Design Thinking + Inclusion: are you collaborating or just validating?
Here’s a suggestion: at the next meeting you’re in, take a secret tally every time the word ‘collaboration’ is mentioned.
Your career, like mine, has probably been filled with sticky notes with some variation of “collaboration” coating to the walls of every boardroom. “What does this even mean??” You might text your work buddy after your third meaningful collaboration workshop this quarter. It’s a concept that has left many jaded — or rolling their eyes.
There’s a reason for this: collaboration is often used as a cover for validation.
Collaboration: “I want to co-create something with you.”
Validation: “I want you to tell me what’s good or not good about this thing I’ve already completed.”
Management across all kinds of organizations use the concept of collaboration as a way to say that they’ve consulted internally and involved others in decision-making or strategy, when really they’re just seeking validation of their work (often when it’s at the last stage.)
When you’re on the receiving end of this, it can be deeply frustrating. And who is most often on the receiving end? Marginalized groups. People of colour. Women. Persons with disabilities. Brought in to validate the work of a team after it’s been completed, so that team can say they’ve “collaborated” and been inclusive.
This isn’t the way things should work. It’s ineffective, it’s tokenizing, and it doesn’t value the time or abilities of anyone in the room.
A part of what I do as a diversity and inclusion consultant is help teams work through this. To find a truly collaborative path forward and so you can stop rolling your eyes every time you have to write “collaborate” on a sticky note and slap it up on a wall.
I have all of the tools you need to get from start to finish in my Design Thinking + Inclusion™ workshop — learn more here.
Here’s one tool to help you and your team move from validation to real, inclusive collaboration:
Design Thinking + Inclusion: Power Meter
The power meter is a process that begins before the day of actual collaboration. It’s a simple and powerful process that requires organizers of an activity or session map out the power dynamics in the room. There are six questions organizers need to ask:
What will I gain from this collaboration in the way of capital, resources, and labour?
What will I have to give in the way of capital, resources, labour, and time for the collaboration?
What do our collaborators have to gain and give in the way of capital, resources, labour, and time?
Will the single act of bringing our collaborators into the room benefit us in some way?
Are we bringing collaborators in to discuss a complete, or almost completed product or plan?
Is including collaborators a necessary part of a grant, proposal, or mandate?
This process is meant to help session organizers identify the power dynamic in the room. It’s a starting point that will help you understand and be transparent about your motivations.
The Power Meter is just a starting point to meaningful collaboration.
Check back next week for more tips on how to be inclusive and collaborative, and be sure to check out my workshop for more information.