What the World Needs Now is Smarter Collaboration

Posted on

30 Mar

2023

Dittmar & Indrenius > Insight > What the World Needs Now is Smarter Collaboration

Everyone talks about it, many companies have it proclaimed in their strategy and think they are already doing it, but do we really know how to make collaboration happen?

We invited Dr. Heidi K.Gardner, a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School and a former professor at Harvard Business School, to share fresh insights and research from her latest book “Smarter Collaboration – A New Approach to Breaking Down Barriers and Transforming Work” at our Afterwork event on 6 February 2023.

Gardner first presented herself as the nerdy Harvard professor who has data behind every hypothesis. “Collaboration”, she said, “is not a soft topic for two reasons. First, collaboration is hard. Second, there is hard evidence and data behind it.”

Gardner challenged the audience to think about today’s trends: market volatility, hybrid working, fast-developing technology. At the same time, she noted, there is a strong trend for professional specialisation. We have more and more experts with narrow, deep expertise, whereas the problems we face are anything except narrow and clearly defined. Tackling problems that are VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous – or just plain “messy”), Gardner said, require crossing silos and building teams of experts with complementary expertise. Almost any problem that requires our brains, she explained, has many angles to it.

“We need people who think differently than us and who know something different than we do.”

Many interesting real-life examples from her research were touched on, but her central theme was how to create a team for smart collaboration. According to Gardner, the first thing for us to do is to start with the end in mind to clarify the context of the problem. Next, in determining who would be the right people to reach that end, we need to expand beyond the boundaries of the “usual suspects”. Maybe it’s a futurist, maybe it’s an HR professional or maybe an economist, whose expertise and life experience would help us understand the issue and innovate better. “We need people who think differently than us and who know something different than we do”, Gardner pointed out. Finally, we need to truly engage them, not only have them appear on the team.

Gardner reminded us that conflict is almost unavoidable when working with someone with a different background – whether this is their expertise, culture, upbringing, or way of thinking. She challenged us as leaders and professionals to welcome a bit of conflict, tension and friction over harmony to get the most out of collaboration. This isn’t necessarily easy: embedding a truly collaborative corporate culture that achieves strategic outcomes depends on leadership focus and strategic oversight.

Stay tuned for our next Afterwork event with another inspiring guest speaker and peer discussions!

More by the same author

Q&A with New Partner Iiris Kivikari

With a wealth of experience in serving leading global and Finnish clients, our new partner Iiris Kivikari navigates the dynamic legal landscapes of intellectual property, media, data protection and data assets. She is also a leading expert in Finland on the legal aspects of transformational technologies such as artificial intelligence. Beyond her legal expertise, Iiris is also an enthusiastic mountain climber and a devoted mother of two young girls.

Uniting Strategy and Sustainability: A New Wave of Collaboration

In order to meet the requirements of the rapidly changing business environment and increasing cross-border regulation relating to sustainability, a new level of strategic sustainability and collaboration is needed. To address this shifting paradigm, D&I is launching a new kind of collaboration with creative consultancy Miltton to support our clients both in managing strategic sustainability and in understanding the growing regulation, integrating it into operating methods and translating it into business goals.

The Power of Diversity and Attorney Wellbeing

I stepped out of the elevator in The Spiral, a 66-floor skyscraper overlooking the Hudson River, and my eyes were immediately drawn to the panoramic view of the midtown skyline in New York City. Pretending to look calm and composed, I was in fact surfing some waves of nostalgia. It was two decades since my LL.M year at NYU, filled with dreams of a big career in Big Law. Back then, entering a shiny and beautiful law firm lobby like this would have meant an awesome opportunity.

Latest insights

The European Parliament and the Council reach an agreement on European Health Data Space!

Alert / 20 Mar 2024
Reading time 2 minutes

Ready or not, here comes the AI Act!

Alert / 14 Mar 2024
Reading time 2 minutes