Definition, Purpose and Background
Collaboration refers to a condition or abstract processes wherein people work together to achieve collective results that cannot be obtained by working alone. It requires shared objective, commitment, open communication and diversity of skills among collaborators including right mix of people and group facilitator to realize its purpose. By successful implementation, innovative ideas and platform to understand and realize shared visions in complex environments are established within the group. Whereas coordination and cooperation promote efficient management of hierarchies in vertical organizations through imposition of determined system, collaboration exemplifies dynamism in horizontal organizations.
Competition, on the other hand, refers to an act wherein people strive against another to achieve individual results like dominance, reward, goal and survival. To see this as a process, not merely self-vested act, it requires two extremes; namely: winner and looser to arrive at competition results, although drawing a tie situation could also occur. When one is competitive, he usually has the intent (self-gratification) and capability (physical/ intellectual) that personally initiating competition with others likely to occur. Whereas fighting involves violence while rivalry involves recurrence of competition to meet individual- or group-interests, competition itself can oftentimes carried non-opportunistically or with fairness (either mutual or singular terms) while participants could cease the act instantly due to physical results or emotional developments (being friends).
Importance of Collaboration in Organizations
It enforces optimal use of organizational resources particularly the intellectual capital. When members are encourage to impart their knowledge and skill no matter how relatively little they are, the management and the organization is assure that it maximizes the potential of group power to achieve group goals. Inferiority complex is an obstacle confronting members when they are in front of a relatively knowledgeable manager. As a result, bits of pieces of important values, simple situational awareness and innovative ideas become stagnant and isolated. The absence of collaboration aggravates the relationship because individual contribution is introduced and improved that could ease the stance of member, and ultimately, support organizational objectives. Transforming managers into facilitators, members could surpass the stigma by simply collaborating with others making the organization more cohesive.
It minimizes monitoring and motivation costs. Through collaboration, the organization promotes informal communication while organizational units tend to be independent from managers and strict policies. Their personalities and personal aspirations are not bent by group goals; instead, the latter utilizes former personal experiences and values to naturally arrive at their subconsciously chosen environment. They become responsible to their own actions and contemplate its impact to group goals. They also learn to weigh trade-offs between personal and organizational conflicts and individually testing personal theories into practical situations. As a result, managers are less stressed and more time to plan strategically and non-monetary rewards to performance outweigh monetary ones diverting group resources to further support collective aims.
It supports organizational changes and is an effective tool to make good use of resistance. When managers announce change crucial to its survival, it suggests adaptation to members that can easily be accepted when change is generally beneficial and incremental. In the flip side, when change is abrupt and involves divesting, resistance is the common means to protect individual or group interests. Through collaboration, change will not greatly affect the informal relationship of group members while their resistant assertion could mean learned suggestions of a better way to approach problems or exploit opportunities. Managers do not hold them on the neck and the organization does not aim for individual submission. As a result, there is no loyalty fee payable to members. Their innovative thinking protected by the group is an enough payment making them adaptable to different conditions even transferable to new organizations.
Importance of Competition in Organizations
It is the best platform to discover managerial aspirants and to acquire self-worth. A sub-standard or tarnished member can be easily segregated from the cream-of-the-crop as inferiority complex and post-competition results are internalized by participants. Every organizational effort is intended to reflect group goals at the fore but individual interest is eminent in the core. As a result, winners are easily identified as intelligent, sociable and charismatic who are very few in the group while acceptance from other members are enforceable because of the former distinction. With this, the winner is also able to incorporate and intensify the road to excellence because personal and organizational gains are both at stake. Not only can the group saves from training costs, but also maximizes group effectiveness, although with questionable individual intention, as members are naturally motivated to be managers and obtain self-fulfillment in the process.
It installs organizational order. In traditional society and partly up-to-now, social order is considered a trade-off against social justice like government forces varying cultures within its borders to adhere to civilized laws to the detriment of the latter ancient history. However, declaration of war (a form of competition) and determining the winner at the end would finally conclude who is right or wrong resolving order in place. Competitive members, on the other hand, would settle their differences through result-based measurement and individual contribution. The identified dominant will gain access to lead the group either in formal manner or otherwise. As a result, authority becomes centered while group goals are protected by the managerial control.
Reconciliation between Collaboration and Competition
It is a general rule that no one strategy or structure is effective to different organizational conditions and objectives. Perhaps the four basic functions of managers (planning, organizing, controlling and evaluation) can resolve trade-offs between these two extreme individual characteristics. Planning will provide the facts about member mind-set and behavior, organizing will allow managers to leverage non-human resources according to member capabilities and motivational level, controlling will maintain the focus of the group and its plans, and evaluation will enhance or detach ineffective activities that diminish member motivation that will also foretell the need to re-plan. Doing this continuously with optimal participation between managers and members will result to a more objective resolution of collaboration-competitive trade-offs.
Although this process is generally attributed with theoretical and empirical success, visionary and ethical leadership is of utmost significance when organizational members and their values are in question. With this leader, it is of little importance whether to support collaborative or competitive acts from members. A more important issue is that what does the member is accomplishing on top of what he feels about them. He will serve as the guide on how to resolve issues such as maintaining members focus on results but remain emotional people as emotions are the source of motivation and commitment. This leader is hard to define in unidirectional manner since he is able to think is short-, medium- and long-run terms at the same time. Suffice to know that he is neither collaborative nor competitive thinker rather a flexible one.
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