gaining expertise in each other's area of work, interests and way of doing things. This helps collaborators create an empathy for each other's position which can then inform decisions and actions.
For example, when police, special interest groups, community groups and charities work together it is important for each partner to become immersed in the others' worlds as much as possible. Through this immersion each partner gradually develops a feel for how their collaborators might perceive and respond to a specific situation. When the focus of a collaboration is a complex and emotive problem with shifting dynamics and consequences, such as the abuse of women and domestic violence, this sense of what other partners might think and do when presented with a specific situation can be of immense value, helping partners address issues in not only new and collaborative ways but also informed and considerate ones.
In short, to trade collaboratively partners need to gain expertise in each other's work area, special interests and way of doing things. This enables them to find out how their trading partners view and respond to those things of mutual interest. It can also help develop a jointly understood way of describing and talking about things (especially those things of mutual interest) which can be used to enhance the exchange of knowledge and ideas and the overall quality of collaborative working. Where a jointly understood language or way of describing things cannot be developed, the empathy developed by building expertise in other partners' work areas and interests, etc., can be called upon to play a more central role in informing partners' joint decisions and actions.
Where the collaborative trade is particularly effective
The collaborative trade is particularly effective where innovative solutions are required to address unique, often localised problems and it is important that, for whatever reason, the trading partners keep their integrity, both structural and moral.
One can see, for example, how keeping a clear distinction between the police and the groups they collaborate with to combat domestic violence would help reassure victims they are perceived as uniquely vulnerable people in need of help rather than just one more crime that needs to be dealt with, so encouraging them to engage more readily with the agencies offering support.
Similarly, multinational businesses and organisations seeking to address environmental and social issues in the developing world search for national, regional and, perhaps most importantly, local organisations with which to collaborate. These 'in country' organisations possess independent identities, reputations and credibility which make them trusted 'go to' and 'listened to' presences within their areas or sectors.
They also have knowledge and perspectives that can lead, when combined with the resources and expertise of international businesses and organisations, to ground breaking solutions to challenging problems.
For example, Hewlett Packard partners with entrepreneurial businesses and individuals in Kenya to ensure that ewaste (old computers, etc.) is sustainably disposed of or recycled. This has resulted in an innovative and sustainable approach that uses shipping containers not only as collection points but also as hubs of networks of local microbusinesses and individual ewaste collectors.
Another good example is the collaboration between CAFOD (an international charity) and AWARD (a regional community group in Pakistan), which encourages and helps women to start their own businesses so they can support themselves and their families. AWARD's local knowledge and experience enables an innovative, regionally focused approach that involves training and encouraging women to start up businesses that are truly sustainable, such as selling local produce and rearing local livestock. AWARD's local profile and credibility, which is further enhanced by the success of the businesses it helps to create, also enables it to have a positive impact on wider issues affecting women, such as access to education and healthcare and awareness of women's rights.
So acknowledging, valuing and exploiting the boundaries between partners (and likewise the separate identities that help maintain them) is a crucial aspect of the collaborative trading style, playing a significant role in not only generating innovative solutions but also implementing them effectively within specialised or localised contexts.
The combining trade
The combining trading style is most effective in the following circumstances: an enhanced focus upon a new area is required; the size and scope of the collaborative activity increases significantly; the collaboration begins to attract and involve additional partners and collaborators from outside the original membership.
Given this, a combinatory trading style may prove to be the next logical step from a collaborative trading position. Having explored each other's perceptions and joint areas of interest, and having created a jointly understood language and way of working together, trading partners may naturally move towards a fusion of ideas and outlooks that is mutually beneficial, utilising the best of all the partners' worlds and encouraging and enabling the exploration of new areas and opportunities.
The trading partners eventually fuse into one trading group that looks outwards, finding new people, organisations and areas with which to connect and trade.
This outward focus is the combinatory trading style's most significant. This is because it makes the style's activities more strategic, wide ranging and ambitious than that of the first two trading styles, which are arguably more tactical, localised and perhaps inward looking in their focus.
Scientific collaborations often evolve a combinatory trading style, the ever-growing complexity and entanglement of the areas researched leading to new fused focuses and new branches of science that eventually become discrete new disciplines. Biochemistry and biotechnology are well known and well established examples of this. More recent fusions of disciplines have led to synthetic biology, quantum biology and organic electronics. As these and other new disciplines continue to combine and fuse they attract and create new knowledge and skills that lead to new insights (and ever more scientific disciplines!).
Within the business world, the UK high street combination of Curry's and PC World is an obvious and relatively straightforward example of a combining trade, where both companies have complementary knowledge, skills and resources that are to the benefit of both and which enable the combined entity (in the form of combined retail outlets) to look outward toward new customers and opportunities. (However, the fact that both companies share a parent company may point to a measure of coercion having being applied to the relevant decision making.)
Closer working between health and social services has led to the creation of combined teams which can offer a seamless service to patients, benefit from cross-sector expertise and experience and, because of their increased spread of activities and connections, discover new partners to work with and new areas to work within.
This has especially been the case where health, social and other services have become associated with GP multi or 'super' practices where the increased and diverse expertise and resources available, together with the enhanced reach of GP activities, have added significantly to opportunities for discovering new partners and new areas of contribution.
The subverting trade
The subversive trading approach, just like the coercive approach, is focused on people and organisations and harvesting what they have to offer. However, rather than relying on blackmail or the threat of violence to encourage people into giving up what they have it relies on a mix of seduction and deception. It is most effectively used when an issue or problem is important and is likely to become urgent in the future.
A person or organisation using this style will make tempting offers of things that, on the face of it, are attractive and valuable to have or be part of. However, once people are seduced into accepting these offers and hooked upon the apparent benefits, they are more easily persuaded into giving up things of value in return for further benefits. What is often most valuable, i.e., a person's or organisation's independence of action, is also the most eagerly subverted.
The subversive trading approach can be likened to a virus which fools its host into believing it is beneficial to the host body but then, having gained access, proceeds to change the surrounding cells into clones of itself, subverting the host's resources and energies towards exponential and damaging viral growth rather than sustainable and beneficial healthy growth.
It could also, of course, be likened to a vaccine that similarly fools a disease, but this time to benefit rather than harm the host.
An audacious example of a subversive trade focused upon an issue that is important and likely to become urgent is the European Euro project, which seeks to encourage European nations to trade control of their national currencies in return for the acquisition of a pan-European currency promising enhanced financial security and wealth.
