Catching the train is a wonderful people watching opportunity. And it’s fairly safe to say, that commuters singing out loud on our morning train is a behaviour not commonly observed. It’s not that singing doesn’t happen. It’s just that the incidences are isolated and rare.
The observation may be different however, when those very same commuters are alone in a car with the full ten minutes of Taylor Swift’s “All too well” on their playlist.
Ahem.
The same is so for collaborative behaviour – those behaviours that contribute to the co-design of solutions, sharing of information, developing broad positive relationships and contributing to feedback loops to improve the way things are done to achieve a goal.
As an individual, I can love to collaborate, have positive attitudes toward collaborative behaviour and develop skills and mindsets to collaborate but if I’m placed in an environment that rewards me going it alone, then I’m much more likely to do just that.
The behaviour we observe is an interaction between the person and their environment despite appearing to be an individual’s choice alone – think, me on public transport versus me in the car. For many reasons, we can all feel grateful that even though I love belting out arguably Taylor’s most singable hit, the environment created on the train mercifully prevents me from doing so out aloud.
So, what to do then if we want to INCREASE collaborative behaviour (or indeed singing behaviour on the train)?
Exploring the environmental enablers and barriers is an excellent start.
In other words, if you want people to sing on the train, we need to change the train.
What changes would we need on a train to increase singing behaviour? Perhaps developing a community of early adopters who catch trains just to sing so others know singing behaviour is permitted, perhaps employing singing teachers to encourage others to sing, posters on train walls with lyrics to accompany music played through the speaker system, singing competitions… the ideas are endless!
In an organisation that wants to increase patterns of collaborative behaviour, we know from experience that some factors in the environment are more effective levers than others. Factors such as the way in which we set up feedback channels, governance for projects and how much we encourage cross-functional project teams all play a role in establishing an environment that rewards collaborative behaviour.
Want to know what factors in your environment work towards increasing collaboration? Head to the Collaboration Maturity Model (CM2) page on our website https://carouselconsulting.com.au/expertise/collaboration/ and learn how it helps establish cultures of collaborative behaviour.