Collaboration in the workplace is not only necessary, it is paramount. Especially as we are collectively finding our way back to hybrid or in-office working in new ways.

That said, many folks find collaborating pretty darn frustrating, and frankly, it’s not uncommon for these processes to go sour. I’ve been privy to quite a few groan-sessions with colleague-friends about why people talk the good-collaboration-talk, but then it feels like they don’t really walk-that-walk.

I’m going to share some overarching ideas about how and why collaborations can and do fail. I’ve collaborated in different industries (arts and culture, health research, higher education, government), and in different roles (as a team member, an unpaid volunteer/participant, and as a leader). I’ve written about working with other people in peer-reviewed journal articles, including a collaboration-specific article.

The Three Elements of Any Collaboration

There are three interrelated aspects about collaborating that are important:

• The “space/place,” or where you are working, or the organization/structures. This could be the actual, physical or digital space (like, where are you going to meet and work?), but you can also think of it more broadly — like, what needs to be “in place” for the work to “take place.”
• The “process” (or how you are working, in what ways), what people usually think about as collaboration: how are you communicating, thinking creatively, problem-solving, making decisions, etc.
• The people: who will be working together.

So – 1) Place/space/structures; 2) Process; 3) People.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to focus on process and people, but place/space/structures are intertwined with these.

The Real Reason Collaborations Fail: Unaddressed Power

However! What’s underlying all of this is paying attention to power.

And I’d say this is where things can go awry:

When power isn’t addressed sufficiently or even recognized at all.

Who holds the cards? Who is making decisions about what structures are in place? Are those people holding the cards considering different perspectives in figuring out structures? How will decisions be made? Is there a particular person or group of people who have the final say? How will different perspectives be considered as people are working together? Who holds the purse strings?

It doesn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway — not all people have access to money, connections and power, and many groups of people have been purposefully excluded historically from a whole range of processes and decision-making. And of course, power and human-relations are complex, and I can’t encapsulate everything in this one post (hello!).

A Real-World Example: Patient Engagement in Healthcare

Patient engagement is a growing area in healthcare and health research. The Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) describe patient engagement in health research as “meaningful collaboration” where “[p]atients become patient partners [often as volunteers] in [a] project and can be actively engaged in governance, priority setting, developing the research questions, and even performing certain parts of the research itself.”

Sounds promising, right?

Patients (people) collaborate with folks in health care and health research (other people) by being engaged in how things are run, co-developing primary issues to move ahead, and even contributing to advancing those priorities (the process). Trick is, often “patient engagement as collaboration” doesn’t necessarily happen in practice the way CIHR describes it.

Patient advocate and health communications expert, Sue Robins, has written extensively about problems with patient engagement in healthcare and health research. Sue is a breast cancer survivor, and also mother to a disabled young adult. With deep compassion, she insists that health care and government can (for really, really) work together with caregivers and patients to co-develop health services like vaccine clinics, and more humane diagnostic practices. Sue is well positioned based on her personal and professional experience to collaborate as a patient partner — meaning, provide insight into how things are run, and co-develop priority issues for change, and even contribute to move that change forward.

Here are some examples about failed collaborations from her experience.

She wrote about how she went to a health conference as a patient partner on an interdisciplinary team, only to learn that an important decision was made by others without consulting her; the sting of realizing she was the token after assuming she was a full partner left her feeling betrayed and used by the clinicians.

She has also shared about how she has regularly been invited to share her or her son’s stories at different forums, with the potential to make system-level and point-of-contact-level changes in healthcare. While Sue reports that sometimes immediate responses to her stories are positive (which can feel nice in the moment), her stories are often scoffed at, not believed, or picked apart with sections re-told by those within the healthcare system for their own benefit.

She cites that her experiences collaborating as a patient and caregiver in healthcare, often at the invitation of other people, only to be gas-lit repeatedly, has left her with deep distrust and exhaustion. And, as no surprise, this has led her to retract herself from certain partnerships.

Reading about examples like Sue’s it can seem very obvious there are power imbalances between different players, and even disrespect for Sue’s position and expertise. But I have witnessed (and even experienced) similar patient engagement work where related things have unfolded, and the people with more power are left obliviously dumbfounded when a patient partner folds their cards and walks away.

I’m sure you can transpose the unexamined power differences from Sue’s instances to other examples from your own life.

How to Address Power Imbalances in Collaboration: Some Immediate Tips

First, work with humility, transparency, and good humour. By “good humour” I don’t necessarily mean “be funny” (although you could be!); I mean be open, friendly, kind. Like, the real stuff. Know your limits (we all have them), and recognize what others bring. Communicate clearly about what you know and don’t know. Do what you say you will do, and if it turns out you can’t, be open about it with humility.

Next, pay attention to where power lies. Either within your immediate group, or within broader structures. Where are pressures coming from related to your work (money, political, etc.), and who holds decision-making authority? Do not ignore it, or pretend it’s not there: be sensitive to it, and work to alter it. Respond in earnest to people bringing problems to your attention — if someone identifies a barrier, work to address it. Openly discuss decision-making, communication, roles (etc.) and return to these throughout the collaborative process.

Next, recognize the agency and humanity of others. This includes their ability to take back some control by leaving or ending working relationships when faced with disrespect or processes that don’t live up to what’s been agreed to.

Lastly, recognize your own agency and needs. You are not neutral, and you come with experience and have perspectives. Be reflexive about what you bring, what you need, and your role/position within the group. Reflect on whether you are driving things forward without due connections with others, or whether others are driving over you. And of course, remember that you are only one person: learn from your mistakes and successes, and do the best you can.