This promise may or may not be delivered. It is, however, virtually certain that a trade made for economic reasons will increasingly be subverted to the cause of 'ever closer (political) union' between European nations. This is because the increased power the Euro gives to European institutions, especially its central bank, can easily be transformed into the power to shape European society and culture.
The issue of 'ever closer (political) union' becomes important with the potential to become urgent when it is considered in association with the consequences of past and current conflicts within mainland Europe. Considered in this context, 'ever closer (political) union' could, for some, become a necessity for safeguarding peace within Europe.
A characteristic of the subversive trade (and also the coercive trade) is that its appropriateness is very much 'in the eye of the beholder': what one person sees as appropriate in terms of coercion or subversion may not seem so for others. Hence the passionate arguments within the European Union about the necessity for 'ever closer (political) union' and the resentment people feel when, having allowed themselves to be tempted into accepting an apparently attractive trade, they find their efforts and contributions increasingly subverted towards the achievement of unexpected and probably unwelcome agendas.
These feelings of resentment and the damaging effects they can have upon relationships between people and organisations, etc., emphasise that the coercive and subversive trading styles should be used with great care.
The key question to ask when thinking of using either of these styles is:
'How would those on the receiving end of the coercive or subversive styles of trade react if they knew the motivations for using them?
If the reactions are ones you can manage, or at the very least live with, their use may prove effective. If the reactions are ones you cannot manage or live with, then their use may prove at best ineffective and at worst terminal to your cause and relationships.
Another example of a subversive trade is one that many businesses are making with social media. Where previously businesses would have launched products or advertised their services on their own websites, many now prefer to do this using Facebook. Facebook's ease of use, the professional and consistent presentation of its pages, its worldwide following and overall attractiveness make it a very seductive tool.
However, this could eventually lead to individually branded and independent businesses becoming subverted to the Facebook cause, transforming them into unofficial franchises contributing to Facebook's ongoing social feed and appetite for personal data it can exploit.
The important issue that could become urgent here is all on the Facebook side; it needs to keep its pre-eminence as a social network and continually grow its store of personal data to ensure its long-term profitability and success and avoid gradual decline and failure.
So far, the almost 1.5 billion Facebook users seem happy to be seduced into the above trade (including the author!).
The four trading styles can develop out of and move between and through each other
From reading the above it is probably already clear that it is important to not only recognise the above trading styles and the appropriateness of their use but also realise that they develop out of and move between and through each other as relationships change, evolve and transform according to need and context.
What begins as a coercive trading style may, when circumstances, attitudes, interests and motivations permit, become more collaborative. This releases creativity and innovation from the bonds of coercion and liberates all partners, enabling each of them to play an equal and, more importantly, unique role in things.
Gradually, the creative and innovative insights and solutions stimulated by the collaborative trading style may coalesce into new areas of focus or even new, discrete activities and disciplines. These will then probably need to be supported by an enhanced, more combined and integrated collaboration and new, wider ranging expertise which can only be provided by additional collaborators.
Once established, the above combining and integrating trading style is, for good or ill (dependent upon motivations), ripe for subversion. The first sign of this will be an increasing imbalance of power and influence within the collaboration, with perhaps one of the partners achieving dominance over why, how and when things are done.
This could happen for many reasons and be either good or bad for partners and the collaboration overall dependent on context and motivations: perhaps the collaboration's activities dovetail most naturally with one particular partner's interests; perhaps a partner has connections or relationships that make them very influential; perhaps a partner has the most money and resources, or the most relevant knowledge and expertise.
Whatever the reasons, one partner can begin to dominate the now closely integrated and combined collaboration's internal market of ideas and resources. Eventually this transforms the essence and culture of the combined trading group and subverts its efforts towards the needs and purposes of the dominant partner.
Available at Amazon 'Sleeping with the Enemy - Achieving Collaborative Success' (Third Edition)
References not previously given:
Chandler, M./2011/Novartis Executive Describes the Battle Against Malaria in Africa/https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/novartis-executive-describes-battle-against-malaria-Africa/August 2015
Lines, C./2014/The Less the Cost the More the Value/http://cuttingedgepartnerships.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-less-cost-more-value.html/August 2015
Lines, C./2015/A deceptively Simple Approach to Collaborative Working/http://cuttingedgepartnerships.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/a-deceptively-straightforward-approach.html/August 2015
Galison, P./1997/Image and Logic: A material Culture of Microphysics/USA/Chicago University Press
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDMQFjADahUKEwjujJ6a1_HHAhVTOdsKHZGvBl8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cardiff.ac.uk%2Fsocsi%2Fcontactsandpeople%2Fharrycollins%2Fexpertise-project%2FFOR%2520PUBLICATION%25204%2520trading%2520zone.doc&usg=AFQjCNFptss7xFoU7reU4_XjeG--LElPUA&sig2=takCaaR7HQAGmQQo35_0JA /August 2015
Wednesday, 19 August 2015
Identifying and appreciating national and organisational cultures: two triangles that can help
Many collaborative ventures have an international dimension. The Lewis Model, created by Richard Lewis of crossculture.com, offers a way of identifying and appreciating the many differing cultures you are likely to encounter. Click Here for a multimedia demonstration of the model and other helpful ideas, advice and services.
Richard Lewis's model inspired me to create my own Organisational Culture Triangle, which identifies the types of organisational cultures you are likely to encounter when working in partnership and how they tend to interact with each other.
You can learn more about the Organisational Culture Triangle and other aspects of collaborative working by going to Sleeping-with-the-Enemy-Achieving-Collaborative-Success-3rd-Edition
Richard Lewis's model inspired me to create my own Organisational Culture Triangle, which identifies the types of organisational cultures you are likely to encounter when working in partnership and how they tend to interact with each other.
You can learn more about the Organisational Culture Triangle and other aspects of collaborative working by going to Sleeping-with-the-Enemy-Achieving-Collaborative-Success-3rd-Edition
Sunday, 9 August 2015
Digging beneath perceptions of leadership
Here is a very interesting short article that summarises some of the key findings of a study by the Swinburne Leadership Institute. It set out to identify how leaders from different sectors are perceived by the Australian public:
http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2015/04/community-leaders-most-trusted?sthash.vkiFJ0J0.mjjo
How we perceive the people, leaders and organisations we work with obviously has a great effect upon our interactions with them, and when we are working in partnership with a wide range of people, leaders and organisations from many differing sectors this mix of perceptions can generate patterns of behaviour which are complex, difficult to manage and an obstacle to progress.
One way to begin managing this complexity and difficulty is to dig beneath our initial perceptions of our partners towards a deeper understanding of what drives their behaviour and actions.
