177
Chapter 19
Components
ofCollaboration
Two months had passed since Eliza’s trust intervention
with Claire and Dave. By all accounts, things between
them and between their teams were working well.
HDS Tech was now in the middle of its busiest season,
and none of Eliza’s fears had materialized. Claire was
not holding up Dave’s spec sheets. He was fullling
his promise to provide her with the background and
context she needed. Eliza could even hear members of
Claire’s team making promises, with all of their com-
ponents, on the phone with customers. It was evident
that, as leaders, Claire and Dave were holding their
teams accountable for all that they had learned, which
Eliza knew was critical to the success of the company.
One day, as Eliza was working at her desk, Dave
and Claire marched in tandem into her ofce. They
178 ◾ Transforming Teams
were obviously on a dual mission, which conjured up
for Eliza an image of the badger and the coyote, but
she decided not to tell them so. She was sure they were
beginning to think she was losing her mind.
“What’s up?”
“Well,” started Claire, “Dave and I have been talking
and . . .”
“And we agree that we think we need to go further
with these components of collaboration—behavioral style,
trust, making and managing promises, and critical conver-
sations,” said Dave, nishing Claire’s sentence for her.
Components ofCollaboration ◾ 179
“How much further?” asked Eliza.
“Well, we denitely need to roll it out to the rest of
HDS Tech . . .” said Dave.
“. . . and we think we should roll it out to our clients
as well,” said Claire, nishing Dave’s sentence.
“Okay, rst things rst,” said Eliza. “Since when did
you two start nishing each other’s sentences? And
what do you mean by ‘roll it out to our clients’?”
“Hear us out . . .”
“I will,” Eliza interrupted, “but stop nishing each
other’s sentences. It’s creeping me out.”
“Fine. Here’s our rationale. Before, when things
between sales and customer service were such a mess,
we didn’t include the rest of the company because, by
comparison, other departments were in great shape,”
said Claire. “But what we’re beginning to see now is
that, when working with manufacturing and opera-
tions folks, with IT folks, even with the folks in HR,
they aren’t keeping their promises and they are clueless
about behavioral style.”
“Yeah, it’s like when you give one room in your house
a fresh coat of paint, all of a sudden the rest of the house
looks drab and in need of painting too,” added Dave.
Eliza looked thoughtful as she listened to them.
“I can see how that would happen. I didn’t anticipate
it, but I can certainly see that it could. Go on,” she said.
“Well, in talking with our internal and external
clients, they have been observing a difference in our
approach to them,” said Dave.
“That’s right,” continued Claire. “Clients have noticed
how our sales and customer service reps have been
180 ◾ Transforming Teams
using this language of collaboration, you know, like
promises, behavioral style, reliability, competence, con-
ditions of satisfaction. They’re hearing it and they want
to know more about it to make sure the folks on their
end of the project are working well as a team.”
“But our core competency isn’t in teaching this stuff.
Our competency is in making the best solutions for our
clients,” protested Eliza.
“I know, Boss, but everything we do is in every-
thing we do, right? I mean, look at Disney. They make
dreams happen, right? But they also have one of the
most successful management training programs around.
I’m not saying that we roll it out to the whole world
and change our core mission. We’re just saying that we
have an opportunity to help our clients within the com-
pany work better with us. And possibly strengthen our
relationships and our brand,” said Dave.
Eliza thought for a moment.
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll accept your request to roll this
out to the rest of the organization. And here are my
conditions of satisfaction: you two work to prepare
the rest of the organization for the training, including
nding a time and space for that learning to take place.
And you two, with Charles and Karen, will be the lead-
ers of this learning going forward. I would like to see
you own and deliver this content. I’ll help you, but if
you want it, I’d like you to own it,” said Eliza.
“Deal,” both Claire and Dave said at the same time.
Eliza shot them a teasing, warning look, and they
both apologized for speaking in unison. They were
clearly working in close collaboration.
Components ofCollaboration ◾ 181
“We will go back and put forward a proper offer
with our conditions of satisfaction and timing, and we’ll
bring it back to you within two weeks,” said Claire.
“Sounds good,” said Eliza, delighted by their enthusi-
asm and collaboration.
Claire stood up to leave, but Dave hesitated. “What
about rolling it out to our external clients, our custom-
ers?” he asked.
“Let’s take it one step at a time. Make it happen
throughout HDS Tech, and then we’ll talk about where
to take it from there,” said Eliza.
Dave nodded in agreement and headed out the door.
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