What is collaboration?

Posted by  Mark Schenk —July 7, 2011
Filed in Collaboration

This question pops up regularly. Shawn blogged about the differences between collaboration and cooperation here and here. The Economist Intelligence Unit provide a paper here describing the difference between collaboration, coordination and cooperation, using trust as one of the key differentiators.

Yesterday, I came across this excellent short video from Phil Culhane of the Collaboration Lab in Ottawa. It describes the difference between communication, consultation and collaboration. In this construct, the main differentiator is accountability. In essence, collaboration will only occur where both (all) parties are accountable for what happens.

Mark Schenk About  Mark Schenk

Mark works globally with senior leadership teams to improve their ability to communicate clearly and memorably. He has been a Director of Anecdote since 2004 and helped the company grow into one of the world’s leading business storytelling consultancies. Connect with Mark on:

Comments

  1. Shim Marom says:

    Great video, thanks for sharing with the world.
    Cheers, Shim.

  2. David Whelbourn says:

    The presenter is Christopher Comeau who is a colleague of Phil Culhane. Christopher is an excellent proponent of Collaborative Transformation and I have worked with him a couple of times to help with some challenging and messy changes.

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