This can be done by identifying the organisational cultures our partners come from and how these mould our partners' thinking and ways of doing things. Once we have achieved this we can begin finding ways to:
You can find out more about the 'Organisational Culture Triangle' by reading this post and the ones that follow it.
I also explore the five cultures of the triangle and how they behave and interact in Chapter 10 of my book 'Sleeping with the Enemy', which you can find out more about by clicking on the link to your right.
http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2015/04/community-leaders-most-trusted?sthash.vkiFJ0J0.mjjo
How we perceive the people, leaders and organisations we work with obviously has a great effect upon our interactions with them, and when we are working in partnership with a wide range of people, leaders and organisations from many differing sectors this mix of perceptions can generate patterns of behaviour which are complex, difficult to manage and an obstacle to progress.
One way to begin managing this complexity and difficulty is to dig beneath our initial perceptions of our partners towards a deeper understanding of what drives their behaviour and actions.
This can be done by identifying the organisational cultures our partners come from and how these mould our partners' thinking and ways of doing things. Once we have achieved this we can begin finding ways to:
- Enhance our interactions with partners
- Exploit partners' cultural strengths
- Minimise partners' cultural weaknesses
You can find out more about the 'Organisational Culture Triangle' by reading this post and the ones that follow it.
I also explore the five cultures of the triangle and how they behave and interact in Chapter 10 of my book 'Sleeping with the Enemy', which you can find out more about by clicking on the link to your right.
Saturday, 6 June 2015
Watch out for car park discussions
Five Boston medical institutions were concerned about their survival and continued success within an increasingly competitive health sector.
One of the five institutions suggested that they meet formally to discuss how they could work together to address their mutual concerns.
The other four institutions agreed that such a meeting was needed. The meeting was held. The issues were discussed. No decisions were taken.
Immediately after the meeting, two of the five institutions had an informal discussion in a car park; neither party disclosed what was discussed.
The formal meetings dragged on; nothing was agreed; no actions were taken.
Eventually, the two institutions that had met informally in the car park decided to go their own way; they agreed to merge. The merger was implemented smoothly and successfully.
Subsequently, two of the three remaining institutions (perhaps feeling they needed to respond in kind to safeguard their interests) also decided to merge. The merger was implemented successfully, but by no means smoothly.
The institution that had started the process by bringing everyone together became a bystander to events.
Whatever happened in the car park influenced and shaped the actions that came after it: who collaborated with whom; how they collaborated and when they did it. It also affected how well collaborative processes were implemented.
The coming-together of institutions and organisations creates a tapestry of perceptions, assumptions and experiences that immediately begins influencing events.
The two medical institutions that merged first knew each other well and had similar outlooks and ways of working. The two institutions that merged second had less in common, both with each other and with the other institutions involved. This was enough, without any further complexities of perception or relationship, to create a powerful and influential background dynamic to discussions about potential collaborative working.
During formal discussions this tapestry of perceptions, assumptions and experiences remained submerged in the background (covertly influencing people's thinking). During informal discussions it floated towards the surface (obviously influencing people's actions and decisions).
When seeking to collaborate pay close attention to what happens informally. Even better, make informality a key aspect of the way you operate. Do not leave it out in the cold of a corridor or car park.
If you embrace informality, you are more likely to be able to identify and address the background influences that are guiding people's thinking and actions.
If you do not embrace informality, you may still achieve success but at more cost and with less choice. If you are very unlucky, you may find it is you left out in the cold.
One of the five institutions suggested that they meet formally to discuss how they could work together to address their mutual concerns.
The other four institutions agreed that such a meeting was needed. The meeting was held. The issues were discussed. No decisions were taken.
Immediately after the meeting, two of the five institutions had an informal discussion in a car park; neither party disclosed what was discussed.
The formal meetings dragged on; nothing was agreed; no actions were taken.
Eventually, the two institutions that had met informally in the car park decided to go their own way; they agreed to merge. The merger was implemented smoothly and successfully.
Subsequently, two of the three remaining institutions (perhaps feeling they needed to respond in kind to safeguard their interests) also decided to merge. The merger was implemented successfully, but by no means smoothly.
The institution that had started the process by bringing everyone together became a bystander to events.
Whatever happened in the car park influenced and shaped the actions that came after it: who collaborated with whom; how they collaborated and when they did it. It also affected how well collaborative processes were implemented.
The coming-together of institutions and organisations creates a tapestry of perceptions, assumptions and experiences that immediately begins influencing events.
The two medical institutions that merged first knew each other well and had similar outlooks and ways of working. The two institutions that merged second had less in common, both with each other and with the other institutions involved. This was enough, without any further complexities of perception or relationship, to create a powerful and influential background dynamic to discussions about potential collaborative working.
During formal discussions this tapestry of perceptions, assumptions and experiences remained submerged in the background (covertly influencing people's thinking). During informal discussions it floated towards the surface (obviously influencing people's actions and decisions).
When seeking to collaborate pay close attention to what happens informally. Even better, make informality a key aspect of the way you operate. Do not leave it out in the cold of a corridor or car park.
If you embrace informality, you are more likely to be able to identify and address the background influences that are guiding people's thinking and actions.
If you do not embrace informality, you may still achieve success but at more cost and with less choice. If you are very unlucky, you may find it is you left out in the cold.
Sunday, 3 May 2015
Why should the devil have all the best collaborations? Creating, maintaining and developing breeding pools for potential partners
Criminals who seek to collaborate have to manage a crucial paradox: the need to be fast and flexible and simultaneously slow and certain.
To take advantage of new, perhaps sudden and unexpected opportunities requiring teamwork and collaboration criminals need to be able to identify and build relationships with suitable partners in crime very quickly. They also, however, need to take their time and be cautious about making sure that prospective partners are the 'right sort', that as well as having the required criminal skills and qualities they can, above all else, be trusted.
Managing such a paradox seems problematical at best and insurmountable at worst, but criminals do succeed in managing this paradox and gaining the benefits that result from meeting its opposing demands.
One of the ways they do this is by creating, maintaining and developing 'breeding pools' within which prospective partners in crime can evolve. This ensures there is a ready and diversely skilled supply of virtually hand-reared and reasonably trustworthy criminals (or potential criminals) that can be dipped into and used as partners as and when required.
Click here to read a post that will identify how the criminal underworld creates, maintains and develops the above breeding pools. It will also explore how the methods and approaches identified can be usefully and acceptably adopted and adapted by those seeking to collaborate within the legitimate overworld.
