Collaboration: The Skill That Can Make or Break Your Organization
What do orchestras, beehives, and NASA mission control all have in common?
They thrive on collaboration.
And yet, in the corporate world, collaboration is often talked about more than it’s practiced.
📊 Here’s the hard truth: A recent study found that 86% of employees blame workplace failures on a lack of collaboration. That’s right—most people don’t struggle because they lack talent. They struggle because they don’t know how to work together effectively.
So why does collaboration fail? And more importantly, how can we fix it?
Are You Playing Golf or Basketball? (The Collaboration Test)
Patrick Lencioni, in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, makes a powerful distinction:
There’s a difference between a working group and a real team.
- A working group is like a golf team. Each player competes alone, tallies up their individual score, and then meets afterward to compare results. The group shares a name, but success (or failure) is individual.
- A real team is like a basketball team. Success isn’t about individual stats—it’s about constant adaptation to help the team win together. Players read each other’s moves, pivot when needed, and adjust in real time.
đź’ˇ Which one describes your organization?
Too many companies operate like golf teams. Employees work in silos, report their numbers, and call it a day. But the most successful organizations act like basketball teams, where collaboration isn’t just encouraged, it’s necessary for survival.
Just ask NASA.
The Apollo 13 Story: Collaboration Under Pressure
The Apollo 13 mission could have been a disaster. A ruptured oxygen tank turned a routine mission into a life-or-death crisis.
But NASA’s ground control? They didn’t waste time blaming each other.
Instead, engineers worked around the clock—testing ideas with duct tape, plastic bags, and sheer willpower—to bring the astronauts home safely. They were a basketball team. No one was waiting to “report” their results. They were adapting in real time, depending on each other, solving the problem together.
That’s what true collaboration looks like.
The Facebook Trick That Broke Down Silos
Gillian Tett, in The Silo Effect, explains how organizations get stuck in their own little worlds—HR doesn’t talk to IT, IT doesn’t talk to Sales, and suddenly, the company is moving in 10 different directions.
Facebook tackled this problem in a fascinating way. They noticed that when employees stayed within one department too long, their thinking became rigid and tribal. Their solution? A forced “team shuffle”—where employees were rotated across different teams, often without a choice.
Sound disruptive? It was. But it also forced engineers to interact with designers, marketers to work with data scientists, and silos to crumble.
The result? More innovation, less groupthink.
(Imagine if every company did this… how many groundbreaking ideas are locked inside departments that never talk to each other?)
How to Incentivize Collaboration (And Make It Stick)
Collaboration doesn’t happen just because leaders say it’s important. It happens when organizations design for it. Here’s how:
🚀 1. Reward the Right Things
Too many companies reward individual performance only. But the best teams? They reward teamwork. Google’s research on high-performing teams found that teams who shared credit, helped each other, and admitted mistakes outperformed the rest by 70%. Want more collaboration? Make it part of performance reviews.
🎤 2. Create “Supercommunicators”
Charles Duhigg, in his latest work on communication, found that the best teams have supercommunicators—people who translate complex ideas, connect different departments, and encourage open dialogue. Train your people in active listening, storytelling, and asking the right questions. It’s a game changer.
đź’ˇ 3. Rotate, Mix, and Experiment
NASA rotates engineers. Facebook shuffles teams. Pixar even designed its headquarters so that employees from different teams have to “accidentally” bump into each other. Want better collaboration? Stop letting people sit in the same places, work with the same teams, and think in the same patterns. Change forces connection.
Collaboration Isn’t Just a Nice-to-Have—It’s a Business Advantage
The companies that win are the ones that figure out how to work together better than anyone else. The ones that value trust over ego, open communication over politics, and share success over individual wins.
đź’ So ask yourself this: Is your organization designed for collaboration? Or are you just hoping it happens?
If you’re ready to build a culture of true teamwork, let’s talk. I run workshops on collaboration and team coaching to help teams break silos, communicate using their superpowers to create real impact.
📩 Book a free consultation session today. Let’s make collaboration your competitive edge!
Karla Schlaepfer accredited executive coach and experienced facilitator.