Collaboration

by Gary S. Shunk, LCSW

"The purpose of life is to collaborate for a common cause; the problem is nobody seems to know what it is."

—Gerhard Gschwandtner

Last summer I was invited to present how I work collaboratively with advisors and family members to a trusts and estates law firm. Ten attorneys gathered around a large table in an opulent boardroom. I was given 15 minutes, and they were eating a catered lunch. About three minutes into my presentation, one of the attorneys interrupted me asking, “So...what do you do?” I attempted to accommodate him, and shifted from one case example to another. Two minutes later, he interrupted me again, “I don’t get it, what do you do?” I then gave my elevator speech: “I work with the emotional and family dynamics of intergenerational transitions in business and financial families,” and continued with another illustration. A minute later he stopped me again, saying, “That’s nice, but, what do you do?” Feeling his frustration (and my own), I looked him straight in the eye and said, “What I do is exactly what you and I are doing right now. Currently we are conflicting around language and thinking. I am speaking from the right hemisphere of my brain, and you are listening from the left hemisphere of your brain. You hear fuzzy non-answers from me because, being an attorney, your orientation is linear and transaction based.” At first he was taken aback, but conceded he understood what I was saying. I continued. “I see the work you do as transactional, yes—but even more, I see the work we do as “transitional, and sometimes even transformational.” My 15 minutes turned into an hour. We started out in conflict, moved into discussion, and eventually began to collaborate, discussing in confidence, several of their cases.

Quite simply, to collaborate means to “work together.” Why then is it so hard for professionals to collaborate? The simple answer is trust. What underlies trust is power. What underlies power is control. When one truly collaborates, one relinquishes these. That is the price of collaboration. More heads can be better than one, if they are the right heads. David D. Chrislip uses the term collaborative principle to expand this notion: “If you bring the appropriate people together in constructive ways with reliable information, they will create authentic vision and strategies for addressing the shared concerns of the organization or community.”

The following quote I attribute to Rick Dove (www.parashift.com): “Good collaboration is not compromise and consensus: it is an amplified learning activity.” So when we decide to collaborate, we don’t give up power, control, or trust—rather, we open ourselves to learn from others we are working with through their lenses, and they through ours. 

The attorney I was jousting with in the meeting mentioned earlier, was looking at what I was saying through his lens. We are all wedded to our lenses (or disciplines) whether we know it our not. They work for us. However, the shift into collaboration actually enhances our discipline and ability to serve and creatively problem solve.

By opening up to what Dove refers to as “an amplified learning activity,” we are in effect stepping into the midst of creativity. Out of collaboration comes creativity. The film director Oliver Stone once said, “Through time and experience, Rodrigo has gained my absolute trust, and not only that, but also my liking.” Rodrigo Prieto is Stone’s primary cinematographer in many of his recent films. The keywords that Stone uses are “through time and experience.” Investment of time and experience––over and over, with many, many honest, open conversations––are what build the potential for collaboration.  

Yesterday I was introduced by a wealth advisor to one of her most cherished clients. She took the risk of introducing us because she knew her limitations as an advisor, and saw her client and his family struggling with issues outside of her domain of expertise. Because she cared, and is confident in her relationship with the client, she took the risk of introducing me to him. 

Finally, referring back to the Gerhard Gschwandtner quote at the beginning of this article, knowing what the common cause is differs from family to family. As they say, “you’ve seen one family, you’ve seen one family.” If we learn to listen collaboratively, as well as see through each others’ lenses, we discover those causes, and can serve our families in deeper, transformational ways.  

Gary S. Shunk, MSW speaks and consults nationally on business psychology, conflict resolution, and the psychology of family wealth.  Mr. Shunk has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Private Asset Management, Investment News, ABC News, and Radio New Zealand LIVE.  He is a certificate holder in Family Wealth Advising and Family Business Advising with the Family Firm Institute and an Associate in the Family Business Center of Loyola University in Chicago. His website is: www.FamilyWealthDynamics.com