To take advantage of new, perhaps sudden and unexpected opportunities requiring teamwork and collaboration criminals need to be able to identify and build relationships with suitable partners in crime very quickly. They also, however, need to take their time and be cautious about making sure that prospective partners are the 'right sort', that as well as having the required criminal skills and qualities they can, above all else, be trusted.
Managing such a paradox seems problematical at best and insurmountable at worst, but criminals do succeed in managing this paradox and gaining the benefits that result from meeting its opposing demands.
One of the ways they do this is by creating, maintaining and developing 'breeding pools' within which prospective partners in crime can evolve. This ensures there is a ready and diversely skilled supply of virtually hand-reared and reasonably trustworthy criminals (or potential criminals) that can be dipped into and used as partners as and when required.
Click here to read a post that will identify how the criminal underworld creates, maintains and develops the above breeding pools. It will also explore how the methods and approaches identified can be usefully and acceptably adopted and adapted by those seeking to collaborate within the legitimate overworld.
Friday, 1 May 2015
Why should the devil have all the best collaborations? Creating, maintaining and developing breeding pools for potential partners
Criminals who seek to collaborate have to manage a crucial paradox: the need to be fast and flexible and simultaneously slow and certain.
To take advantage of new, perhaps sudden and unexpected opportunities requiring teamwork and collaboration criminals need to be able to identify and build relationships with suitable partners in crime very quickly. They also, however, need to take their time and be cautious about making sure that prospective partners are the 'right sort', that as well as having the required criminal skills and qualities they can, above all else, be trusted.
Managing such a paradox seems problematical at best and insurmountable at worst, but criminals do succeed in managing this paradox and gaining the benefits that result from meeting its opposing demands.
One of the ways they do this is by creating, maintaining and developing 'breeding pools' within which prospective partners in crime can evolve. This ensures there is a ready and diversely skilled supply of virtually hand-reared and reasonably trustworthy criminals (or potential criminals) that can be dipped into and used as partners as and when required.
This post will identify how the criminal underworld creates, maintains and develops the above breeding pools. It will then explore how the methods and approaches identified can be usefully and acceptably adopted and adapted by those seeking to collaborate within the legitimate overworld.
The three things criminals do when creating, maintaining and developing breeding pools for prospective partners in crime
Criminals create, maintain and develop breeding pools within which prospective partners in crime can evolve and connect by:
1. Finding criminal 'Goldilocks Zones' within which to place breeding pools
Criminals need to place their breeding pools for potential partners in locations where the conditions are just right. This means a location has to have a 'just right' balance between disorder and instability on the one hand and order and stability on the other. There needs to be enough disorder and instability in the environment to allow crime to get a foothold and develop, and enough order and stability in the environment to ensure crime does not grow too quickly and become unsustainable (which would mean that potential partners in crime would exhaust themselves and likely die before reaching maturity).
These Goldilocks Zones are most likely to be found in relatively well-resourced 'zones of transition', areas experiencing and more or less coping with significant and destabilising change. Good examples are the many breakaway, transitional and unrecognised states that emerged during the latter decades of the last century as a consequence of the break up of the Soviet Union. These states suffered, and in many cases still do, from 'Bespredel' (a Russian term for 'amorphous disorder'), which encourages the emergence and development of crime. They also, however, possessed cultural and historical habits of command and control (derived from their communist past) that, together with vestigial economic and industrial assets, enabled them to maintain a more or less adequate measure of law and order and societal stability.
This balance and tension between disorder/instability and order/stability provided 'just right' amounts of time and a 'just right' mix of challenges to encourage the emergence of sustainable organised crime and new and potentially useful partners in crime.
2. Managing a diversity of potentially useful partners
To ensure a quality supply of potentially useful partners, criminals stock their breeding pools with a wide array of people and organisations of 'the right sort'. They encourage diversity that is helpful to them and discourage diversity which is not.
Again, the evolution of Eastern European breakaway states provides examples of how this is done. Many of these states have created strong national identities and accompanying reputations that are very attractive to some and very off-putting to others.
The strong national identities encourage patriotic feelings in people that originate from or are native to the states concerned, and the often negative reputations (one breakaway state was described by European officials as 'a black hole in which illegal trade in arms, the trafficking of human beings and the laundering of criminal finance was carried on') tend to be attractive to criminals and repellent to the law abiding.
By developing a powerful and patriotic national identity and combining it with a negative (or positive, dependent on your viewpoint) reputation, the transitional states create a powerful means of managing the nature and diversity of those entering and/or remaining in its territory and the criminal breeding pools within it. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the wide variety of criminally skilled and talented people that find Eastern European breakaway states attractive usually tend to share patriotic feelings for the states concerned and/or possess strong historical and family connections with them.
For example, the French Foreign Legionnaire and criminal Milorad 'Legija' Ulemek was attracted back to Serbia, the land of his birth, at the outbreak of the Bosnian War in 1992. Serbia's ultra patriotic national identity and its burgeoning reputation for offering opportunities for a wide range of criminal activity enabled him to use his unique mix of military and criminal skills to play leading roles in both the Serbian Special Forces and the development of the Serbian criminal underworld. His military and criminal careers came to an end when he was convicted of the assassinations of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Dindic and former president Ivan Stambolic.
Those that are attracted by a transitional state's patriotic pull and the criminal opportunities suggested by its forbidding reputation will find that they are not only welcomed but also carefully farmed and cultivated. This is the secondary layer of controls used to manage the nature and diversity of the criminals operating within a transitional state and developing within its breeding pools. Through their extensive legacy, from communist times, of security and policing institutions, breakaway Eastern European states are well able to undertake this ongoing farming and controlled cultivation of the criminal elements incubating within their boundaries.
For example, one breakaway state's security organisation chose to rationalise rather than purge the organised crime going on within its territory. This entailed 'clearing the field' of unwanted, non-advantageous 'weed-like' criminals and their operations and carefully managing and directing the activities of those criminal outfits deemed useful enough to maintain, develop and exploit to the state's and its corrupt officials' advantage.
3. Developing rich betweenness centrality within and between breeding pools
Partners in crime need to be able to find each other and the skills, resources and services they need to carry out their activities. Creating rich betweenness centrality within an environment and more specifically within and between the breeding pools for potential partners in crime facilitates this.
Betweenness centrality is about the presence, importance and influence of skilled linking people or 'brokers' who not only enable the joining up of potential partners but also point the way towards or provide essential connections, knowledge, skills and expertise, resources and services, etc. They can be visualised as the hubs of exchange that enable a system to communicate, develop and grow.
The best of the breakaway Eastern European states (in terms of developing well resourced, organised and profitable crime networks) are those that are rich in betweenness centrality. Indeed, the best of the best have mainstreamed it into the cultures and day-to-day processes of their key institutions and businesses.
