Is Collaboration Dangerous?

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/12/eight_dangers_of_collaboration.html

Eight Dangers of Collaboration

Chapter 10 (“Conflict and Negotiations") of the book Organizational Behavior, written by Talya Bauer and Berrin Erdogan looks at the different strategies to manage conflict. The chapter explains that “Collaboration” is the strategy that should be used to achieve the best outcome from conflict. Collaboration is high in both assertiveness and competitiveness which are the two characteristics that determine how somebody will handle conflict when it is presented to them. The objective of this strategy is to reach a win-win agreement while challenging points that others make instead of making it a personal attack, and all signs in the chapter point to this strategy having a higher potential for success than Avoidance, Accommodation, Compromise, and Competition, which are the other four strategies.

                The article “Eight Dangers of Collaboration,” written by Nilofer Merchant, challenges Chapter 10’s explanation of Collaboration being the best strategy in managing conflict. She recognizes that most of what is written about collaboration is positive, but then goes on to ask a question, “So why is collaboration as rare as it is?” Her short answer incurs that the reason it is seldom used is because it is dangerous. Is it dangerous? Merchant goes on to talk about the “Eight Dangers” that specifically make collaboration as scarce as it is. Read the article above and decide which dangers you think are a real problem, preventing more collaboration among businesses and organizations? Which dangers are not as much the problem as others? Merchant also explains that we cannot manage collaboration well until we acknowledge that it is dangerous. Do you agree with this statement? I think there are many situations in which collaboration works simply because it gets people to do all of these so called “dangerous” things. Just because something is dangerous does not mean that it should be avoided or that people necessarily want to avoid it. Let me know what you think about these “Eight Dangers.”

Ricky Hearden