What Prevents Us from Being Better Collaborators?

We celebrate collaboration in theory. We put it on posters, print it in value statements, applaud it in leadership speeches, and promise it in strategic plans. Yet the lived experience is often quite different. Even in organizations filled with smart, well-intentioned people, collaboration too often gives way to competing priorities, individual agendas, or “the way we’ve always done it.”

This raises a fundamental question: If we know collaboration leads to better problem-solving, faster learning, and more innovative outcomes, then why aren’t we better at it?

The answer lies not in a lack of intelligence or goodwill, but in our nature. It’s how human beings are wired. Collaboration is not difficult because we are broken. It’s challenging because we are human.

Survival (Safety) First. Collaboration Second. 

Long before conference rooms, video calls, and cross-functional project teams, humans survived by paying attention to threats. That instinct hasn’t gone away; it just manifests differently. While we may not fear being attacked by a saber-tooth tiger, we have other fears, less existential perhaps, but quite real:

Will they think my idea is foolish?

What if I’m wrong?

Will I lose status if someone else’s idea wins?

When the brain senses social risk, psychological safety diminishes. Curiosity narrows, and we start protecting instead of connecting.

Collaboration asks us to be open and vulnerable, which is inherently at odds with a nervous system built for self-protection. The good news? We can override these instincts. We just need to be intentional about it.

Belonging vs. Being Right  

Humans crave belonging. We want to be part of something equal to or greater than ourselves. At the same time, we want to be seen, heard, and valued for who we are, including our ideas.

To collaborate effectively, we must hold two truths at once:

1. My idea matters.
2. Your idea might makeminebetter.

Collaboration requires us to slow down long enough to remain curious. It challenges us to question our assumptions and listen for understanding. It invites us to temporarily suspend the need to be right in order to realize what’s possible when we do it together.

Efficiency vs. Effectiveness 

True collaboration is not always efficient. It takes time, patience, and the energy required to align people, ideas, and priorities. When the pressure increases (deadlines, metrics, budgets, board expectations), our instinct is often to go it alone. It seems faster, and in the short term, it is.

But speed can result in long-term cost when individuals move quickly in parallel instead of powerfully in concert. Organizations don’t fail because people aren’t smart; they fail because they aren’t aligned. Collaboration is how we align not only actions but understanding. It is how we transform collective knowledge into collective power. In the words of Thomas Huxley, “It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance.”

We Trust Sameness, Yet Innovation Lives in Difference 

Human beings are pattern-recognizers. The familiar feels safe. We trust people who think like we do, not because it’s better, but because it’s comfortable.

Yet diversity (background, discipline, lived experience, worldview, race gender, etc.) is where innovation comes alive. Friction is not a sign that something is wrong. It’s evidence that the system is generating heat, and heat is what forges progress.

High-performing teams do not avoid tension; they navigate it skillfully — with respect, curiosity, and an unwavering commitment to learning together rather than winning alone.

So What Holds Us Back?

Not incompetence. Not lack of desire. Certainly not insufficient knowledge.

What holds us back is the distance between what we believe about collaboration and what our instincts tell us to do in the moment. Our default wiring favors certainty, efficiency, ego, and familiarity, all of which can undermine collaboration when left unchecked.

But here’s the opportunity:

Collaboration isn’t a trait. It’s a discipline. This is where the power of peers becomes transformational. When we surround ourselves with people we grow to trust, who challenge us, support us, and set high standards of collective excellence, collaboration becomes as natural as breathing.

From Occasional to Operational 

The problem with most team development isn’t the content; it’s the integration. Collaboration cannot be taught in a single workshop and expected to endure. Most training is an event. Making true collaboration a habit is a process. (The subject of my next article).

To operationalize collaboration, teams must:

1. Create psychological safety deliberately, not passively.
   Safety is not the absence of fear; it is the presence of trust.
2. Normalize dissent without damaging relationships.
   Strike a balance between curiosity and candor (Craig Weber).
3. Prioritize learning speed over execution speed.
   In short, read the instructions before you start building the car.
4. Celebrate shared success more loudly than individual wins.
   People repeat what earns recognition. Reward collaboration.
5. Build systemsand create ritualswhere habits reinforce behavior. 
   Collaboration may not be our first instinct, but it’s an essential operational practice – one that has kept humans surviving and thriving since we began walking the earth. When teams strengthen trust, increase shared learning, and set high standards for themselves, they turn possibility into performance.

Summary – The Future Belongs to Better Collaborators 

In a world where complexity is accelerating, no leader, no matter how talented, wins alone. The challenges ahead require cognitive diversity, collective intelligence, and the humility to believe someone else might hold a piece of the puzzle we do not. Human nature is not the obstacle. It is simply the starting point. What we do next is up to each of us.