The strong policing and security legacy of breakaway Eastern European states plays a significant role in the development of this betweenness centrality. Many present and past police and security officers, looking to either top up their meagre state earnings or make any money at all, have offered their knowledge and skills, and access to influential people, organisations and confidential data to those working within the grey and black criminally inclined sectors of state economies.
Unsurprisingly, these offers have been enthusiastically accepted. This has enabled serving and past security officials to establish themselves as valued and influential brokers within and between developing criminal networks and the breeding pools for potential partners placed within them. They have made themselves doubly attractive by being able to not only link people and organisations in mutually advantageous ways but also offer 'specialist services' (surveillance, protection, knowledge of criminal networks and practices, etc.) that are of particular value to criminal organisations. So, they can be visualised not only as hubs but as 'magnetic' hubs that attract splinters and shards of criminality that gradually form joined-up clusters of criminality.
Rich betweenness centrality also plays an important protective role. Any system with multiple partners and players is vulnerable to cascading information breaches and infiltration by unwanted elements. Skilled up and savvy brokers within the system (which the past and present security officers mentioned above are) can act as safety valves and early warning systems. They can slow down or prevent the flow of sensitive information into, within and out of the system, and they can deny people access to key players or warn key players of any problems or dangers coming their way.
In addition, this protective role adds an ongoing and real-time dimension to the activity of managing the diversity of potential partners in crime. The skilled brokers within the system can identify and facilitate the removal of unwanted elements that have somehow gained entry to the criminal networks and breeding pools for potential partners. They can be thought of as the anti-bodies within the system that seek out, attach themselves to and eventually destroy foreign and damaging infections.
How the legal overworld can acceptably and usefully adopt and adapt the approaches criminals use to create, maintain and develop breeding pools for potential partners
1. Creating legal overworld 'Goldilocks Zones' within which to place breeding pools
Those wishing to collaborate within the legal overworld can learn from the amount of attention criminals give not only to creating, maintaining and developing breeding pools for potential partners but also to placing them within environments that are both safe and suitably challenging.
Those seeking collaborators in the legal overworld, because of the protection and support mechanisms that exist within society, the law being an example of the former and educational establishments being an example of the latter, can make the mistake of underestimating the importance of investing in creating and protecting their own breeding pools for potential partners and, crucially, placing them within suitably stable but also challenging environments, assuming others will take on this role.
This mistake has two consequences. Firstly, assumed pools for potential partners may in fact prove to be mirages that contain no such things. Secondly, if the breeding pools do exist they may not provide the right mix of stability and instability (or challenge) that is required to breed the type of potential partners required.
For example, leading-edge information or bio-technology companies may assume that they will find potential partners for collaborative projects from within academia. They may well do, but it is also a strong possibility that those bred and developed within the confines of universities may not be inclined towards working, or possess the collaborative business skills required to be successful, within a commercial environment. For those that are and do, the relatively non-commercial culture of academia may not provide sufficient business challenges for them to develop the required level of entrepreneurial skills and qualities.
This is the reason why savvy, collaboration focused information or bio-technology companies invest significantly in creating and maintaining commercially focused research and development departments and associated business incubators within academic institutions. By doing so they increase their chances of not only attracting academics with the necessary interest in and aptitude for commercial collaboration but also, through relevant and stretching business challenges, producing 'business ready' academics with the necessary mix of skills and qualities.
The commercially created and funded R&D departments and their associated business incubators become Goldilocks Zones (or well-resourced transition zones) within academia that possess a 'just right' mix of stability and instability (or challenge) within which to breed and mould the type of potential partners required.
2. Managing a diversity of potentially useful partners within legal overworld collaborations
Where criminals seeking to attract potential partners in crime create identities and reputations that discourage the law abiding but attract a wide selection of the criminally useful, those seeking to collaborate within the legal overworld can create identities and reputations that discourage the non-collaborative and attract a wide selection of the collaborative.
For example, a high profile construction project focused upon building a new rail link to London's Heathrow Airport invested great time and effort into making a collaborative, partnership approach part of their culture and identity. This collaborative culture then ingrained itself into the day-to-day activities of the project, gradually providing it with a reputation that attracted a wide range of suitably skilled and collaboratively inclined businesses and organisations with the potential to work effectively in partnership within the project.
Other ways in which businesses and organisations can develop and broadcast their collaborative intentions and begin building reputations attractive to others who may be collaboratively inclined are by:
Once a wide diversity of potentially useful partners has been attracted and welcomed it needs to be carefully cultivated. Just as criminal collaborations 'rationalise and regulate' the criminals active within their environments, so too legal overworld collaborations need to rationalise and regulate the collaborative activity going on within theirs.
This is, of course, tricky. A top-down somewhat heavy-handed approach (as favoured by the criminal underworld) will likely prove ineffective within a legal overworld context, with partners becoming rightly perplexed, irritated and outright annoyed about being managed, directed, pruned or even culled, rather than consulted, engaged and collaborated with. Never-the-less, there is a need for some careful management and controlled cultivation of the collaborative activity going on if the pursuing of hidden agendas is to be avoided and collaborative goals are to be achieved.
The regulation and rationalisation of legal overworld collaborative activity can be achieved acceptably and effectively through 'tough love'. To be more specific, it can be achieved through the facilitation of open, transparent and often difficult conversations which are designed and structured to explore and deal with areas of conflict and differing agendas, needs and expectations.
For example, one leading IT company kept their collaborative projects on track by regularly organising high profile meetings between all key partners to openly thrash out problems, difficulties and conflicts and address any apparent freeloading or other non-collaborative behaviour or activity that was emerging.
These meetings were carefully designed to ensure that all key players had their say and that all sides of an issue were explored. They were also chaired by very senior managers who, because of their track records and reputations, were trusted and respected by all the partners involved. Importantly, these chair people were empowered to encourage partners to make decisions during the meetings that would address the various difficulties. They were also given the authority to approve these decisions there and then.
The transparent, inclusive and high profile nature of these meetings, the fact that they were chaired by senior and respected managers, and the expectation that decisions would be made and approved 'there and then', achieved two important things. Firstly, it made the entire process open and transparent to all the key partners and ensured that they were appropriately consulted and involved in the decisions made. Secondly, the emphasis upon making and approving decisions during meetings (plus their high profile nature and the close involvement of empowered senior management) added an appropriate amount of pace, direction and 'pressure of expectation' to the process that strongly encouraged partners to deal with difficulties and conflicts, etc., in a timely manner. This helped ensure that collaborative projects regulated and rationalised their activities (and where necessary dispensed with partners that were no longer needed) swiftly and efficiently.
