Collaboration – we need to ensure it is not just another buzzword

Following publication of the Latham and Egan reports on the UK construction industry in the 1990s, there was a dramatic rise in use of the word ‘partnering’. Meaning an agreement between organisations or people to work together, we all started using it the hope things might improve.

However, its rise in popularity was followed by an even quicker decline. It seems we fell out of love with partnering as it was perceived by some to be a soft touch. But was it, or were we not culturally ready to give as much as we needed to achieve the potential benefits?

Rise of ‘collaboration’

Roll on a couple of decades, and I now worry the same fate awaits the word ‘collaboration’. While collaboration can mean cooperating traitorously with an enemy, we of course mean the act of working with someone to produce something. The same as partnering then.

According to Google Trends, Japan currently tops the global charts for using the word collaboration. Certainly, many governments and private clients around the world are using the word in a construction context. We see plenty of reference to collaborative procurement and collaborative contracting, and even collaborative arbitration. Maybe we are now a little more grown up, we should give it a real go this time?

Avoiding litigation

Having spent my first decade in the construction industry trying to navigate my way through a very adversarial environment, I would now refuse to do anything other than act collaboratively. This is perhaps an easy choice at my stage of my career. But listening to a barrister recently say they care not for the truth in litigation, they care only to win, confirmed my belief that we should avoid litigation at all costs. Instead, we must create better and more collaborative environments, allowing people to flourish.

Collaboration is not easy – unless you happen to be from a handful of countries who naturally find it a good cultural fit. NEC4 Contracts and their requirement to act in a ‘spirit of mutual trust and co-operation’ are merely words on a page, but important words that require you to do more of the right thing than perhaps most of us are naturally comfortable doing.

Proving the benefits

We will of course have to prove over time that collaboration yields better results than the competitive hands-off, first-past-the-post, do-or-die styles of aggressive contract management. We also need to find a way of measuring the mental and physical benefits that collaboration gives to people, as opposed to the stressful and bullying context for traditional procurement.

We need more inciteful academia, better training on the job, more support and encouragement from the workplace and professional bodies. We also need more conclusive data showing collaboration helps people and organisations to achieve better outcomes. And of course all using NEC4 contracts, with minimal changes.