Collaboration: Intrinsic or Instrumental Value?
Much attention is given to collaboration in business and in product development. The theory is that collaboration has the potential to increase productivity, quality, efficiency, and overall job satisfaction. After all, if every team member contributes to a project, then more perspectives can be taken into account, and everyone can get some satisfaction from adding value in achieving the overall goal.
White it is undeniable that collaboration sometimes does indeed have all of the benefits listed previously, it is important to distinguish two senses of the value that collaboration can add: intrinsic value and instrumental value:
Something has intrinsic value if it is valuable in and of itself.
By contrast, something has instrumental value if it is useful as a tool for achieving some goal or objective.
So does collaboration have intrinsic value, instrumental value, or both?
Collaboration seems to have intrinsic value from the interpersonal and job-satisfaction standpoints: it can help all team members find value in their role. However, collaboration seems to have instrumental value only in situations where collaboration genuinely does improve quality and efficiency. All too often, collaboration is presumed to help ensure that the goals of increased quality and efficiency are met. But in reality, collaboration can sometimes be a slippery slope toward inefficiency as a result of the "too many cooks in the kitchen" syndrome. In cases where collaboration actually hinders rather than helps efficiency and quality, collaboration can be said to lack instrumental value.
Many reasonable steps can be taken to ensure that collaboration achieves its full potential as a carrier of instrumental value. First, teams should be kept small and efficient to ensure that extraneous voices do not interfere with the desired objectives. Second, team members should strive for clear role definition to minimize wasted time determining who is responsible for what tasks or portions of a project. Third, teams should use collaboration to anticipate potential issues early in the process and frequently along the course of a project for minor course corrections. Fourth, team members should trust each other with their respective roles and responsibilities (which is easier if you have included the right team members for the job in the first place).
Small teams of the best people, mutual trust, efficient communication, and clear role definition can go a long way toward ensuring that collaboration has instrumental value, by genuinely helping to achieve your objectives, and not merely intrinsic value at the potential cost of quality and efficiency.
