Advantages and Disadvantages of Collaboration
Advantages and Disadvantages of Collaboration
To complete a series of interactive team writing modules, go to “Additional Resources” in Ch. 4: macmillanhighered.com/ launchpad/techcomm11e.
As a student, you probably have already worked collaboratively on course projects. As a professional, you will work collaboratively on many more projects. In the workplace, the stakes might be higher. Effective collaboration can make you look like a star, but ineffective collaboration can ruin an important project—and hurt your reputation. The best way to start thinking about collaboration is to understand its main advantages and disadvantages.
ADVANTAGES OF COLLABORATION
According to a survey conducted by Cisco Systems (2010), more than 75 percent of those surveyed said that collaboration is critical to their success on the job. Some 90 percent said that collaboration makes them more productive. Writers who collaborate can create a better document and improve the way an organization functions:
- Collaboration draws on a wider knowledge base. Therefore, a collaborative document can be more comprehensive and more accurate than a single-author document.
- Collaboration draws on a wider skills base. No one person can be an expert manager, writer, editor, graphic artist, and production person.
- Collaboration provides a better idea of how the audience will read the document. Because each collaborator acts as an audience, working with collaborators produces more questions and suggestions than one person could while writing alone.
- Collaboration improves communication among employees. Because you and your collaborators share a goal, you learn about each other’s jobs, responsibilities, and frustrations.
- Collaboration helps acclimate new employees to an organization. New employees learn how things work—which people to see, which forms to fill out, and so forth—as well as what the organization values, such as ethical conduct and the willingness to work hard and sacrifice for an important initiative.
- Collaboration motivates employees to help an organization grow. New employees bring new skills, knowledge, and attitudes that can help the organization develop. More experienced employees mentor the new employees as they learn. Everyone teaches and learns from everyone else, and the organization benefits.
DISADVANTAGES OF COLLABORATION
Collaboration can also have important disadvantages:
- Collaboration takes more time than individual writing. It takes longer because of the time needed for the collaborators to communicate. In addition, meetings—whether they are live or remote—can be difficult to schedule.
- Collaboration can lead to groupthink. When collaborators value getting along more than thinking critically about the project, they are prone to groupthink. Groupthink, which promotes conformity, can result in an inferior document, because no one wants to cause a scene by asking tough questions.
- Collaboration can yield a disjointed document. Sections can contradict or repeat each other or be written in different styles. To prevent these problems, writers need to plan and edit the document carefully.
- Collaboration can lead to inequitable workloads. Despite the project leader’s best efforts, some people will end up doing more work than others.
- Collaboration can reduce a person’s motivation to work hard on the document. A collaborator who feels alienated from the team can lose motivation to make the extra effort.
- Collaboration can lead to interpersonal conflict. People can disagree about the best way to create the document or about the document itself. Such disagreements can hurt working relationships during the project and long after.