One of the biggest clichés in business is that ‘collaboration is a buzzword’. What lies behind this almost mantra-like statement is an uncomfortable truth about collaboration: it is not something that comes with a simple set of rules and it can fail miserably when done half-heartedly. However, we know that collaboration is an unavoidable part of the suite of capabilities all enterprises need to be versed in. The challenge is how to manage living with the frustrations that it brings. What many businesses do not understand about collaboration is that it is a strategic discipline that demands effort and perseverance before it can produce real benefits. In this edition of ROADMENDER’s recommended reading there are good insights into collaboration that should help your business to reap the benefits of good collaboration strategy.

Collaboration builds capability: industry insight

The life of a submariner is tough. Working in an increasingly complex and psychologically demanding environment, many submariners are confronted with stressful situations in confined conditions on a daily basis.

New technologies have the potential to provide greater support to crews onboard. As an example, the application of machine and deep learning techniques can reduce the cognitive load on operators by automating the visual identification and classification of ships and removing the requirement for operators to learn and memorise the profiles of different classes of ships…READ ON

Why Withholding Information at Work Won’t Give You an Advantage

A recent survey suggests that 60% of employees have had a difficult time getting their colleagues to share information that is vital to their work. Image Source/Getty Images

Open communication and transparency are perhaps the two most valuable characteristics of a successful work environment. According to a recent report, firms with a high-trust environment, where employees can collaboratively and transparently share knowledge, gain stock returns two to three times higher than the industry average and have 50% lower turnover rates than competitors. An ineffective knowledge sharing culture, on the other hand, can cost large U.S. firms up to $47 million in lost productivity annually…READ ON

Collaboration: Not As Easy As We Think

Collaboration is one of the buzz words of Church life. Leaders want to be known for good consultation and engaging with their communities and teams. Yet collaboration means different things to different people.

For instance, just because a leader consults widely before making a decision about a goal does not mean they are collaborating. This is because the community or team may not be invested in the actual goal the leader is seeking feedback about. In addition, the leader may listen to a wide range of views and then simply push on with an approach to the goal that they think is best…READ ON

‘The Future of X’ Turns to Collaboration in the Workplace. Tune In

Workplaces have been organized around hierarchical divisions of labor for centuries. “And that was a perfectly sensible way of doing things, say, 150 years ago,” says Mark Stevenson, a futurist and author of An Optimist’s Tour of the Future. “Now it’s looking like there are better ways of organizing ourselves, which are more like diverse, bottom-up collaborative systems.”

A more collaborative workforce means that finding the right team members, and the best groupings, becomes paramount. “You should think of it like a rock band,” says Liselotte Lyngsø, a founding partner of Future Navigator, a think tank based in Copenhagen. “They take a lot of practice working together and you need the same kind of patience in order to get a team that is really working well together.”…READ ON

UK-Italian engineering collaboration reaps its rewards

A DAFCS, which provides stabilisation and flight path control, aids pilots by reducing overall workload, allowing more time to have greater awareness of their environment and emerging situations.

Led by Andy Handcock, who is the AFCS Team Lead for the AW159, Lynx and AW101 helicopters, the team received the 2019 RAeS Bronze Team Award in recognition for the step change in capability achieved with the advancement of rotary-wing engineering capability. The RAeS Awards are presented for notable contributions to the advancement of Aerospace, Art, Science and Engineering.

The team’s collective expertise led to a significant increase in performance through the introduction of new functionality to the system, including a Collective Safety Function which protects the aircraft’s engines and transmission whilst preventing inadvertent flight into low terrain. Additionally, a cable hover mode increases safety during an aircraft’s primary role of maritime operations…READ ON

Effective industry and research collaboration: Cultivating the right culture

The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) has brought with it a range of new technologies that have enabled manufacturers to disrupt and transform traditional manufacturing.

But it is not just about technology. To compete in today’s global economy, manufacturers must establish new ways of working – with collaboration central to success – to improve productivity, stimulate innovation, and adapt to changing business environments.

At IMCRC, we facilitate collaborative R&D projects between manufacturing companies and research organisations across several primary industry sectors, ranging from mining to the arts…READ ON

Universities break barriers in collaboration

The name Alex Zelinsky comes up often when people talk about the growing relationship between the defence sector and universities.

The vice-chancellor of the University of Newcastle was head of Defence Science and Technology until the end of 2018 and is a former chief defence scientist. It was under his watch at DST that the Department of Defence opened the doors to the higher education sector. In 2016 the Defence Industry Policy Statement created the $730 million Next Generation Technologies Fund and the $640 million Defence Innovation Hub, which manages defence sector investments in innovation.

You won’t find the name Zelinsky on the statement, but experts say the scientist’s unique touch was all over it…READ ON

Is competition the enemy of progress and collaboration the ally of success?

Yet might there also exist a genuine appetite to embrace knowledge-sharing and collaboration that inevitably accelerates progress in the field?

Movements such as the AllTrials campaign and subsequent regulatory requirements to publish all clinical trial data in recent years have shown just how willing the pharma industry is to be more transparent about its findings and responsibly share data for the common good.

By increasingly seeking patient viewpoints to shape clinical trials from conceptualisation to execution, many companies are already seeing much improved results, from trial participant retention to regulatory approval of their molecules…READ ON