Working in an Elite Circle Collaboration Mode as a Creative

Gary P. Pisano and Roberto Verganti together developed a simple, yet thought-provoking framework focused on answering two questions central to collaboration and teamwork:

1. How open or closed should your network of collaborators be?
2. Who should decide which problems to tackle and which solutions to adopt?

The answers to the questions above can be found within four different modes of collaboration. Each mode offers different strategic trade-offs with no one being better than another.

The Four Ways to Collaborate — Gary P. Pisano and Roberto Verganti

Participation

There are two modes of participation: open and closed. As the name suggests, open participation allows for everyone to participate such as designers, customers, suppliers, inventors, students, research institutions, and more.

Conversely, closed participation networks means that groups or teams are specifically selected because they are deemed to have preferred capabilities and assets.

Governance

The second piece of the puzzle is governance referring to which group has the power to decide what problems get solved, how they’re solved, criteria for successful solutions, and when the solutions will be implemented.

Hierarchical governance allows a specific organization the authority to control such decisions, while flat governance means that decisions are decentralized or made jointly by some or all collaborators.

The Four Modes of Collaboration

1. Elite Circle — closed hierarchical: a single group/company/team/individual defines the problem, chooses the participants and selects the solution
2. Innovation Mall — Open hierarchical: anyone can post a problem or propose a solution, but a single group/company/team/individual ultimately chooses the solution
3. Innovation Community — Open flat: any group/company/team/individual can propose problems, offer solutions and decide with solutions to use
4. Consortium — Closed flat: a private group/company/team participates together and operates as equals to jointly determine problems and choose solutions

My Professional Experience

The different combinations created each have their own pros and cons and are used today across a wide variety of industries.

I currently work at a full-service creative advertising agency and the collaboration mode I have the most experience with is Elite Circle. Generally speaking, new business is acquired when the client, coming to the table with a problem it needs help solving, selects the agency it feels will achieve the most success. Ultimately, the client is responsible for signing off on the solution proposed by the different individuals working on that account. In this way, the system is operating as a closed hierarchical.

However, it can be beneficial to employ a combination of collaboration modes to support specific strategies. In my experience, instead of closed participation, where only the members of that client’s team work on the problem and proposes solutions, there’s sometimes more open participation like Innovation Mall-lite.

The agency I work for has an all-agency Teams channel in which messages sometimes get posted calling for ideas/thoughts/experiences/images for a particular client or brand. It’s not always applicable to everyone, but it’s nice to see what’s happening within our organization outside of the team I work on, and there’s a feeling of being a part of the larger picture, along with the opportunity to present an idea to a team you might otherwise not be involved in.

This combination of collaboration modes helps to foster a community in which as a creative, I have room to express ideas and participate with others, especially working remotely for the better part of the last two years.