Conclusions

In helping our clients to create a culture that promotes cooperation and perhaps even co-creation, we must help them beat at least some of their institutional swords (for example, competition for career advancement and rewards based on individual rather than group achievements) into plowshares. As collaboration coaches, we must encourage our clients to acknowledge not only the competitive edge but also the cooperative agreement. This shift to a “plowshare” or at least a blended sword-plowshare model of business typically calls for a shift in the basic values, beliefs, and patterns of leadership in an organization—in other words, a change in the organizational culture. Anyone serving as the leader of (or coach to the leader of) a collaborative venture has an extraordinary opportunity to find commonality and community inside and outside the collaborating organizations—despite living in a world of competing interests. In serving this broader societal function as collaborative leaders and organizational coaches, we act as servants to a greater cause and can assist in our own small way to make this 21st Century world a safer and more gratifying place in which to live and work.