An Impact podcast with Tim Raw, created for the Impact leadership playbook.
The climate emergency, hybrid working, rapid technological developments, social inequity.... no single person can solve these complex challenges alone. Succeeding now and into the future requires leaders who can collaborate. But what does this mean? What does real collaboration look like and what skills does it require?
"The leader without the answer, but with the ability to create the right conditions for people to connect, is at the heart of good leadership going forward."
Latest listen
In this mini podcast (20 mins), created exclusively for the Impact leadership playbook, Dan chats to Tim Raw about collaboration. Based in the South Island of New Zealand, Aotearoa, Tim is Impact’s Global Head of Solutions & Practice. He has spent over 37 years at Impact, working with global organisations on their most complex problems, developing leaders, driving change, and sparking innovation. Tim is known for his passion for our practice, ability to ask bold questions, tenacious and courageous approach, and vast experience.
Why is collaboration important for leaders now and into the future?
"Collaboration now is more important than it's ever been. Because of complexity. Collaboration helps us deal with really complex, difficult problems. How do we think about climate change in terms of our supply chain or operations? How do we think about urbanisation and what our customers want? How do we use technology to really help us be more effective in the work that we do? How do we build a community of people that don't connect day to day, moment to moment? This is what I hear from our clients. How do we do all of these things – not one simple answer will happen, and no one person can solve that. So the ability for us to connect at a broad, network level is really important now."
What is the role of the leader in driving collaboration?
"I'm not convinced that leaders can achieve very much without collaboration. The role of the leader is to communicate and to connect sets of people so that they understand and get a sense of where their part is in the bigger picture. And also, who they have to go to and who they have to interact with to solve challenges as the situation changes. Many of these situations that people deal with are not flat or consistent. There are problems that come up and one person or a hierarchical approach won't help. The leader has to facilitate, to influence, to guide, and to build really strong relationships.
And so the leader without the answer, but with the ability to create the right conditions for people to connect, is at the heart of good leadership going forward.
So what does that mean? You have to be believable. People have to listen to you. You have to create space for people to explore and understand, to create environments where people can go, 'Oo wait there, I'm not sure this is going to work out like we thought. Let's pause and think for a moment on this.' So the degree of influence that the leader has to have is one of enabling people to communicate and connect and think more deeply about the bigger challenges or strategic thinking. And then to be in a world where they can experiment and try new things, because we can't just simply put a plan down and expect people to execute and implement it."
What’s your one top tip for leading collaboration?
"Really early on, as early as possible, bring in as many people as possible to start getting their perspectives on what you're trying to achieve and how that impacts the wider organisation or the project itself. I think we're too late bringing people in, so people feel like they're coming in to contribute that little bit and then move off. And actually it's the ability for sets of people to build really strong relationships through the entirety of the connection or the project that gives it the real richness."
Listen to the podcast on Spotify
This mini podcast was created for our leadership playbook, an interactive resource capturing 45 years of learning about leadership.