This document discusses the importance of fostering a collaborative culture in enterprises to enhance the effectiveness of collaboration technologies. It emphasizes that many organizations, while increasing interaction, struggle with collaboration fatigue and often fail to integrate culture, processes, and technology effectively. The insights from the Smart Technologies Collaboration Council suggest that a culture of collaboration, driven by top management commitment and backed by supportive processes and technologies, is crucial for successful collaboration outcomes.

1. July 2014
Fostering a Culture of Collaboration
Culture as a key to unlocking Collaboration with a “big C”
SMART Technologies’ Collaboration Leadership Summit Series
This paper sponsored by

2. Executive Summary
Every company, of every size, in every corner of the globe collaborates at some level. At one end of
the spectrum lies tactical communication and coordination between people, teams, partners and
customers. The other end of the spectrum is reserved for those who are Collaborating with a “big C” – in
other words, who have established the tools, process and culture, and who have optimized their
environment for Collaboration.
Those charged with enabling enterprise Collaboration – namely vendors, IT teams, and industry
technologists – have all been overly successful at driving an increasing volume of interaction. As a result,
many end users are most certainly collaborating more. The question is... are we collaborating better? The
answer is often an emphatic “NO!” When polled, most end users express collaboration fatigue, an
exhaustion driven by volumes and volumes of collaborative information.
Those enterprises that are Collaborating with a “big C” point to technology as one component in their
collaboration strategy – albeit an important one. In order to maximize the effectiveness of today’s
advanced collaboration solutions, enterprises must establish a culture of collaboration, back that culture
up with appropriate process, and then deploy technologies that support the enterprise’s Collaboration
vision.
The real question here is “how” - how does an enterprise truly change its culture to embrace Collaboration
with a capital C? This paper is the second in a series of publications that explore the insights gathered
from the SMART Technologies Collaboration Council. Here we summarize the Council’s views on the
criticality and steps towards of establishing a Collaborative culture.
SMART Collaboration Council Participants
A Top Global Investment Group
• Employees: <20
• HQ: Dubai, United Arab
Emirates
• Locations: 3 countries?
Volker Wessels
• Employees: ~14,000 (2013)
• HQ: Rotterdam, Netherlands
• Locations: ~5 countries
IBM
• Employees: 431, 212 (2013)
• HQ: New York, US
• Locations: over 170
countries
Intel
• Employees: 105, 000 (2012)
• HQ: Santa Clara
• Locations: ~65 countries
Plantronics
• Employees: over 3,000 (2011)
• HQ: Santa Cruz, CA
• Locations: ~25 countries
A Multinational
Professional Services Firm
• Employees: 175,000
• HQ: London, UK
• Locations: ~150
countries
A Multinational
Banking and Financial Services Firm
• Employees: 139,900 (2013)
• HQ: London, UK
• Locations: branches in over 50
countries
GEC Architecture
• Employees: <20
• HQ: Calgary, Canada
• Locations: 1 country
Stanford University
• Students: 16,000
• Location: Stanford,
California
Over 10k
1001-10k
51-500
2-50
501-1000
Size of
Organization
(employees)
Wainhouse Research
• Employees: ~20
• HQ: Duxbury, MA
• Locations: 1 country
Collaboration
Council
© 2014 Wainhouse Research, LLC 2

3. Overview
IT teams across the globe have been tasked with delivering an increasing range of collaborative
solutions, driven largely by a massive sea-change within global industry. The members of the
Collaboration Council pointed to a shift in the way work gets done, which is impacting the
collaborative technologies they are delivering:
In order to enable today’s knowledge worker to collaborate effectively, across borders, intuitively, and
without exorbitant cost, many enterprises have deployed a range of technologies. Some are
embracing open seating models, creating “collaborative space” intended to foster both in-person and
virtual collaboration. The primary solutions used by today’s knowledge worker – email, IM, and
conferencing solutions – do an excellent job at driving volume, but very little to ensure quality.
“The great thing
about collaborative
space is there's lots
of collaboration. The
challenge of
collaborative space
is there's a lot of
collaboration –
sometimes at the
cost of project work
getting done.”
– Senior Vice
President,
Plantronics
Email
Instant
Messaging
Audio
Conferencing
Web
Conferencing
Video
Conferencing
Social
Enterprise
Advanced
Technology
Work / Life
Harmony, shift
of power to
employee
Virtual
teams,
global
recruiting
Knowledge
workers,
Generalists
Localized
decision
making,
empowered
employees
Top-down
management,
hierarchical
leadership
Centralized
workforce,
local talent
pools
Work / Life
imbalance,
employee
owes debt of
employment
Factory
workers,
Specialists
Yesterday Today
© 2014 Wainhouse Research, LLC 3