3. Developing rich betweenness centrality within and between overworld breeding pools for potential partners
Those seeking to encourage, develop and join up potential partners for legal overworld collaborations can gain much from adopting and adapting the ways the criminal underworld develops and uses skilled brokers to enrich the betweenness centrality of its collaborative networks and breeding pools for potential partners.
As mentioned earlier, betweenness centrality is about the presence, importance and influence of skilled linking people or 'brokers' who enable the joining up of potential partners and can point the way towards or provide essential connections, knowledge, skills and expertise, resources and services, etc. They can be visualised as the hubs of exchange that enable a system to communicate, develop and grow.
Criminals know that they have to 'magnetise' the brokers or linking people within their collaborative networks and the breeding pools for developing potential partners contained within them. They know it is not enough to introduce and resource brokers, and that it is not even enough to ensure that brokers have good collaborative skills. Criminals know that for brokers to be effective in their roles they need to act as magnets within the network, attracting people to them not just because they have good contacts but also because they possess invaluable knowledge, skills, expertise and experience that aspiring criminals need.
Those seeking to create legal overworld collaborations need to realise a very similar thing: that to attract potential partners the brokers they introduce to their collaborative networks need to be magnetised with the power of valued and sought after (mostly legal overworld) knowledge, skills, expertise and experience.
For example, charitable and not-for-profit organisations seeking to work collaboratively with the corporate sector will be attracted to brokers who can not only introduce them to likely corporate partners but also provide guidance about best practice business approaches and how best to sell their ideas to big business.
Jonathan Andrews of 'Remarkable Partnerships' is such a broker. He attracts potential collaborators from the not-for-profit sector not only because he has connections that bridge the not-for-profit and corporate sectors but also because he has business and sales skills, expertise and experience that is highly valued by the not-for-profit sector. This magnetises his brokering role, so exponentially enhancing his effectiveness and adding significantly to the richness of the betweenness centrality of the collaborative networks of which he is a member and the pools of potential partners that stream towards him.
Another example of legal overworld magnetised brokers that attract potential collaborators are the self-advocates and people with lived experience that participate in Local Involvement Networks (networks initiated by the Department of Health to give people a greater say in the workings of their health and social services).
These people are attractive as brokers not only because their membership of the network provides them with connections that span local health and social care sectors but also because they possess unique first-hand experience of the problems faced by those with health and social care needs. This magnetises their brokering role and enables them to attract both consumers and providers of health and social care services. Thus, like Jonathan Andrews, they are able to add significant richness to the betweenness centrality of collaborative networks and the pools of potential partners within them.
Lastly, legal overworld collaborations will benefit immensely from exploiting the protective potential of the brokers or linking people within their networks. For example, the previously mentioned senior and respected managers who acted as brokers within and between their organisation's collaborative projects were able to identify emerging problems caused by inappropriate flows of information and resources and quickly gain agreement for creating organisational information filters and firewalls that would address them. Members of the NHS's Local Involvement Networks, especially those with 'magnetised broker' characteristics, have played a similar role. They gained and passed on early and informal warnings of emerging problems at local NHS hospitals which enabled those with the power to provide remedies to respond quickly and effectively.
To take advantage of new, perhaps sudden and unexpected opportunities requiring teamwork and collaboration criminals need to be able to identify and build relationships with suitable partners in crime very quickly. They also, however, need to take their time and be cautious about making sure that prospective partners are the 'right sort', that as well as having the required criminal skills and qualities they can, above all else, be trusted.
Managing such a paradox seems problematical at best and insurmountable at worst, but criminals do succeed in managing this paradox and gaining the benefits that result from meeting its opposing demands.
One of the ways they do this is by creating, maintaining and developing 'breeding pools' within which prospective partners in crime can evolve. This ensures there is a ready and diversely skilled supply of virtually hand-reared and reasonably trustworthy criminals (or potential criminals) that can be dipped into and used as partners as and when required.
This post will identify how the criminal underworld creates, maintains and develops the above breeding pools. It will then explore how the methods and approaches identified can be usefully and acceptably adopted and adapted by those seeking to collaborate within the legitimate overworld.
The three things criminals do when creating, maintaining and developing breeding pools for prospective partners in crime
Criminals create, maintain and develop breeding pools within which prospective partners in crime can evolve and connect by:
- Finding criminal 'Goldilocks Zones' within which to place breeding pools.
- Managing a diversity of potentially useful partners.
- Developing rich betweenness centrality within and between breeding pools.
1. Finding criminal 'Goldilocks Zones' within which to place breeding pools
Criminals need to place their breeding pools for potential partners in locations where the conditions are just right. This means a location has to have a 'just right' balance between disorder and instability on the one hand and order and stability on the other. There needs to be enough disorder and instability in the environment to allow crime to get a foothold and develop, and enough order and stability in the environment to ensure crime does not grow too quickly and become unsustainable (which would mean that potential partners in crime would exhaust themselves and likely die before reaching maturity).
These Goldilocks Zones are most likely to be found in relatively well-resourced 'zones of transition', areas experiencing and more or less coping with significant and destabilising change. Good examples are the many breakaway, transitional and unrecognised states that emerged during the latter decades of the last century as a consequence of the break up of the Soviet Union. These states suffered, and in many cases still do, from 'Bespredel' (a Russian term for 'amorphous disorder'), which encourages the emergence and development of crime. They also, however, possessed cultural and historical habits of command and control (derived from their communist past) that, together with vestigial economic and industrial assets, enabled them to maintain a more or less adequate measure of law and order and societal stability.
This balance and tension between disorder/instability and order/stability provided 'just right' amounts of time and a 'just right' mix of challenges to encourage the emergence of sustainable organised crime and new and potentially useful partners in crime.
2. Managing a diversity of potentially useful partners
To ensure a quality supply of potentially useful partners, criminals stock their breeding pools with a wide array of people and organisations of 'the right sort'. They encourage diversity that is helpful to them and discourage diversity which is not.
Again, the evolution of Eastern European breakaway states provides examples of how this is done. Many of these states have created strong national identities and accompanying reputations that are very attractive to some and very off-putting to others.
The strong national identities encourage patriotic feelings in people that originate from or are native to the states concerned, and the often negative reputations (one breakaway state was described by European officials as 'a black hole in which illegal trade in arms, the trafficking of human beings and the laundering of criminal finance was carried on') tend to be attractive to criminals and repellent to the law abiding.
