Presentation of the Collab System

 

The Collab system is a robust framework developed to empower collaborative leaders and teams through democratic management, human-centered practices, and efficient governance. It is deeply integrated into the Cooperative Leadership Certification Program (CLCP), an online course that equips participants with tools to navigate complexity, conflict, and team dynamics in cooperative environments.

 

Collab goes beyond traditional leadership models by emphasizing collective ownership, tension processing, and somatic awareness to build resilient, accountable teams.

 

Purpose and Core Philosophy

 

The primary purpose of Collab is to strengthen collaborative leadership by addressing common organizational challenges, such as power imbalances, inefficient decision-making, and harmful interpersonal dynamics. It promotes democratic structures where teams can achieve mutual accountability, collective decision-making, and agile responses to uncertainty. At its heart, Collab fosters human-centered practices that celebrate diverse ways of knowing, encourage self-reflexivity, and prioritize embodiment (physical and emotional awareness) as key to effective leadership. This approach helps organizations move beyond top-down delegation, building true ownership and efficiency in handling tasks and conflicts.

 

Key Methods and Processes

 

Collab's methodology is practical and process-oriented, focusing on real-world application through structured tools and routines. Key methods include:

 

• Tension-Driven Meetings: This is a core process where meetings are reframed around "tensions" (team-identified issues or needs) rather than rigid agendas. Teams gather tensions to align on priorities, tap into collective insights, and enhance engagement. This method makes meetings more agile, human-centered, and responsive to changing environments, reducing wasted time and increasing productivity.

 

• Collective Decision-Making: Collab provides step-by-step guidance to avoid common pitfalls like deferring to authority figures or lacking clarity. The process involves inclusive input, tension processing, and consensus-building to ensure decisions reflect the team's shared wisdom and accountability.

 

• Mutual Accountability Frameworks: Through integrated processes, patterns, and morale-building practices, Collab supports clarity in roles and responsibilities. It encourages teams to address accountability in seven key cases (e.g., performance, interpersonal relations), using tools to track progress and foster a culture of care and movement toward goals.

 

• Self-Reflexivity and Embodiment: Participants are trained in self-awareness techniques, including somatic practices that connect body, mind, and emotions. This helps leaders recognize personal biases, respond to power dynamics, and handle stress, leading to more generative team interactions.

 

• Handling Harmful Dynamics: Collab offers strategies for identifying and processing harmful behaviors, such as exclusion or conflict escalation. It emphasizes generative tension resolution to transform potential harm into opportunities for growth, ensuring safe and inclusive environments.

Main Features and Components

 

Collab includes several tangible components that make its methods actionable:

 

• Collab Documents: These are customizable templates and tools, such as the Standard Meeting Practice, which streamline organization and role execution. They provide clarity on processes, reducing the need for constant oversight and allowing teams to operate autonomously.

 

• Organizational Power Matrix: A key framework for mapping power dynamics within an organization. It helps teams understand autonomy, accountability, and influence, informing strategies for equitable distribution of power. This matrix incorporates somatic responses to power, enabling leaders to address imbalances holistically.

 

• Democratic Management Tools: These encompass governance structures that promote worker-driven strategies, increasing efficiency and confidence in complex situations. Tools facilitate everything from task management to conflict resolution, with a focus on building democratic habits.

The system is designed for iterative implementation: teams start by identifying tensions, apply frameworks like the Power Matrix, use documents for structure, and incorporate reflexivity for ongoing improvement.Benefits and Practical Applications Users of Collab report transformative benefits, including boosted team confidence, enhanced efficiency, and improved outcomes in collaborative settings. For example:

 

• It helps leaders like cooperative managers build supportive environments that model human attentiveness, leading to better food systems work or community organizing.
• Graduates have applied it to shift from ordinary meetings to democratic structures, broadening organizational management horizons and deepening effectiveness.
• In practice, Collab has been used to foster collaboration in sectors like nonprofits and cooperatives, resulting in agile responses to challenges and life-changing leadership development.

Integration with the Cooperative Leadership Certification Program (CLCP)

 

Collab is the backbone of CLCP, a program structured around micro (individual) and macro (organizational) processes. Participants learn to apply Collab tools in real-time cohorts, starting with Level I (e.g., October 2023 cohorts), focusing on personal growth, team application, and client leadership.

 

The program provides a supportive space for practicing these methods, with graduates noting its patience in teaching accountability and decision-making.Overall,

 

Collab represents a holistic, method-driven approach to leadership that combines theory with practical tools, making it ideal for organizations seeking sustainable, democratic growth.

https://tinyurl.com/mw9ym53s

Horizontal Strategy

 

Much of what we do at CROSS-SILO Management Consultants is focused on getting departments to collaborate more effectively to improve customer performance. To that effect, we utilize the ROUNDMAP™ Customer 360 Mapping System and Integrated Methodology as our guide. Our mission is to focus on achieving goals from a horizontal business strategy.

However, we don’t confine ourselves to improving cross-functional collaboration per business unit: horizontal collaboration between business units or divisions is already known to provide a concern with added competitive advantage, as suggested by several sources:

• In ‘Competitive Advantages’ Porter described what he referred to as ‘horizontal strategy’ to achieve competitive advantage in a diversified/multinational firm. A diversified firm has a number of advantages because it is a multi-business/multi-product organization. As companies face increased competition, the need for competitive advantage intensifies.
• Ansoff (1988) described the combined effect available to a diversified firm as ‘synergy’. He suggested that synergy can produce a combined return on resources that is greater than the sum of individual parts. This has been expressed as 2 + 2 = 5 to illustrate that the firm’s combined performance may be greater than the simple aggregate of parts.
• Hofer and Schendel (1978) referred to synergy as “joint effects”. The ‘development of interrelationships’ is suggested as a way to obtain synergy.
• Chakravarthy and Lorange (1991) see adapting the strategy process to the context of the organization as an important management task. This includes nurturing strategic thinking and promoting intrafirm cooperation.

