Build an Unbreakable Business with Radical Collaboration

Company culture is at the heart of business success. Any sales leader can tell you that open, collaborative work environments foster quicker solutions, better customer relationships, and even higher growth. But cultivating a healthy company culture has crucial implications beyond even that: positive work environments are a surefire way to catch and retain high-value talent and to face the many complex challenges involved in running a business.

Ronen Pessar is an expert in organizational dynamics; his company, Ronen Pessar Advisory, helps hundreds of companies develop strong relationships, personalize their communication, and strive toward sustainable excellence. He recently spoke on Leadium's Sales Transformation podcast about the importance of embracing 'radical collaboration.'

What is 'radical collaboration'?

In short, radical collaboration is a framework for building strong relationships within the workspace; by incorporating more active listening, building trust, and fostering a genuine sense of shared value, radical collaboration can help your business forge a pathway to optimized performance and even improve your customer experience.

Ronen explains that within the radical collaboration language model there are three company culture 'zones'. These describe the different culture types of within an organization. Let's take a look at each zone:

Red Zone Cultures

These are work cultures that are defined by conflict. Employees not only disagree - which is, in itself, no bad thing - but fail to overcome their disagreements due to a misalignment of communication styles and expectations. This can create problems within businesses, but can ultimately effect customer relationships also.

Pink Zone Cultures

Pink zone cultures are work environments which may seem functional on the surface but which are actually characterized by passive-aggressive relationships behind the scenes.

Ronen gives an example: at the meeting, everything seems fine, but after the meeting one team member turns to the other and says: 'Collin has no idea what he's doing - his strategy is the worst!'

The problem here is that the environment is preventing growth. By failing to vocalize problems, leaders will be unable to gather feedback and solve pain points, while team members aren't motivated to share knowledge, support one another, and build relationships.

Pink zone cultures can be just as toxic as red zone cultures.

Green Zone Cultures

To reach the green zone should be the goal of every organization, and to be a 'green zone culture' means to be defined by collaboration. Team members are open, honest, respectful, and work on solutions quickly and efficiently.

In turn,  they're able to build strong customer relationships and exceed expectations, both financially and inter-personally.

How to create a 'green zone' culture

Every business, no matter how big or small, has the power to foster a more effective (and therefore productive) work environment. But the road to success can be long; we're talking about reworking an entire culture here, not simply implementing new rules or 'loyalty programs'.

In fact, when it comes to radical collaboration, small businesses often have an advantage. Startup teams, for instance, tend to be small and close-knit, which makes it easier to practice active listening and build strong customer relationships.

On the other hand, older and bigger companies - the Walmarts and NASAs of the world - have deep-rooted cultures which can take years to significantly change.

But it is possible.

Start with yourself

As a boss or sales leader, the way your conduct yourself has a key influence on your team at large, not only in your communications with them, but as an example. It's essential to encourage open communication and genuine collaboration.

But it's not always easy to see how you're perceived by others. Asking your team directly can make you appear nervous or incompetent, while feedback mechanisms, though anonymous, are often unreliable as a source of data (employees fill them out as a formality but rarely take much time to deliver actionable feedback).

That's why business allies are essential. You need someone whom you can rely on for honest feedback or even candid criticism. And it's crucial to receive that criticism in the spirit with which it's given.

Learn about intercultural relationships

Cultural awareness goes a long way when considering radical collaboration. Put simply: people from different cultures have different expectations about communication practices and may have a different sense of what constitutes 'aggression'.

Not only will this reduce pain points, but it'll also help in building customer relationships, as you'll be better placed to understand your customer expectations.

Reduce conflict with better communication styles

You can optimize your business' performance with better personal communication styles. Kim Scott, in her book Radical Candor, characterizes 'radical candor' as a combination of kindness and clarity.

During her research at Google, she found that the right mixture of these two elements increased employee satisfaction, collaborative focus, and customer loyalty, and gave those who employed them many other benefits.

Note that 'clarity' is important here; team members still want to understand expectations and receive actionable feedback, but in a way that improves their knowledge and maintains respect.

Also interesting were Scott's insights on less effective communication styles; she found that kindness without clarity was almost as ineffective as clarity without kindness - and worst of all was apathy. Bosses who don't foster emotional connection, don't maintain positive interest, and don't collaborate willingly don't find solutions.

Ronen points to Tom Mendoza, former president of NetApp, as a great example of Scott's principles: in 2009, under Mendoza's presidency, NetApp ranked number one in Fortune Magazine's '100 Best Companies To Work For'; speaking with Ronen, Mendoza put this success down to leaders understanding that they needed to 'say what they needed to say,' but also that they were speaking to other humans.

Learn how to think collaboratively

In using radical collaboration to achieve strategic excellence, it's important not only to work collaboratively, but to think collaboratively.

Changing the way you think about communication can be a difficult process, but collaborative thinking can be one of the best tools in your arsenal. Consider implementing this simple negotiation tactic:

1. When a 'problem' arises, first seek to fully understand what the other team member needs or wants
2. Respond by honestly and openly laying out what you need
3. Line the two interests up to find a compromise
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Okay, that may sound simple (even obvious), but trust us, it's not as easy as it sounds. Ronen gives a great analogy outlining how this theory might work in practice:

'I have an orange and two people want it. What should I do? I could split in down the middle and give them one half each. But what if I ask them what they want the orange for? So, I ask them. The first person says he's baking orange-essence brownies and only needs the peel. The second says she is making juice and only needs the fruit. Therefore, with proper communication, the problem solves itself.'

This is a great example of real collaborative thinking and demonstrates how we can develop key communication methods to create better relationships and deliver smoother results.

Park your defences at the door

In essence, radical collaboration means improving your services by navigating challenges with effective, collaborative communication. It means learning how to reduce conflict, minimize intercultural misunderstanding, and deliver a better employee and customer experience by fostering a work environment where every perspective is shared and valued. It can mean leaving your ego, your rank, and your defences at the door - but as we've seen, the results might just speak for themselves.

Ronen's expertise can help your business to achieve excellence and improve customer relationships with comprehensive training and team-building services. You can find him on LinkedIn and on his website, ronenpessar.com.

He left us with an inspiring idea:

'Change is possible. Just because things have been happening in a certain way doesn't mean that they're going to continue to happen that way. That starts with a little bit of hope, and believing that things can be different in the future - and with that belief you can create the kind of culture that leads to high performance consistently.'

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