By developing a powerful and patriotic national identity and combining it with a negative (or positive, dependent on your viewpoint) reputation, the transitional states create a powerful means of managing the nature and diversity of those entering and/or remaining in its territory and the criminal breeding pools within it. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the wide variety of criminally skilled and talented people that find Eastern European breakaway states attractive usually tend to share patriotic feelings for the states concerned and/or possess strong historical and family connections with them.
For example, the French Foreign Legionnaire and criminal Milorad 'Legija' Ulemek was attracted back to Serbia, the land of his birth, at the outbreak of the Bosnian War in 1992. Serbia's ultra patriotic national identity and its burgeoning reputation for offering opportunities for a wide range of criminal activity enabled him to use his unique mix of military and criminal skills to play leading roles in both the Serbian Special Forces and the development of the Serbian criminal underworld. His military and criminal careers came to an end when he was convicted of the assassinations of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Dindic and former president Ivan Stambolic.
Those that are attracted by a transitional state's patriotic pull and the criminal opportunities suggested by its forbidding reputation will find that they are not only welcomed but also carefully farmed and cultivated. This is the secondary layer of controls used to manage the nature and diversity of the criminals operating within a transitional state and developing within its breeding pools. Through their extensive legacy, from communist times, of security and policing institutions, breakaway Eastern European states are well able to undertake this ongoing farming and controlled cultivation of the criminal elements incubating within their boundaries.
For example, one breakaway state's security organisation chose to rationalise rather than purge the organised crime going on within its territory. This entailed 'clearing the field' of unwanted, non-advantageous 'weed-like' criminals and their operations and carefully managing and directing the activities of those criminal outfits deemed useful enough to maintain, develop and exploit to the state's and its corrupt officials' advantage.
3. Developing rich betweenness centrality within and between breeding pools
Partners in crime need to be able to find each other and the skills, resources and services they need to carry out their activities. Creating rich betweenness centrality within an environment and more specifically within and between the breeding pools for potential partners in crime facilitates this.
Betweenness centrality is about the presence, importance and influence of skilled linking people or 'brokers' who not only enable the joining up of potential partners but also point the way towards or provide essential connections, knowledge, skills and expertise, resources and services, etc. They can be visualised as the hubs of exchange that enable a system to communicate, develop and grow.
The best of the breakaway Eastern European states (in terms of developing well resourced, organised and profitable crime networks) are those that are rich in betweenness centrality. Indeed, the best of the best have mainstreamed it into the cultures and day-to-day processes of their key institutions and businesses.
The strong policing and security legacy of breakaway Eastern European states plays a significant role in the development of this betweenness centrality. Many present and past police and security officers, looking to either top up their meagre state earnings or make any money at all, have offered their knowledge and skills, and access to influential people, organisations and confidential data to those working within the grey and black criminally inclined sectors of state economies.
Unsurprisingly, these offers have been enthusiastically accepted. This has enabled serving and past security officials to establish themselves as valued and influential brokers within and between developing criminal networks and the breeding pools for potential partners placed within them. They have made themselves doubly attractive by being able to not only link people and organisations in mutually advantageous ways but also offer 'specialist services' (surveillance, protection, knowledge of criminal networks and practices, etc.) that are of particular value to criminal organisations. So, they can be visualised not only as hubs but as 'magnetic' hubs that attract splinters and shards of criminality that gradually form joined-up clusters of criminality.
Rich betweenness centrality also plays an important protective role. Any system with multiple partners and players is vulnerable to cascading information breaches and infiltration by unwanted elements. Skilled up and savvy brokers within the system (which the past and present security officers mentioned above are) can act as safety valves and early warning systems. They can slow down or prevent the flow of sensitive information into, within and out of the system, and they can deny people access to key players or warn key players of any problems or dangers coming their way.
In addition, this protective role adds an ongoing and real-time dimension to the activity of managing the diversity of potential partners in crime. The skilled brokers within the system can identify and facilitate the removal of unwanted elements that have somehow gained entry to the criminal networks and breeding pools for potential partners. They can be thought of as the anti-bodies within the system that seek out, attach themselves to and eventually destroy foreign and damaging infections.
How the legal overworld can acceptably and usefully adopt and adapt the approaches criminals use to create, maintain and develop breeding pools for potential partners
1. Creating legal overworld 'Goldilocks Zones' within which to place breeding pools
Those wishing to collaborate within the legal overworld can learn from the amount of attention criminals give not only to creating, maintaining and developing breeding pools for potential partners but also to placing them within environments that are both safe and suitably challenging.
Those seeking collaborators in the legal overworld, because of the protection and support mechanisms that exist within society, the law being an example of the former and educational establishments being an example of the latter, can make the mistake of underestimating the importance of investing in creating and protecting their own breeding pools for potential partners and, crucially, placing them within suitably stable but also challenging environments, assuming others will take on this role.
This mistake has two consequences. Firstly, assumed pools for potential partners may in fact prove to be mirages that contain no such things. Secondly, if the breeding pools do exist they may not provide the right mix of stability and instability (or challenge) that is required to breed the type of potential partners required.
For example, leading-edge information or bio-technology companies may assume that they will find potential partners for collaborative projects from within academia. They may well do, but it is also a strong possibility that those bred and developed within the confines of universities may not be inclined towards working, or possess the collaborative business skills required to be successful, within a commercial environment. For those that are and do, the relatively non-commercial culture of academia may not provide sufficient business challenges for them to develop the required level of entrepreneurial skills and qualities.
This is the reason why savvy, collaboration focused information or bio-technology companies invest significantly in creating and maintaining commercially focused research and development departments and associated business incubators within academic institutions. By doing so they increase their chances of not only attracting academics with the necessary interest in and aptitude for commercial collaboration but also, through relevant and stretching business challenges, producing 'business ready' academics with the necessary mix of skills and qualities.
The commercially created and funded R&D departments and their associated business incubators become Goldilocks Zones (or well-resourced transition zones) within academia that possess a 'just right' mix of stability and instability (or challenge) within which to breed and mould the type of potential partners required.
2. Managing a diversity of potentially useful partners within legal overworld collaborations
Where criminals seeking to attract potential partners in crime create identities and reputations that discourage the law abiding but attract a wide selection of the criminally useful, those seeking to collaborate within the legal overworld can create identities and reputations that discourage the non-collaborative and attract a wide selection of the collaborative.