4. Delivering technological solutions is considered a core mission to most IT teams. Similarly, most
enterprises are very familiar with creating and updating collaboration processes – for example,
assigning collaborative tools to the right users, requiring team meetings with regularity, and providing
“best practices” for meetings. However, those enterprises that are Collaborating with a “big C”
consistently point to culture as the most critical variable in establishing a successful Collaboration
program.
To be clear, the Council agreed unanimously that Collaboration requires the solid integration between
culture, process, and technologies. However, most enterprises likely have not focused on establishing a
collaborative culture, at least not consciously, with an emphasis on supporting Collaboration. An
enterprise’s culture defines its core identity and establishes a base set of values that are shared,
communicated and reinforced between employees. In addition, a collaborative culture knocks down
barriers and reinforces positive collaboration. A collaborative culture will:
1. Eliminate information hoarding.
SYMPTOMS:
Employees resistant to
posting relevant
information to a social
enterprise system, teams
reluctant to engage
across functions, email
responses saying “why do
you need to know this?”
SOLUTION:
A collaborative
culture will
reward
knowledge
sharing, setting
examples of
teams who
effectively
increase
organizational
knowledge.
ISSUE:
Employees or teams
confuse “Knowledge”
with “Job Security.”
2. Establish “when” to collaborate.
SYMPTOMS:
Project teams hold
“working sessions” to get
tasks completed; teams
hold weekly status
update meetings to
keep management
informed; weekly staff
meetings are held,
regardless of new
information to be shared.
SOLUTION:
A collaborative
culture helps
drive the ‘When’
– focusing group
collaboration
only when it will
drive a specific
outcome, and
reinforcing when
individual work
should be
completed
outside of a
group setting.
ISSUE:
Teams confuse
“collaboration” with
“work”.
3. Instill collaboration empathy.
SYMPTOMS;
Team meetings held based on reoccurring schedule with no
updates to share, instant message requesting information that
could have been easily found otherwise with a simple search,
‘reply to all’ emails noting the sender is “paying attention” but
holding no other value.
SOLUTION:
The right culture instills a level of
empathy in each team member –
users should understand the impact
of each interaction. Ask: Is my
communication adding value, or
simply taking time from my
audience?
ISSUE:
With fewer and fewer barriers to collaboration, it is easy for users to
inadvertently reduce each other’s productivity with unneeded or
inefficient interactions.
© 2014 Wainhouse Research, LLC 4

5. Bringing It All Together
Every enterprise finds itself somewhere along a cultural continuum, with non-collaborative enterprises at
one end, often defined by competitive environments and top-down / micro management
philosophies; on the other end are the highly collaborative enterprises, with empowered employees, a
focus on enterprise-wide success, and the ability to reward synergy and knowledge sharing.
Of course, cultural change is not an impossible task, and those wishing to move from left to right on the
continuum can certainly do so. The council reinforced that a strong collaborative culture starts at the
top, requires unwavering commitment from the executive ranks, and ultimately must be understood
and reinforced by all employees as referenced in the following examples:
1. COMMITMENT FROM THE TOP
Executive support and strong
leadership is critical to instill a
collaborative culture. While
this requires the support, buy-
in, and execution by every
employee, the top brass must
establish the target behavior
and be ready to lead by
example.
USE CASE – PLANTRONICS
Plantronics’ CEO visited a bank that had implemented an open seating
environment and realized “We need to do the same in order to attract
talent in the future.” As a result, Plantronics moved from walled offices to
all cubes and open seating – including the CEO. Of course, who do you
think gets the best cubes, those closest to the windows with the nicest
views? If you answered “The executive team” you’d be wrong – it’s the
interns (who happen to show up at 6am every morning).
“Work is no longer a place where you go, it is what you do.”
- Senior Vice President, Plantronics
2. CULTURE AND PROCESS
It is critical to clearly define
what it means to be one of
your team members. But
defining your culture is not
enough – you need to back it
up with process that supports
your core identity. Establishing
culture is not just about
documentation of course –
the real trick is to get every
employee marching to the
same beat.
USE CASE – IBM
IBM employs over 400,000 employees across the globe. The company has
purchased over 100 companies over the past 10 years. In order to instill
culture when most of your team members recently worked for someone
else, the Office of the CEO established and communicated a core
identity: “Our Purpose is to Be Essential.” The entire workforce was
subsequently engaged via online, virtual ‘Value Jams’ to establish a
related set of core values and supporting ‘actions’. The resulting actions
are simple, easy to understand, and reinforce IBM’s values and identity –
such as “Put the client first,” “Share expertise,” and “Think. Prepare.
Rehearse.”
”Values are esoteric – we needed to translate between values and
action”.
- Director and CTO, IBM Client Centres
3. TECHNOLOGY SYNERGY
This mix will be different for
every company, depending
on vertical industry, available
budget, and general mission.
A key lesson, however, is that
deploying technology in
hopes of creating a
collaborative culture will
invariably fail. Supporting your
collaborative mission with the
proper mix of technology and
collaborative solutions, on the
other hand, will position you
for success.
USE CASE – INTEL
Intel was faced with the challenge of supporting globally distributed teams
across multiple time zones. Intel’s development teams also follow the well-
defined agile development process, including daily stand-up scrum
meetings. In response, Intel’s IT team created several “Virtual Scrum
Rooms,” each outfitted with a SMART Interactive Whiteboard. This allowed
each room to be used individually or connected to other Virtual Scrum
Rooms to enable collaborative white boarding sessions. Each room is also
equipped with an independent video conferencing system so that teams
can interact naturally while engaged in a white boarding session.
“Our scrum rooms address three core challenges: how can we make the
time zone overlap more productive, how can real-time communications
help teams move faster, and how can we make local team workspaces
and experience more effective?”
- Video Collaboration Service Design Manager, Intel
© 2014 Wainhouse Research, LLC 5

