High Performance Companies Collaborate

In the 2010 IBM research study, Working Beyond Borders, collaboration turned out to be a key factor in business performance. But this also turns out to be an area where the practice of using modern social tools is uneven, with higher performance related to its adoption. For example, IBM found

In our sample, financial outperformers are 57 percent more likely than underperformers to use collaborative and social networking tools to enable global teams to work more effectively together.

So it is clear that these tools play an important role in building collective intelligence:

Collective intelligence allows companies to gain efficiency by sharing and applying relevant practices across the organization. It enables companies to build on experience and avoid reinventing processes and procedures. Intelligence creates the ability to adapt and apply innovations across new markets and opportunities. And it facilitates the discovery of new avenues of improvement through communicating with customers and other external sources, evaluating feedback and leveraging what they learn.

The study found that companies do not invest enough: 78% of HR leaders polled do not think their organizations are effective at fostering collaboration or using social tools, but only 21% increased the amount they spend on these tools and practices. And those tools that are in place are underused.

The first of IBM’s recommendations is to weave collaboration directly into the way that people work, deeply embedded into business workflow and project management.