Integration is down to better bargaining by us all isnt it

Beduoin kids, originally uploaded by laura Bb.

Campaign last week had an article from Justin Gibbons from research company the Work talking about integration. After all these years talking about it. We still are talking about it and their seems to be limited movement in how to move forward and make this work.

Coming from a small market, integration worked a lot better. You had less people to deal with and generally people get on with it. Always a little bit of competition but people knew what they were there for. My general feeling now is bigger markets, bigger responsibilities, bigger expectations and therefore bigger egos.

I dont have a P&L to watch so therefore you could argue my point is a little one sided. But lets have a look at that one side. Collaboration is what every agency sells. But most of the time that is until the other team turns their back. A lot of it comes down to the people involved and how they work to gain what they want out of the situation. I found a great article on PsychBlog about how you can avoid 'threats' and use communication to 'not get a bad bargain.'

The thing I have learnt in the past few years is more about how people can work together in delivering something great. How do you create win win situations ?. How do you negotiate to get what you want out of the situation? It is frustrating at times but I love to stay with a very naive POV that it should alwaysbe about the work. I believe that you concentrate on that and keep delivering it will turn out well in the end or at least you can say you stuck to your own ethics. You might not always get the all credit but the people who steal it will eventually get caught out. If your clients or coworkers dont see it eventually. Time to move jobs. Because this will always happen. But what came out of this summary of different research pieces is the idea of threats.

Communication cant overcompensate for threats. How do you limit threats with other people you work with ?. People's irrational behaviour comes out when they get backed into a corner.Thats evolution for you, constaintly trying to survive. Ive seen it a million times. Lovely people losing it over something you cant quite understand.

In the end who should limit the threats ?. Should the client play a role in limiting the threats through payment, better understanding of people's roles, maybe. Or could we just do it in the office everyday. Just start with someone close to you. Then broaden it out. Limit their potential threats and see how it prospers. Because the other interesting thing this article shows is that co-operation leads to the best overall result but also the best result for the individuals.