A note from me

I took a very interesting, but brief, trip to Oslo last week. It is a lovely city and seeing the snow-covered countryside nearby was attractive, but my main focus was visiting a client company to offer advice and participate in a workshop.  

I flew in one evening and left the next but didn’t realise that Oslo is served by two different airports – a “main” one and a small one that’s a couple of hours out from the city. Without realising it, I had booked to fly into the small one and to fly back from the larger one that I am familiar with and which has excellent transport links with the city. Arriving at the small one, I wandered around in the bitter cold before finding out I would have to wait an hour to take a long coach trip to the centre. I was certainly glad I was wearing a heavy winter coat and gloves!  

The following day I helped a company leadership team realise a fundamental change in perspective about future energy transition challenges. What was previously seen as an uncertainty about something developing “quickly” or “slowly” becomes quite different when you realise that the take-off will usually be explosively quick once the stars align, and the key uncertainty is whether this will happen “early” or “late”. Given that you will never get the timing perfect, the question then becomes whether it is better or worse to be “too early” in taking some actions or “too late”. Very often, it will be better to err on the side of being too early. In any case, the nature of the strategic conversation became completely transformed by this re-framing. I’ll write more on this in a future Newsletter.

Frozen one evening and heart-warmed the next day, both experiences reminded me forcefully of the importance of paying attention to changes that make a big difference!  

My Bi-Weekly Guide

The Spectrum of Collaborative Complexity:

The previous Newsletter introduced the “Pipeline” of 5 different types of collaborative activity that can progressively advance developments from initial ideas to action at scale. This Newsletter will highlight the spectrum of complexity that influences the degree and type of attention required for successful collaborations. The next Newsletter in this three-part mini-series will focus on success factors at the most challenging end of the spectrum.  

Complexity is mainly driven along three different dimensions – 1) the number of actors involved, 2) the degree of familiarity with the activity, and 3) the pre-existing degree of trust among the actors. This 3-dimensional space is complex in itself, but its key aspects can be captured in a 5-point spectrum ranging from the most straightforward to the most difficult situations.

1. Simple Transactions

Without thinking about it, most of us are involved in collaborations every day. We go to a shop to buy something we need, or we go to the hairdresser. These are transactional engagements where the expectations are simple, already familiar and completely clear to both parties, and the form of exchange is well-defined. This is the most basic form of collaboration and generally requires little special attention.

2. Bilateral partnerships

Some activities require more intensive involvement from two parties to bring different capabilities or experience to bear in achieving a goal, which may be initially well-defined and familiar, or emergent and innovative. Alongside different capabilities, the parties may also hold different interests and a diverse range of separate goals or sub-goals. So a relationship of understanding needs to develop which may involve some “give and take” from both parties. Attention to relationship-building is required in this type of collaboration.

3. Multi-party collaborations with shared goals

As soon as more than two main actors need to be involved, the complexity of collaboration escalates rapidly. The parties may share a common main goal for the outcome of the joint activity, but the number of relationships that need to be understood and developed increases exponentially with the number of actors. Significant attention and effective processes are required for building understanding, relationships and trust among multiple parties.

4. Collaborating with the Suspicious

Collaboration among parties who have some familiarity and comfort with each other’s nature, or even an initially neutral position, can already be complicated, but if the parties are suspicious of one another’s intentions or goals, the situation becomes even more difficult. This can happen, for example, because they come from different sectors of the economy or society, with widely divergent main goals. They may recognise the potential value in working together, for example in creating something innovative, but are also very concerned about the potential drawbacks. These situations require transformative cross-boundary collaboration, which will be the subject of the next Newsletter.

5. Collaborating with the Hostile

At the most difficult end of the spectrum are situations where parties begin from a position, beyond suspicion, of actual hostility towards each other or what they see as the wider goals of the other party or parties. This may come from previous negative experiences or from different ideological stances, for example extractive businesses, environmental activists and regulatory authorities. While there may be a need to work together, or the potential to achieve something of great value, this is difficult to initiate and accomplish because of initial hostility. Again, these situations require transformative cross-boundary collaboration.

Question of The Fortnight

Every fortnight I’ll be asking a thought-provoking question in hopes of sparking interesting and enlightening discussion.

I’d love to hear your response! You can do so by simply responding to this email.

Today’s question is:

How do we bring about change without aggravating those who support the cause?

Join The Dodo Club

I’m building a community and, of course, it’s called The Dodo Club.

Why? Because we all want to avoid the fate of that unfortunate bird. And by sharing some of the insights I’ve picked up over my four decade long career - including as Head of the Shell Scenarios team - I’m going to help you do exactly that.

I am building a space where we can have interesting and enlightening discussions on relevant topics that can have genuine impact.

I plan to host live, interactive seminars, run forums on relevant topics, and create a bank of materials that can be drawn from in times of uncertainty.

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