When Managers Can't Collaborate Effectively -- What Is the Main Cause?

Earlier this month, Andrew S. Humphries and Linda McComie published a book entitled Why Managers Don't Collaborate: Revealing the Myths and Truths. The purpose of this book is to dispel the baseless myths that are preventing managers in organizations from moving forward and reaping the benefits of collaboration. 

When I spoke with Andrew this past week, I asked him: "What has been the main cause preventing managers from collaborating effectively?" Here is his complete answer:

The main cause preventing managers from collaborating effectively is their belief that no special arrangements, skills, or structures are needed to collaborate. Our book makes this point repeatedly and forcefully.

Across the underlying research, managers consistently claim they are collaborating, but in practice, they behave exactly as they always have: “they have claimed they are collaborating, but in reality, it was not happening,” and this false confidence forms the First Big Myth. Managers assume that existing processes, governance, and attitudes will somehow deliver collaborative outcomes, even though these were never designed for joint working.

The Second Big Myth reinforces the problem: managers “believe that they do not need to make special arrangements to collaborate successfully.” They fail to recognize collaboration as a professional discipline requiring investment, leadership, relationship management structures, and new ways of working. This leads to avoidance, excuses, and a reliance on habitual practices that undermine joint performance.

The book explores the deeper drivers behind this misconception:

• Short‑termism and management myopia, where immediate operational pressures overshadow long‑term value creation.
• Organizational resistance to change and fear of losing control, especially in governance-heavy environments.
• Vested interests in functions like sales, commercial, and finance that resist new ways of working.
• Over‑reliance on technology as a substitute for relationship management.
• Lack of champions and leadership, leaving alliances without direction or accountability.

In conclusion, the real fault lies with senior leaders “who do not understand the power of collaborative management,” leaving managers unsupported and unprepared to adopt the additional responsibilities collaboration demands.

In short, the main cause is a pervasive misunderstanding of what collaboration requires, leading managers to believe they are already doing it -- or that it is unnecessary -- while failing to invest in the structures, skills, and leadership that make collaboration succeed.

Do you agree with Andrew's perspective that managers fail to collaborate effectively because they do not understand that collaboration requires a distinct professional discipline? That is, a discipline that demands long‑term thinking, structural investment, behavioral change, and dedicated leadership, and instead relies on myths, assumptions, and excuses that keep them locked into traditional, siloed management practices.

If so, have you seen managers make this mistake in your company? Were these mistakes corrected?

Career Success -- What Are the Basic Factors?

At the beginning of May, Barry A. Franklin published a very interesting book -- entitled GPS for Success: Skills, Strategies, and Secrets of Superachievers -- which analyzes and highlights the foundational factors underlying future career success. Throughout the book, Barry provides specific examples and inspirational stories highlighting 10 critical behavioral skills for success. 

When I spoke with Barry just this past week, I asked him: “What are the basic factors that underly career success? Why do most people miss them?” Here is his complete answer:

After 10 years of undergraduate and graduate education, ultimately culminating in a Ph.D., it seemed somewhat paradoxical to me that virtually no college course had prepared me for the world of work. Accordingly, I began reading everything I could find on achieving career success and learned how ill-prepared I really was!

The critical knowledge and experiential perspectives I lacked included: understanding the power of relationships, positive associations, and collaboration; essential people skills; goal setting; the “boomerang effect” of serving others; dealing with setbacks; the virtues of patience and persistence; the potency of preparedness; writing and speaking expertise; understanding the laws of attraction and sow and reap; the dividends of organizational membership; and, the #1 success strategy -- taking action.

My research identified four foundational factors underlying overwhelming career success. These included: love what you do; realize that to a large extent, you make your own luck; take 100 percent responsibility for your setbacks and achievements in life; and admirably serve others.

Finally, why do most people miss them? Unfortunately, these underappreciated “soft skills” are seldom even touched on in college curricula that equip students with broad life and career proficiencies that empower them to contribute meaningfully to their communities and the workplace.

Perhaps the late professor Randy Pausch, author of  The Last Lecture, summed it up best when he said, “It’s not about how to achieve your dreams, it’s how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, and the dreams will come to you.” In so many ways, GPS for Success was written to fulfill this objective, to enable the dreams of others and provide guidance about how to live your life.

