What is the biggest barrier to multi-disciplinary teams achieving success?
Debate led by Steven Kyffin
There is a big assumption that multidisciplinary teams and co-creation lead to
success. Does it? There is an enormous investment in being together in ‘colabouring’, ‘co-working’. The question could be phrased as ‘what is the inhibitor
to co-labour being successful?’ or a positive question could be phrased as ‘ what
are the great things about some multidisciplinary teams that work?’
There are 3 elements that stop multidisciplinary teams from achieving success.
i) The human element
This is about the nature of the human self itself. ‘I am me’ and everything
revolves around me. The other thing about this is working in ‘silos’, doing what
one is into and wanting other people to be into what one is into. Does everyone
know what they are working towards? Is everyone clear of the ‘story’ or the
‘narrative’? Breaking silos and human conditions for the sake of the ‘story’ tends
to be difficult.
ii) The nature of disciplines
This is about the way we are taught, the ways of being and doing in organised
disciplines. The disciplines tend to know their respective criteria of success and
how to measure it and breaking this mould is hard.
iii) The nature of institutions
There can be different rules and they can mean different things to different
people. For example a group of cyclers have to abide by some common rules of
cycling. At times the nature of the leader maybe such that he draws up the rules
and as long as people follow these, they are fine. Another form of rule could be
‘do what you want as long as you don’t think you are harming anyone’. If there is
ambiguity in the nature of rules, a lack of coherence, integrity; it makes it very
difficult to work.
But how can different people work together for success? Reforming our
education is one way. Education tends be institutionalized, so we need to start
being multidisciplinary early on rather than having to ‘unlearn’ later on. Are the
disciplines too segmented? They shouldn’t be, for example ergonomics is highly
multidisciplinary. Much of our teaching is in silos, this is ‘history’ or this is
‘geography’ and so on.
We may not have the skills to ‘communicate’ and the ability to ‘trust’ that others
know what they are talking about. How does one build trust? To trust one needs
courage. Trust also comes with authority, so ‘segregation’ and ‘badges’ to some
extent are useful in building trust. The leader needs to have ‘confidence’ in the
team and the team needs to have ‘optimism’.
The attitude that ‘I am a result of many disciplines’ and that one can gain from
everyone may help multidisciplinary teams to achieve success.
‘Guilt and judgement’ is an inhibitor. People need to listen and should be able to
take criticism. For criticism to be useful it needs to perceived as ‘professional or
fair’ rather that ‘personal or victimising’. In the case of the later a person’s
natural response is to retrench into one’s own discipline.
Multidisciplinarity also needs people to ‘get out of safety zones’, courage to go
into a new world, in uncomfortable spaces. ‘Suspicion of the other’ and their
motives can create problems in multidisciplinary teams. ‘Preconceived notions
or perceptions’ of certain personalities or disciplines can also be problematic. A
useful idea might perhaps be not to wear a ‘badge’ but just appear as people who
are working together on a project.
People in teams may also fear rejection which may inhibit their ability to
challenge ‘the story’. Selection of the team itself is crucial, not just for their
abilities but also for their intrinsic character, honesty. ‘Self awareness’ and
confidence in ones ability to deliver are important for multidisciplinary teams to
work together.
Good leadership is about integrating, balancing the ‘need for experts’ who may
not necessarily get along well together, versus a group which is selected for their
‘cohesion’ and ability to work together in harmony. The leader also needs to be
‘selfless’ to the extent possible.
Something also seems to happen when students go from primary to secondary
level learning. They seem to go from an initial fascination and curiosity to the
need to ‘test and verify’ their curiosity as facts as they grow older.
‘Creation of a story’ is difficult and important. Human nature is essentially still
very ‘tribal’. We tend to collect among like minded people. A good way of viewing
multidisciplinary teams is as a ‘party with a purpose’. In a party very often
people don’t know much about each other but the shared purpose is to have fun.