Do We Collaborate Too Much? - Emerging Nurse Leader

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

There is much discussion today about the importance of both interprofessional practice and education. Healthcare quality is dependent on strong teamwork. We have good evidence to suggest that when this teamwork is not present, there is an impact on communication, quality, safety and staff satisfaction. The assumption is always, the more collaboration the better. New research by Morton Hansen in his book Great at Work, suggests that busting the silos with more task forces, committees and joint work does not always lead to better outcomes.

In his research which involved a five-year global study of more than 5000 managers and employees (including healthcare) indicates that top performers are very selective about how and when they collaborate. He proposes that there are two extremes to collaboration – under-collaboration and over-collaboration. Neither is good, he contends from his work. Instead top performers seek what he describes as disciplined collaboration. They decide when it is important to collaborate and when not to. Collaborative efforts are generally more expensive and can often take more time to reach a solution. Hansen found a strong relationship between selective collaboration and performance. The best performers resist collaboration if there is no clear value in it. They never collaborate for collaboration’s sake.

He recommends that prior to collaborating, assess the business case for it. Both the benefits and the costs of collaboration need to be evaluated to determine if there is a solid return on investment for a particular initiative. This is the “why-do-it” case for every proposed collaboration. There should always be a compelling unifying goal if collaboration is to be successful. Without this, collaborative efforts often move off track. Too often in collaboration, he writes, the goal is the process/activities without clear examination as to whether there are tangible results. People pack their schedules with these collaborative meetings that lead no where.

Hansen offers some interesting arguments to our current approach to collaboration in healthcare, and in research with team science. We make the assumption that more collaboration is always better. The key to success many believe is to be more networked, coordinated and part of cross departmental teams. Yet, the goal of collaboration should not simply be collaboration. There has to be value-added because collaboration comes at a high cost. The secret is not to stop collaborating but make sure that it is disciplined and necessary.

References

Hansen, M.T. (2018). Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better and Achieve More. New York: Simon and Schuster.