For example, a high profile construction project focused upon building a new rail link to London's Heathrow Airport invested great time and effort into making a collaborative, partnership approach part of their culture and identity. This collaborative culture then ingrained itself into the day-to-day activities of the project, gradually providing it with a reputation that attracted a wide range of suitably skilled and collaboratively inclined businesses and organisations with the potential to work effectively in partnership within the project.
Other ways in which businesses and organisations can develop and broadcast their collaborative intentions and begin building reputations attractive to others who may be collaboratively inclined are by:
- Publishing databases or lists of potential partners and encouraging a wide range of people and organisations to put themselves forward for inclusion upon them.
- Holding Unusual Suspects festivals and conferences, like the one organised by the Social Innovation Exchange, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Collaborate, which facilitate collaborations and partnerships between a very wide range of people and organisations that would not likely meet under normal circumstances.
- Publicising and holding 'scouting meetings' that invite and engage with a wide range of people and organisations which could be partners within a specific initiative at some future date.
- Moving from a traditional contracting approach to an alliance contracting approach, which involves pre-contractual discussions with potential partners about the focus, approach, and measures and indicators of success for a collaborative project.
- Encourage an appropriate amount of open networking, as is done by LIONS (LinkedIn Open Networkers) on the business network 'LinkedIn', to disrupt relationship channels that are becoming too fixed and habitual and refresh them with new people, insights and thinking.
Once a wide diversity of potentially useful partners has been attracted and welcomed it needs to be carefully cultivated. Just as criminal collaborations 'rationalise and regulate' the criminals active within their environments, so too legal overworld collaborations need to rationalise and regulate the collaborative activity going on within theirs.
This is, of course, tricky. A top-down somewhat heavy-handed approach (as favoured by the criminal underworld) will likely prove ineffective within a legal overworld context, with partners becoming rightly perplexed, irritated and outright annoyed about being managed, directed, pruned or even culled, rather than consulted, engaged and collaborated with. Never-the-less, there is a need for some careful management and controlled cultivation of the collaborative activity going on if the pursuing of hidden agendas is to be avoided and collaborative goals are to be achieved.
The regulation and rationalisation of legal overworld collaborative activity can be achieved acceptably and effectively through 'tough love'. To be more specific, it can be achieved through the facilitation of open, transparent and often difficult conversations which are designed and structured to explore and deal with areas of conflict and differing agendas, needs and expectations.
For example, one leading IT company kept their collaborative projects on track by regularly organising high profile meetings between all key partners to openly thrash out problems, difficulties and conflicts and address any apparent freeloading or other non-collaborative behaviour or activity that was emerging.
These meetings were carefully designed to ensure that all key players had their say and that all sides of an issue were explored. They were also chaired by very senior managers who, because of their track records and reputations, were trusted and respected by all the partners involved. Importantly, these chair people were empowered to encourage partners to make decisions during the meetings that would address the various difficulties. They were also given the authority to approve these decisions there and then.
The transparent, inclusive and high profile nature of these meetings, the fact that they were chaired by senior and respected managers, and the expectation that decisions would be made and approved 'there and then', achieved two important things. Firstly, it made the entire process open and transparent to all the key partners and ensured that they were appropriately consulted and involved in the decisions made. Secondly, the emphasis upon making and approving decisions during meetings (plus their high profile nature and the close involvement of empowered senior management) added an appropriate amount of pace, direction and 'pressure of expectation' to the process that strongly encouraged partners to deal with difficulties and conflicts, etc., in a timely manner. This helped ensure that collaborative projects regulated and rationalised their activities (and where necessary dispensed with partners that were no longer needed) swiftly and efficiently.
3. Developing rich betweenness centrality within and between overworld breeding pools for potential partners
Those seeking to encourage, develop and join up potential partners for legal overworld collaborations can gain much from adopting and adapting the ways the criminal underworld develops and uses skilled brokers to enrich the betweenness centrality of its collaborative networks and breeding pools for potential partners.
As mentioned earlier, betweenness centrality is about the presence, importance and influence of skilled linking people or 'brokers' who enable the joining up of potential partners and can point the way towards or provide essential connections, knowledge, skills and expertise, resources and services, etc. They can be visualised as the hubs of exchange that enable a system to communicate, develop and grow.
Criminals know that they have to 'magnetise' the brokers or linking people within their collaborative networks and the breeding pools for developing potential partners contained within them. They know it is not enough to introduce and resource brokers, and that it is not even enough to ensure that brokers have good collaborative skills. Criminals know that for brokers to be effective in their roles they need to act as magnets within the network, attracting people to them not just because they have good contacts but also because they possess invaluable knowledge, skills, expertise and experience that aspiring criminals need.
Those seeking to create legal overworld collaborations need to realise a very similar thing: that to attract potential partners the brokers they introduce to their collaborative networks need to be magnetised with the power of valued and sought after (mostly legal overworld) knowledge, skills, expertise and experience.
For example, charitable and not-for-profit organisations seeking to work collaboratively with the corporate sector will be attracted to brokers who can not only introduce them to likely corporate partners but also provide guidance about best practice business approaches and how best to sell their ideas to big business.
Jonathan Andrews of 'Remarkable Partnerships' is such a broker. He attracts potential collaborators from the not-for-profit sector not only because he has connections that bridge the not-for-profit and corporate sectors but also because he has business and sales skills, expertise and experience that is highly valued by the not-for-profit sector. This magnetises his brokering role, so exponentially enhancing his effectiveness and adding significantly to the richness of the betweenness centrality of the collaborative networks of which he is a member and the pools of potential partners that stream towards him.
Another example of legal overworld magnetised brokers that attract potential collaborators are the self-advocates and people with lived experience that participate in Local Involvement Networks (networks initiated by the Department of Health to give people a greater say in the workings of their health and social services).
These people are attractive as brokers not only because their membership of the network provides them with connections that span local health and social care sectors but also because they possess unique first-hand experience of the problems faced by those with health and social care needs. This magnetises their brokering role and enables them to attract both consumers and providers of health and social care services. Thus, like Jonathan Andrews, they are able to add significant richness to the betweenness centrality of collaborative networks and the pools of potential partners within them.
Lastly, legal overworld collaborations will benefit immensely from exploiting the protective potential of the brokers or linking people within their networks. For example, the previously mentioned senior and respected managers who acted as brokers within and between their organisation's collaborative projects were able to identify emerging problems caused by inappropriate flows of information and resources and quickly gain agreement for creating organisational information filters and firewalls that would address them. Members of the NHS's Local Involvement Networks, especially those with 'magnetised broker' characteristics, have played a similar role. They gained and passed on early and informal warnings of emerging problems at local NHS hospitals which enabled those with the power to provide remedies to respond quickly and effectively.
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