The new age of collaboration is a compelling idea, well presented by Clay Shirky (NYU), Andy McAfee (MIT), et. al. in the web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 field.   I do buy into the idea that our mass culture is moving toward a level of networked connectedness and co-creation that is unparalleled in the span of HSS (homo sapiens sapiens).   Pretty heady stuff.   

The economics and the physics of modern digital networks would, by themselves, change the Supply / Demand curves radically, and therefore the tradeoffs behind human behavior.   In the present case the trends are even stronger, aided and abetted by the social drives hard wired into us.  The studies of behavioral economics, game theory, psychology, and sociology all support this conclusion.  So, all hail the social software!

But then ... "Hang on a second."    The value of Weak Ties, distant colleagues, knowledge networks in general is the availability of non-redundant insights, information, knowledge.  In many cases, this flood of new ideas does not come indexed, codified, pre-qualified as to accuracy, or with any quality assurance as to process.   In short, you have a ton of new found Differences, with the current reality or future seeds of dispute, contradictions, ambiguity, and conflict.    Who gets to sort out the mess?  Who has the time?  You?   Who is adequately trained and skilled to be the arbiter of "the Truth?"

Thinking of Collaboration as an age-old pursuit, long before our digital network age, was collaboration eagerly sought as a first option?   Or in fact do we not see Collaboration as a last resort?   Or somewhere in between, depending upon the complexity about to be unleashed?

Letting the contrarian horses out of the barn,  see them run a ways:

• business execs typically avoid partnering with someone else, even another division of their own enterprise, if they can possibly do it themselves
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• reluctance to partner or collaborate is not simply a matter of ego and grasping after sole possession of cash bonus: research is overwhelming that mergers, alliances, partnering of different kinds is terribly risky and prone to failure (see separate post)
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• motivation for "going it alone" might include the complexity of collaboration, problems of accountability,  the loss of speed that comes from unity of command, the loss of focus when you lose simplicity, or enough self-knowledge to detect the firm has poor conflict management skills
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• project teams of 6-7 people, aren't they most likely to Collaborate to find and import knowledge?  But  aren't they unlikely to create new dependencies of consultation, cooperation, and joint decision-making unless they have no option?

It seems fair to say the benefits of collaboration do not fall down upon us as the gentle rain from heaven.   The benefits arrive when one or more conditions apply:

      a) complexity is very low, e.g. voluntary flow of suggestions, with no expectation of continuity or obligation

      b) established patterns, protocols, habits have controlled complexity through clear expectations

      c) an outside threat, the cost of not cooperating, is high and evident

      d) key parties have good skills in Conflict Management

All roads [well, most roads] lead to Conflict and Conflict Mgmt.

How good is your firm at sustaining good relationships through Conflict?   Neither submerge, deny and fudge it, on the one hand, nor Go Nuclear and start eye-gouging on the other?   I wonder if orgzn capacity at conflict mgmt correlates well with Innovation capability?

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