What do you think of Barry's perspective? Did you his recommendations for future career success accurate and inspiring? Are there any factors missing? What would you add?

What are the Biggest Mistakes Leaders Make Regarding Relationship Building?

At the beginning of this month, Diana Jones published an insightful book entitled Leadership Levers Releasing the Power of Relationships for Exceptional Participation, Alignment, and Team Results, which contends that leadership and collaboration are primarily a matter of principles and process and not personality and content alone.  Her book reveals the leadership levers to release the power of relationships for exceptional participation, alignment, and results in organizations. It enables leaders to mine the brilliance that often lies dormant and untapped within their organizations. If leaders master the process, they achieve consistent results.

When I spoke with Diana a few weeks ago, I asked her: "What are the biggest mistakes leaders make regarding relationship building?" Here is her complete answer:

There are three. 

The first mistake leaders make is that they think it is the relationship between themselves and their executives is paramount. What they fail to recognize is that the quality relationships among their leaders, and among leaders and staff are crucial to releasing the brilliance that lies in their organizations -- when these relationships are based on high-quality informal connections, based on shared life experiences and values, and not people’s professional identities, formal structure, or job function. 

The second mistake is that leaders think their information and content are more important than creating meeting environments where people want to give their best. Volumes of papers that are habitually delivered at short notice remain the modus operandi of many business and government organizations. This has to stop.

Leaders who shift from preparing screeds of content to attending to the first four minutes of every meeting engender vitality and stellar contributions. They do this with six steps. They begin with an inclusive welcome, by being appreciative, making an anticipatory ‘I’ statement, acknowledging the experience and expertise in the room. They focus ruthlessly on the outcome they want for their organization and go backward from there, and they craft a question that mines their audiences’ experience and expertise. In essence, they create a process for participation. These six steps enable participants to ‘arrive’, and bring their best selves to the table. The leader can relax as participants do the work through their experience and expertise. 

The third mistake is that leaders underestimate the power of moments where new people enter groups or new groups form. These are crucial moments. Leaders can learn how people get to know one another and work well together rapidly. Gone are the days where people take years to get to know one another from working together, or via dinners, or overnight team development sessions. Every leader today needs to have this capacity in their mindset and toolkit. 

Overall there is a mindset shift for leaders, that they cease being meeting leaders and become guardians of group development. 

What do you think of Diana's perspective on leadership engagement? Do these types of problems exist in your organization? If so, what steps were taken to overcome them?

HBR Writers Are Rediscovering Some Lean Ideas

I always smile a little bit when I see business writers singing the praises of supposedly newly discovered truths that, in fact, have been known for some time to people familiar with lean concepts. The most recent examples are a couple of articles I came across on the website of the Harvard Business Review.

One is by author and economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, discussing research related to her most recent book, Top Talent: Keeping Performance Up When Business Is Down (Harvard Business Press). She talks about the importance of having employees engaged.

It's impossible to understate the importance of having a sense of community at work, especially in these turbulent times. After enduring wave after wave of job cuts, plant closings, and corporate bankruptcies, employees uniformly say that what enables them to keep going is being able to talk to others who listen to and understand their concerns.

As an example, she talks about technology company EMC and its use of social networking tools to create an online forum for collaboration and discussion – which led to a wide range of successful cost-saving ideas.

I have no argument with anything Hewlett is saying or with her use of EMC as an example. But I’m not surprised. For years, lean advocates have known the value of employee engagement and how it can be encouraged through cross-functional teams, the sharing of information and other tactics. EMC’s use of social networking is relatively new, but that’s just a tool to support a well-established strategy.

The other article is by Vineet Hayar, CEO of IT services company HCL Technologies. He champions the need for collaboration rather than competition with supply chain partners, particularly customers, to achieve success in today’s marketplace.

Where have I heard this before? Oh yes, I wrote about it recently in regard to hospitals learning to deal with engaged patients. (That wasn’t exactly what Hayar discusses, but it is a form of collaboration with customers.) And my post was not groundbreaking, but discussing concepts that have been around for a long time.

Hewlett and Hayar promote sound ideas, and that’s a good thing. It would be nice if their work didn’t treat those ideas as new, but gave credit to the thinking – particularly lean thinking – that preceded them.