6. The council also recognized a critical shift in the way an enterprise monitors and
quantifies the success of its collaborative journey. For example, many IT teams
attempt to quantify the success of a new solution by counting transactions, tallying
the number of instant messages, conferencing minutes, or documents shared over a
given time period. Similarly, it is not uncommon for an enterprise to preach the
benefits of group collaboration, but provide incentives to the employee based on
individual performance – an obvious contradiction in direction.
The council recommends shifting your mindset, changing what you monitor from a
transactional and individual level to that of group success and business outcome.
Several council members noted they determine the success of their collaboration
program on core end-results like improved profitability or customer satisfaction
measures. By measuring the success of your collaboration program based on key
business drivers – bottom line, profitability, etc. – collaborative behavior is
appropriately focused, and commensurately rewarded.
SMART Technologies’ Inspired Collaboration Assessment
The best practices referenced by the council are reinforced by data gathered from SMART’s own Inspired
Collaboration Assessment – a tool intended to help enterprises determine their collaboration maturity
level. The most mature collaborative enterprises employ the following set of best practices that help foster
and maintain a culture of collaboration
1
within their organization:
1. Develop a collaboration strategy
2. Have an executive collaboration champion
3. Provide opportunities for teams to collaborate
4. Develop strong collaboration skills
5. Address all technical aspects of a collaboration implementation
6. Integrate collaboration with existing work process
Enterprises looking to benchmark their current collaboration maturity level can complete SMART’s Inspired
Collaboration Assessment online: SMARTtech.com/inspiredcollaboration given time period. One council
member noted “many enterprises preach collaboration, but provide incentives to the employee based on
individual performance” – an obvious contradiction in direction.
1
SOURCE: Filigree Consulting
“We asked the
question ‘How do
you measure the
success of your
cultural
strategy?” The
answer: “We
consciously don’t
measure it. Once
you measure
behavior you kill
it. We expect the
benefit comes to
the bottom line.”
- Director & CTO,
IBM
© 2014 Wainhouse Research, LLC 6

7. About SMART, the sponsor of this paper
SMART Technologies Inc. is a leading provider of technology solutions
that enable inspired collaboration in schools and workplaces around
the world by turning group work into a highly interactive, engaging
and productive experience. SMART delivers integrated solutions of
hardware, software and services designed for superior performance and ease of use, and remains a
world leader in interactive displays.
About Wainhouse Research
Wainhouse Research, www.wainhouse.com, is an independent
analyst firm that focuses on critical issues in the Unified
Communications and Collaboration (UC&C). The company conducts
multi-client and custom research studies, consults with end users on key implementation issues, publishes
white papers and market statistics, and delivers public and private seminars as well as speaker
presentations at industry group meetings.
About the Author
Bill Haskins is a Senior Analyst at Wainhouse Research with a strategic focus on
unified communications products and services. Bill has over 15 years of experience
supporting, delivering, and designing converged Collaboration services in a global
communications environment. He has authored multiple white papers and articles
detailing the keys to a successful UCC implementation and delivered various UCC
presentations, highlighting his experience integrating Collaboration solutions into
business process and enterprise applications. He can be reached at
bhaskins@wainhouse.com.
© 2014 Wainhouse Research, LLC 7