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?

Can Quality Standards Improve the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Government Operations?

Conventional wisdom says that government is not efficient and not effective – but, we are still unsure what works and what is broken in government, where to find some common sense, and where to start to fix it. So, with that in mind, I'm glad I had the chance to speak with Richard E. Mallory this month about his recently published book, Quality Standards for Highly Effective Government, Second Edition. I asked him a series of questions, and I'm including those along with Richard's very interesting answers here.

What are Quality Standards?
They are professional standards developed and endorsed by the American Society for Quality Government Division as international best practice standards for government. There are three standards that collectively apply to every area of government operations, and provide a framework for excellence. There is a standard for process management, system management (including project management), and for aligned leadership objectives. One or more of these standards align with the responsibility of every supervisor, manager, and executive in every government agency. Each provides a measurable standard, with uniform and objective criteria, that evaluate the design and application of best practice operational practices. The systematic use of quality standards provides the first-ever opportunity for an organizational scorecard, that measures the extent of quality practice in government. 

Why are these standards necessary for highly effective government?

The development of high-performing learning organizations depends on defining and testing a best practice operational structure that is specific to every one of its branches, divisions, and operating units. This can’t easily be done with existing frameworks, which depend on top-down application of uniform organizational practices, such as ISO 9001 or Baldrige. The application of Quality Standards is from the bottom to the top, and requires every supervisor and manager to develop a process map or a system map that defines the critical steps or milestones of value creation within that program area. It applies a cycle of learning that is based on a defined approach and deployment, combined with periodic evaluation and update or improvement. The development of indicators and measures of success cements the practices of learning and improvement. The application of system management at the executive level ensures organizational alignment.

Can’t we do the same thing with organization-wide deployment of Lean Six Sigma? 
No. The problem with most traditional Lean Six Sigma and DMAIC improvement efforts is that they are not sustainable over the long term, and require a continual “push” from leadership. Because their success requires each practitioner to dedicate current effort for longer-term gain, busy organizations often curtail these best practices to resolve short-term crises. If executive recognition ever wavers, or if leadership changes, the commitment to best practice operation also disappears. The use of Quality Standards changes this dynamic, by allowing executives to create a report on the existence and use of quality practices in their organization, so that executives are at last able to “see” where individual managers are maintaining best practice, and where efforts are lapsing. It will also allow organizations to create external reviews, and audit organizations to report on the continuing commitment to quality practices within every government organization. This reporting ensures that Lean and DMAIC practices are established, maintained, and sustained. No longer will the practice of quality be "invisible."

How do we know they work?
Quality Standards have been endorsed by the Government Division of the American Society for Quality as an international best practice standard for Government. A recent white paper of the National Academy of Public Administration on Strengthening Organizational Performance in Government has also endorsed the standards. The Process Management Standard is a part of the Process Management Handbook for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and numerous government jurisdictions have found them to be a tool for organizational capacity reviews, both to evaluate current efforts and to offer further suggestions on the means and methods of improvement.

How can we get started?
This book provides the logic and approach behind the standards, and introduces each with its evaluation criteria, and the scoring plan. It is important and foundational, for those who will be using the standards, for those reviewing them, and for leadership who want to understand the benefits and the logic being followed. Each organization using the standards should plan to provide introductory training for all its managers and supervisors, to help them in identifying the key processes and systems that drive organizational results, and to help them define best operational practices for each. The effort should then transition to periodic review of each defined process and system, both to ensure the integrity of the approach, and to evaluate the next steps to its improvement.

What are the changes in the second edition book?
The second edition includes the newest revision to the system management standard, which applies to the work of executive managers, program office managers, and project managers. It completes the organizational framework by challenging those managers to define milestones of value creation relative to the work of their office, with the causes of success in each milestone. In addition, it allows the development of operational metrics and indicators. It is through the integrated definition of key processes and systems that an entire agile framework can be completed. The second edition looks ahead to the role of leadership in developing excellent performance through application of the Aligned Leadership Objectives Standard. 

Do any readers currently work in the public sector? What do you think of Richard's thoughts?  Have you adopted these quality standards in your organization?

Social Responsibility and Shared Value = Higher Profits

This past month, John C. Camillus, Bopaya Bidanda, and N. Chandra Mohan published a book titled The Business of Humanity: Strategic Management in the Era of Globalization, Innovation, and Shared Value, which explains why many organizations are pursuing a novel, forward-thinking business model. These companies are building "humanity" into their models as the driver of economic, environmental, and social sustainability.

During a recent email conversation with the authors this month, I asked them: “Can companies built on shared value sustain for the long term?” Here is their collective response:

That is a fundamental question that goes to the heart of the Business of Humanity® Proposition. Our answer is an emphatic "Yes!"

