To Collaborate…or Not?

TEACHING NOTE

Collaboration can be a smart leadership and management strategy, yet it is not always wise. Amazingly, there are few resources that help us think through when and whether to collaborate. This simple 7 person simulation is designed to help participants think through whether to collaborate or not, and if yes, with whom? It recently has been used in different settings with 250 new members of the U.S. Senior Executive Service, 150 city managers, as well as with graduate and undergraduate students. It may be used solo in executive training or embedded in a semester-long course. It is appropriate for courses on collaboration, collaborative problem solving, collaborative governance, public management, conflict resolution and negotiation. It may be distributed early to provide participants a chance to prepare in advance, or it may be passed out on the spot with participants being given 10-15 minutes to think through their strategy.

The scenario involves a farm that is for sale. Each of the 7 participants, including public officials, developers, and a non-governmental organization (NGO), has a different interest in the farm. There are variations in motivation and imbalances of power among participants. Common instructions for all participants are provided that explain why the land is for sale, what the owner hopes to get out of selling, and a map to help everyone understand the lay of the land. In addition, there are individual confidential instructions for each of the seven players that add new issues to weigh and some surprising secret facts.

This simulation was an honorable mention place winner in E-PARCC’s 2014-15 “Collaborative Public Management,

Collaborative Governance, and Collaborative Problem Solving” teaching case and simulation competition. It was

double-blind peer reviewed by a committee of academics and practitioners. It was written by Rosemary O’Leary of

the University of Kansas, School of Public Affairs. This simulation is intended for classroom discussion and is not

intended to suggest either effective or ineffective handling of the situation depicted. It is brought to you by E-

PARCC, part of the Syracuse University Maxwell School’s Collaborative Governance Initiative, a subset of the

Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC). This material may be copied as

many times as needed as long as the authors are given full credit for their work.

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There are many ways to use this simulation. Typically I divide the group into 7 sections: one group of farmers, one group of university liaisons, one group of conservationists/NGO members, one group of developers, one group of parks and recreation directors, one group from the Army Corps of Engineers, and one group of county administrators. After reading and thinking about their confidential instructions, I have each group debate among themselves whether they will collaborate or not. Especially important is to have them articulate a strong rationale for their final decision, emphasizing that collaboration is a strategy. Then each group reports out to everyone in the room, always with a lot of discussion and debate.

At the end of the session I make the following summarizing points, encouraging participants to add to them:

When deciding whether to collaborate or not, ask:

Is this the right issue, time, and place for a collaborative approach?

Will this approach help you reach pivotal performance objectives and better serve the public?

Is the process being proposed or developed likely to be fair and effective?

Are you and your organization suited for participation (mission, expertise, time)?

Collaboration is not always wise. It may be best not to collaborate:

When there are no common goals and benefits

When support structures are weak

When there are people problems that cannot be overcome

When there are process problems.

This simulation may be used with or without readings. There are many readings that could complement this simulation, depending on the specific lessons to be learned. When used in a semester-long collaboration course, I introduce this simulation on the second day of class, assigning the following readings:

• Rosemary O’Leary and Nidhi Vij. “Collaborative Public Management: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going? American Review of Public Administration, vol. 42, pp. 507-522 (2012). This article overviews major trends in collaboration as well as catalysts and impediments to collaboration. It distills from the literature some factors affecting the success of collaborations, including context, purpose and mission, member selection and capacity building, motivation and commitment of the collaborators, structure and governance, power, accountability, communication, perceived legitimacy, trust, information technology, and personal attributes of collaborators.

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• Rosemary O’Leary and Catherine Gerard, Collaboration Across Boundaries: Insights and Tips from Federal Senior Executives. IBM Center for the Business of Government, 50 pp. (2012). This monograph presents the findings of a survey of members of the U.S. Senior Executive Service who discuss under what conditions they might collaborate, as well as what makes collaboration work.

• Rosemary O’Leary and Catherine Gerard, “Collaborative Governance and Leadership: A 2012 Survey of Local Government Collaboration” Chapter 6, pp. 43-56, in The International City/County Management Association, editor, The Municipal Yearbook. Washington D.C.: ICMA (2013). This chapter highlights a survey for the International City/County Management Association of local government managers’ use of collaboration as a leadership and management strategy.

The following PowerPoint presentation has been used in Executive Education training sessions (federal, state, local, domestic and international). It presents “The 10 Most Compelling Ideas in Collaboration Today”, sets the stage for the “Collaborate or Not” simulation, then debriefs the simulation.

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Debrief Slides (After Groups Report Out)

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