Why should agencies collaborate? (RE: April OGD Workshop @ USDA)
(This question is part of the online participation effort leading up to the April 28th Open Government Directive Workshop at the USDA. Links to other questions in this dialogue are at the bottom of this page.)
This question was submitted by one of the workshop participants:
- Why should federal agencies collaborate? What do they get out of it, what is considered valuable to the collaborators? What motivates those at the table to collaborate? What qualities do those people have to be the natural champions?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Barry Camson on -
RE: Why should agencies collaborate?
I think you have to start with whether there is an overarching mission for the various agencies. Homeland security is a good example. There are reasons why agencies that fall under the Homeland Security umbrella need to be working together and collaborating. This ties in with the overall mission of Homeland Security. Once you understand this, the rest is common sense. If there is no joint and shared mission, there may be much less of a need to collaborate.
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Permalink Reply by Gary Berg-Cross on -
In a reactive sense such as Katrina agencies obviously collaborate, but we should routinize this and be proactive. Since talent, knowledge and information is distributed we should leverage what we can without being disruptive.
But in a more fundamenal sense we need to recognize the naturalness of cooperation and collaboration. This is well reasoned and documented in Frans De Waal's recent book, "The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society."
De Waal demonstrates that all communal species (animals–and humans)–are "preprogrammed to reach out." He has found that chimpanzees care for mates that are wounded by leopards, elephants offer "reassuring rumbles" to youngsters in distress, and dolphins support sick companions near the water's surface to prevent them from drowning. From day one humans have innate sensitivities to faces, bodies, and voices; we've been designed to feel for one another and cooperate becase we can understand something abou the beliefs, goals and intentions of others.
While animals are most likely to engage in "altruistic" behavior toward individuals with whom they share blood ties or a strategic alliance, De Waal argues that the same is true of humans -- and though we are able to empathize with individuals we have never known, who may live distantly. He argues that such "humane" acts are one manifestation in a spectrum of behaviors reflecting a biological truth: individuals within communal species generally benefit when everyone works together.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Jones on -
Breakthrough ideas are often locked in places that are virtually inaccessible without collaboration, namely, in the minds of other people. For any given agency, that includes folks inside that agency, inside other (related & unrelated) agencies, not to mention the vast public domain (citizens, professionals, academics, etc.).
If you think about it, there is a fairly arbitrary set of assumptions that goes into how any organization (public or private) groups people and issues within discrete job functions.
Many (most?) real-world problems are cross-functional in nature.
What's needed is a seamless ability to grow ideas and stakeholder networks more efficiently, regardless of silo boundaries. Collaboration is the key that unlocks that stranded potential.
Getting our heads around this is important - it allows us to get past "silo-based" filters into a true collaborative work model.
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