Several mornings I week, I play basketball with a group of women in my town. We have no rules and do not keep score. We just enjoy the exercise and the fun of playing and teamwork. Our core group has been playing multiple times a week for over five years, which is probably more time together as a team then most college or pro teams. How collaboration works on a basketball court for the common goal of getting baskets has lessons for what it takes to get people to collaborate in networks for a common goal. So, in honor of March Madness, I thought I would share a few examples: Play to Strengths – Each of us have particular strengths – my friend Laurie rarely misses a lay-up, Cindy excels at defense and blocked shots, and on a good day, I consistently sink baskets from about 10 feet out. My friends say “Beth is in her sweet spot.” When collaboration works, the group recognizes the strengths of each member and comes together in a way where they can put those to work.

A key step in helping a network of people/organizations collaborate is to create ways for participants to learn about each others’ respective focus and strengths. In my basketball game, we learned it by playing together a lot. In a network, we can accelerate this process in various ways, such as surveying network members about their strengths/focus and compiling this into a matrix and/or network maps. Meetings can be designed to enable this sharing and on-line tools can also be useful. 

Court Vision – In basketball, you need to focus on your individual execution of dribbling, shooting, or blocking shots while also staying continually attuned to how you relate to the whole field of players around you. You have to see how all the people are moving and position yourself to be open for a pass or if you have the ball, to sense how to get an open shot. This skill is called “court vision” and players that have this strong peripheral vision and sense of the whole court are ones who excel. 

Bringing this metaphor back to work, the comment I hear so often in my work across many fields is “everything is too siloed and fragmented.” Much of the focus of strategy and leadership is at the level of individual, team, or organization. To have greater impact, it is imperative that we gain “court vision” so we can see how our work fits into and can align and synergize with all the other stakeholders working in our field/region/system. Networks bring together people who may be playing on the same court, e.g., working to improve educational outcomes for students, but who are unaware of each others’ work and how their work is affecting each other. 

Self-Organizing – The sweetest moments for me in playing basketball are when we are in the fast flow of the game and my teammates and I find a rhythm of passes and shots. We don’t have plays or plans worked out – it all unfolds naturally. We adapt in the moment to what the defenders are doing, sense where to throw a pass as our teammate runs into an open space, and seamlessly sink a basket. Each person does their role, we are aligned to a common goal, and we self-organize to achieve it in a range of variations. 

One reason I am excited by the development of networks as alternative way to organize work is I sense that they will enable this more fluid way of self-organizing. In contrast, in traditional hierarchical organizations with a command and control focus, decisions are made at the top and people get orders and are held accountable to carry them out. Detailed strategic plans are developed and implemented. Often, those doing the actual work have limited voice in setting the plans and the means to provide ongoing feedback back “up the chain” are limited. 

In network structures, people come together and find the “sweet spot of collaboration” based on their common needs and challenges. Leadership is distributed and more bottom up, where people see a need, step up to be a champion, and organize others to collaborate. Instead of a pyramid-type hierarchy, communication happens across the network through many means. In a complex, fast changing world, like the speed of a shifting basketball game, we need to organize in ways that enable people and teams to self-organize, align their work, and make decisions in an adaptive, collaborative way.