Iconic figures such as Nobel Peace Prize-winner Muhammad Yunus contribute to keeping this question alive by proposing “social business” as a model, de-emphasizing profits and focusing primarily on addressing social concerns. This mindset, though most commendable, raises justifiable questions about sustainability.

We see shared value as a requirement for the survival of business. For instance, the importance of sharing value with communities is becoming apparent and activist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) make it an imperative. Remember that Tata Motors had to abandon a $300 million investment in an assembly plant because the local community felt that it had been exploited when land was acquired for the plant.

We go even further by arguing that sharing value strategically with the organization’s stakeholders enhances profitability. The disruptive innovations that are part of the Business of Humanity’s profit-enhancing business model will create damaging conflicts between stakeholders if they are not purposefully engaged in the process of value creation and understand that they will be earning a slice of a substantially larger pie.

We are definitely not being Pollyannaish. When Paul Polman, the chairman of Unilever, was asked how his company could continue to make profits with its emphasis on social and environmental sustainability, his response was that he did not see how profits could be sustained without such an emphasis. The Business of Humanity strategy development process is designed to ensure that shared value promotes profitability and, consequently, sustainability.

Do you think there is validity to the argument that a more human-centered capitalism is vital as a long-term business strategy and the correct method for sustainable economic behavior?  

The Need for "Safety Culture" in Radiation Oncology

I recently had the opportunity to speak with both Lawrence Marks and Lukasz Mazur, who are the authors of a very important new book titled Engineering Patient Safety in Radiation Oncology: University of North Carolina’s Pursuit for High Reliability and Value Creation. During our conversation, I asked them: "Why did you write this book? What was unique about your experiences?" Here are their complete separate responses:

Lawrence Marks: I studied engineering before medical school. I have always been struck by the differences between engineering and medicine; particularly in the way that the workplace in organized, how work in done, and how each address safety concerns. In the engineering setting, it is often acknowledged that people’s actions, and hence safety, are impacted by things such as leadership, workplace/workflow design, and the organization’s safety culture. This lesson has not been widely learned within medicine. As medicine in general, and radiation oncology in particular, have become more complex, it is becoming increasingly important to consider these “upstream” factors.

For the most part, radiation therapy is very safe. Nevertheless, there are recognized risks. Further, the interactive complexity of modern practice makes it challenging predict where problems will occur. Presently, much of the emphasis on making radiation therapy safer is in the realm of technical solutions: medical physics, computer software, etc. These initiatives are necessary and will certainly help to address the safety issues. This approach alone, however, will not bring us to the level of reliability we strive to achieve.

We can and should do better, and the way to do that is to apply lessons from engineering/industry. We must consider the leadership/administrative component, the workplace and workflow component, as well as the people component, to minimize errors. We must use Lean improvement principles to motivate and enable all colleagues to be actively involved in assessing and improving their own systems -- This will increase safety mindfulness and help to create a “safety culture.” It is only through this multipronged approach that we can become the highly reliable organization that our patients deserve. And this is the focus of this book. We provide an honest and heart-felt summary of our journey in applying this approach in our radiation oncology clinic. We hope that readers will become motivated to apply similar strategies in their own clinics. While we did this work in the context of radiation oncology, the lessons described are applicable in any area of medicine.

Lukasz Mazur: Most quality and safety improvement programs in healthcare delivery industry are currently structured to: transform leaders into effective change agents, design efficient and ‘waste-free’ workplaces, and develop people into creative problem solvers. This is perhaps one of the key reasons why continuous quality improvement (CQI) programs based on Lean or Six-Sigma philosophies become so popular and are now being implemented throughout the healthcare delivery landscape. Despite many positive reports in the academic literature, books, and press, however, it is still difficult to determine whether the transformation of colleagues to innovative problem solvers has indeed occurred in the healthcare organizations utilizing CQI programs. One of the reasons for this shortcoming is lack of valid and detailed implementation – the basis for transformation to safety mindfulness. 

This book’s purpose is to fill this shortcoming and provide ample examples of our hard work at transforming our leaders, enhancing our workplaces, and supporting people in their journey towards safety mindfulness. We have an important message to send—that the patient safety and quality concerns within radiation therapy (RT) field are not merely a technical issue, but rather a more global cultural issue grounded in attitude and behaviors. We emphasize a need for leaders to create and nurture a culture that promotes a transformation from quick fixing, conforming, and expediting behaviors to enhancing and initiating behaviors. Leaders must acknowledge that they are responsible for modeling and developing these desired improvement behaviors in colleagues by developing infrastructures that promote these values and, as needed, use their authority to enforce these values as well. 

The broad application of the principles described in our book to healthcare can make healthcare delivery more efficient and safer. At the end, this can benefit all of us – providers, patients, and families. 

What are your thoughts on the application of lessons learned from Lean initiatives in engineering and industry to radiation oncology clinics?