Ed Morrison · Teaching older managers new tricks

April 21st, 2011

For the second time in the past month, I have seen a promising civic collaboration slowed by business managers who cannot see the value of these collaborations. One involves a very promising cross-state collaboration in the Midwest.

Oddly, these old style managers seem to be looking at these collaborations from a political, not a business perspective. They fear that adding more partners muddies the waters. In both cases, the opponents clearly see the potential partners as “junior”, as if they were assembling some sort of coalition government.

But this political perspective is wrong-headed.

The point is not to add partners for the sake of strengthening a political coalition. The point is to add partners because they have unique assets that can lead to higher levels of shared value.

This opposition reflects the mindset of an older generation of management. This older generation of managers does not seem to grasp some key points:

1. Strategic collaborations create shared value. This shared value goes beyond what any member of a collaboration can accomplish.

2. Shared value emerges when partners in a collaboration “link and leverage” their assets in pragmatic, outcome-driven strategies.

3. Developing measurable outcomes requires a focused strategy discipline. This process of building these strategies is a discipline that members of the collaboration learn and master through working together designing and implementing their strategies. They learn by doing.

4. Strategy to guide complex collaborations involves following simple rules. Implementing strategy in an open network (Strategic Doing) is not the same as traditional strategic planning.

5. Collaborative strategies only work when members commit to continuous learning from each other.

These strategic collaborations run on trust, which takes time to develop. The key is to go slowly (now) to go faster (later). Each party to the collaboration, if it is to be sustained, must generate a fair return for their investment.

Understanding how shared returns can be generated and divided is no simple matter. It takes deep, focused conversations to insure that the collaboration is clearly bounded by measurable, shared outcomes. Strategic Doing is the process for managing conversations through these thickets.

No one taught this process in business school to these older managers. That’s why they have difficulty understanding it. In contrast, younger professionals, who came of age in a network world, find this approach far more intuitive.

In building these strategic collaborations, start where you can start, and focus on doing the doable.

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