Long before I [Chris Willis] became an academic, the roots of my interest in collaboration grew in the rich soil of my personal experience of Trade Unionism and the Worker’s Co-operative movement in Britain during the late 1970’s and early 80’s. As one of the youngest elected Shop Stewards in the now defunct National Union of Public Employees, I was an organiser and activist during the early years of Margaret Thatcher’s government.
During the term of that Conservative Government’s office, I saw first-hand, the effect of policies designed to dismantle Trade Unionism in both the public and private sector, along with the decimation of public services and the destruction of once great and proud industries; but not of the collaborative spirit of the men and women who once worked in them.
The consequent sharp growth in unemployment was one important factor (amongst others) that led to a resurgence of interest in the UK in Producer Co-operation and the formation of Worker’s Cooperatives. While many, if not most of the Worker’s Co-ops formed in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s were to fail, a ‘new’ phenomenon was identified; people collaborating together in co-ops appeared to be demonstratively more ‘productive’ than in conventionally structured enterprises – and also (seemingly) happier. Although of course, the academic literature from sources as diverse as Marx, Elton Mayo (the “Hawthorne Experiments”) and the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, had long pointed to the importance and benefits of collaboration in both pre-industrial and industrial settings.
“The Productivity Effect of Worker Participation” was the title of my Master’s dissertation while a student at Brunel University. The research I undertook for this introduced me to the work of Professor Enid Mumford, who was a leading light in the development of ‘participative’ approaches to Information Systems Design. This ignited my now life-long interest in participative design, socio-technical systems and the design of computer-based human-activity systems. My interest in ‘collaborating’ with users in the design of Information Systems has informed, influenced and shaped my career, both as an academic and as a systems analyst. It was in the latter capacity, while working on a large EU-funded project, that I met Jerry Andriessen – and so began another collaboration, during the life-cycle of that project and I am sure, beyond.
While during my career as an academic and a practitioner, I’ve read many, many dissertations, theses, academic, technical papers and books, On Collaboration is the book that I wish that I could have written. Why? – because On Collaboration is in and of itself, such a good (and perhaps unique), example of both the narrative approach to describing a process and an exploration of the benefits of collaboration.
We [Chris Wills and Merisa MacInnes] think that this book is important for several reasons. First, and as the authors intended, it leads “an interested reader into reflection and greater understanding of collaboration”. This, in itself, is an important contribution, not least because the benefits of collaboration are not widely understood.
Second, as Benjamin Jones (2009) sets out, as technology progresses the knowledge base of individuals becomes, of necessity, more and more specialised. Complex engineering structures, be they hardware or software, have grown and developed to comprise such complexity that for some time now, no single human mind can command a detailed understanding and mastery of such structures. This growth of specialisation as a function of technological complexity drives the need for collaboration as a prerequisite of technological progression. But what is ‘collaboration’? How do we/should we/can we ‘collaborate’? This book helps the reader reflect upon and begin at least, to understand the nature of collaboration. In doing so, it facilitates and enables the reader’s ability better to collaborate in the future.
Third, and echoing the point made by the authors, is that collaboration “concerns people working together as equals”. Collaboration is an important key in unlocking creativity – finding solutions to new and unfamiliar problems or creating new artefacts; whether they be works of physical engineering, software or art. Pixar’s ‘Braintrust’ (Catmull & Wallace, 2014) approach to collaborative working is a very good example of highly successful innovative and creative collaborative work. This, despite the fact, that it happens in an ‘organised’ fashion and is therefore slightly at odds with the authors’ clearly expressed view that contrived collaboration can be counterproductive in certain environments. This moreover also, slightly challenges the authors’ contention that “the principles of capitalism and hierarchy do not coincide with good collaboration because there is no equality in purposes of different participants …”. Pixar is perhaps the ‘exception that proves the rule’.
This book demonstrates that collaboration is a powerfully productive approach to harnessing the intellectual capital of human kind – we unreservedly recommend that you read it.Collaboration is not only for the purpose of meeting a challenge. It is the more natural way of relating to others and to the world. It involves looking at the whole instead of beginning from an individualistic perspective. We relate to each other, depend on each other; everything we know and do has been evolving in contexts with others. Creativity comes from relating to others.
References
Catmull, E., & Wallace, A. (2014). Creativity Inc.: Overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration. New York, NY: Random House. https://doi.org/10.21095/ajmr/2015/v8/i1/88250
Jones, B. F. (2009). The burden of knowledge and the “death of the renaissance man”: Is innovation getting harder? The Review of Economic Studies, 76 (1), 283–317. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-937X.2008.00531.x