Pubs in Britain are closing at a rate of 50 a week, and in France 6,000 cafes close every year, mostly driven by a change in demand and a lack of customers. Are our lifestyles changing so fast that we take less time to stop and think and have conversations with friends or even strangers in a social environment where we see others doing the same?
The Future Foundation tells us that in the UK increasing numbers of young people are not leaving the house to go out to play or meet friends, and this is affecting their learning, health and ability to function at school, work and in wider society.
There is abundant research that highlights a strong and positive correlation between the ability to collaborate and to innovate. In the UK for example, employees given the opportunity to collaborate at work are twice as likely to have contributed new ideas in their teams and to the organisation as a whole. We also know that smart leaders and organisations recognise that there is a compelling reason to consider how best to manage partnership working and stakeholder engagement, and to make this a central and critical element of their business and enterprise strategies.
Although the rapid growth of global media and communications provides us with more tools that appear to make us more accessible, at the end of the day isn't it how we behave and react with our colleagues, our partners and our collaborators that will make the difference to the effectiveness and performance of the enterprise we are part of? To really know what we think and feel about a person, a project, a deal or a partner we usually need to be alongside of them watching their behaviour and reading the subliminal messages, just as they are watching ours.
So, are we caught in a paradox? It may be shaped on the one hand by a complex globalised communication network giving us widening access to a hundred and one ways to talk and communicate with people almost anywhere any time. On the other, does it reduce our opportunities for direct spontaneous and planned collective interactions and conversations in which we can see, feel and measure the reactions to our ideas and thoughts? Whatever starting point, we cannot turn our back on the fact that society owes its success (and future survival) through finding solutions through collaboration. This is as true for organisations as it is for individuals, families and communities, whether meeting in pubs and cafes or Skype conferencing.
Leading and thriving in the current volatile enterprise environment, working with reduced resources, requires us to focus more sharply on our relational behaviours, and to move from expert managers to entrepreneurial enablers, leading in groups and organisations by creating new and dynamic partnerships that will drive and develop innovation and new enterprise.
The challenge for leaders in social enterprises, local government or corporate business, is how best to capture the benefits that flow from engaging new partners, and then to recognise that, by forming alliances this empowers us all to lead more effectively and efficiently. The critical DNA for successful partnership always has to be a common purpose and better outcomes. So where do we start to build what McKinsey & Co (2010) describe as "collective leadership"; how do we make the capacity of teams, not individuals, become the drivers of performance wherever we need it?
The starting point is ourselves, and how we manage our reactions in the context of our own personal, professional and organisational settings – where do we draw our emotional intelligence from, and how do we apply it, and how do others see us? Critically then, how can we better navigate our way through a whole spectrum of variables thrown up when we begin to work with others in partnerships? There is little room in this scenario for the "hero leader".
So, yes we need to sharpen our emotional intelligence, and understand better how to present as adaptive, reflective and inclusive leaders if we want to have half a chance of success in partnerships. But we particularly need to consider our strengths in four important areas if we want to become more adept collaborators and be able to sustain our leadership and grow our enterprises. What might a model to do this look like?
Firstly, we need to build our capacity to think differently and holistically – what John Gardener calls the "five minds for the future" – in which he urges us to synthesise disciplined thinking with creative, respectful and ethical thinking. Then combine this with the second key component, our relational qualities – of which there might be seven, from leading as a change agent to taking risks as an innovator, through to entrepreneurship and persistent collaboration. Thirdly, we need to build and sustain our capacity to work in a way that Charles Desforges describes as a "three-times multiplier" of our motivation, our knowledge and the opportunities we create. If any one of these three components is at zero we simply won't have the capacity to act. And lastly, how we lever success through managing risk, enabling others to collaborate and engage stakeholders in common purpose, always settling for high quality outcomes. If these are the right components of a robust partnership development model, the challenge is how to develop them and then collaborate consistently.
So, in this interconnected global world, both respecting and understanding difference (in terms of needs, outcomes, demographics and cultures) is as important as using the technology to increase our knowledge and communicate in new ways.
But, as we access and assess more and more data, are we dulling our innate relational antennae and missing a few tricks when it comes to relationship building through conversation and spontaneous innovation of ideas and knowledge? My experience of the challenges facing partnerships in the public sector suggests that we need to find time to refresh our thinking, and consider how best to really make a difference through purposeful partnering and sustainable collaboration by applying the four protocols and letting go of some of the technology.
David Kelly runs bespoke leadership development programmes and open workshops. 'Walking Tightropes' — How to lead collaboratively in partnerships and alliances, is an introduction session to working in partnerships which will be running again in the spring of 2013. If you want to register your interest please get in touch at leadershipInnovation1@gmail.com.
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To join the social enterprise network, click here.