Porter et al suggested that ‘interrelationships’ between business units/divisions are a precondition for obtaining competitive advantage from a ‘horizontal strategy’. However, it is important to note that he actually means ‘horizontal corporate strategy’. According to Porter, a business strategy is to achieve unit goals, while a corporate strategy focuses on portfolio management, restructuring, transferring skills, and sharing activities across the enterprise. We won’t dive in any deeper. There is ample documentation on these subjects on the internet.

However, be aware, while horizontal corporate strategy (interrelationships) is part of the curriculum of most business schools, horizontal business strategy (interdisciplinary relationships) is hardly ever. In our opinion it makes no sense to look for synergy on concern-level while ignoring similar leverages on the business-unit level.

As such, we’re convinced that it is critical for any business (unit) to improve customer performance by streamlining interdisciplinary collaboration – as suggested by the layout of the ROUNDMAP – in a similar matter to how a horizontal corporate strategy means to improve corporate performance.

In a scheme it looks like this:

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How to Collaborate When You Don’t Have Consensus

The Collaboration Journey

Collaborative Working is not just another way of saying ‘team working’ – even though an effective collaboration is in essence a bigger team effort.

Collaborative working is often mistaken as a euphemism for ‘being nice’ and this often leads to people feeling they can’t challenge or express dissatisfaction, frustration or anger as it would undermine collaboration.

One of the main benefits of effective collaboration is that it promotes effective dialogue and challenge – primarily through skilled behaviours.


Effective collaborative working rarely happens by chance. It is often asserted that collaborative working is in place based on the absence of conflict, the fact that everybody seems to ‘get along well’ or that delivery is good.

In many cases these assumptions mask underlying issues with regard to trust, intent, behaviours, money, performance and competence. At times these issues bubble to the surface and at other times they explode in various forms of conflict or adversarial behaviour.

We support and facilitate the various parties in establishing robust relationships to enable great performance. This bedrock serves not only to identify and reinforce what is good but also to allow challenge and innovation to flourish. This development process is defined in and designed through the ‘collaboration journey’.

Differing Work Styles Can Help Team Performance

Carson Tate



Most leaders now recognize that the best teams leverage diversity to achieve long-term success. But many think about it in pretty narrow terms: gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and/or age. Sometimes they also consider organizational attributes, like function or rank.

But there’s another kind of diversity that might be even more helpful: differences in work style — or the way in which we think about, organize, and complete tasks.

In any office you will find four basic types of people:
Logical, analytical, and data-oriented
Organized, plan-focused, and detail-oriented
Supportive, expressive, and emotionally oriented
Strategic, integrative, and idea-oriented

When members of a team, or leaders of an organization, all have the same style, you’ll quickly run into trouble. For example, if everyone in your group has a big-picture, strategic, intuitive approach to work and chafes against the structure of project plans, you might frequently be over budget and behind schedule. Or, if everyone has a linear, analytical, and planned approach to work and dislikes disruption, innovative new product development would be impossible.

So how do you promote and leverage work-style diversity?

Observe your team members

In poker, they call them tells — betting patterns or unconscious behavior you can use to guess your opponent’s hand. The same rules apply to work style.

To evaluate a report or colleague, think about the following questions:
Does she consistently complete work early, in advance of deadlines or wait until the last minute?
Does he send emails with only a few words or write novels?
Does she gesture and use her hands while talking? Or is she more controlled and stoic in their movements?

These tells, both subtle and overt, will give you clues as to someone’s work style. You might also try to take this quick assessment from the perspective of each team member.

Because work styles are fairly ingrained, recruitment, not development, is the best way to build diversity in a group. If you find that one or two work styles are overrepresented, it’s probably time to add some fresh blood to your team.



Leverage everyone’s strengths

Your logical, analytical colleague is at her best when she is processing data and solving complex problems. She will focus like a laser on achieving any stated goal or outcome and will ensure that you stay on budget.

Your organized, detail oriented colleague’s strengths are in establishing order, structuring projects, and accurately completing tasks. He will ensure work is completed on time.

Your supportive, expressive colleague is most skilled at building relationships, facilitating team interaction, and persuading or selling ideas. She will keep all stakeholders up to date on work and effectively communicate ideas through the organization.

Your big-picture, integrative colleague can serve as a catalyst for change, brainstorming solutions to problems and synthesizing disparate thinking. He will drive innovation, ensure variety in both thought and execution and keep you moving forward.

Make sure that everyone understands the value each team member brings to the table and give people assignments in which they can use their skills to best effect.

Coach according to work style

To get the best from each person, consider using questions aligned to his or her respective work style.

For your logical, analytical colleague, ask:
What is your goal?
What are you seeking to achieve?
Where can you find data that will help you make that decision?

For your organized, detail oriented colleague, ask:
How can you make ________ work more effectively?
How will you decide which step to take next?
What has worked for you in the past?

For your supportive, expressive colleague, ask:


How is your behavior impacting others?
Who can support you in this?
Who else needs to be involved?

For your big-picture, integrative colleague, ask:
What would the ideal future state look like?
What ideas do you have for addressing ________?
If there was something else you could do, what would it be?

There is huge value to be gleaned when you leverage work style diversity by observing your team members, playing to their strengths, and giving them tailored coaching.