3 Undervalued Benefits of Collaboration

Attending the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration's annual conference is a reminder that professional conferences provide a platform for collaboration, which itself can lead to change, growth, and progress.

"Collaboration" has become a bit of a buzzword. Sometimes it feels as though it's presented as a magical secret ingredient that, if said frequently enough, will cause organizations to become resilient, creative, and successful overnight.

I can't offer any promises regarding the results of collaboration, knowledge sharing with colleagues, or teamwork, but I can say that there's nothing magical about it.

Here's one example of how collaboration can help get an organization off the ground: many well-known companies including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Warby Parker were conceived while their founders were in college or graduate school. College campuses are popular birthplaces of companies because they bring together groups of people with similar interests and values, in an environment where there is lots of unstructured time.

Many students use this time to discuss ideas—their future goals and aspirations, attempts to solve common problems, and new ways to share ideas.

Think of professional events as a brief return to the college mindset. You are, if only for a short while, revisiting a situation where you are surrounded by others with similar interests to your own, with some unstructured time during which to exchange ideas.

I attended the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration's annual conference in Orlando last week. In addition to the planned sessions and events, I discovered a potential hotbed for problem solving and creativity.

Here are a few things I observed about collaboration:

1. It Can Rekindle Excitement About HR and Healthcare
"I come to [the ASHHRA conference] to be inspired," Alex MacLennan, PHR, Human Resources Director of the Tahoe Forest Health System in Truckee, California, told me during the Sunday morning keynote.

While MacLennan says he's never received a solution to a problem "out of the box" by attending a conference, he has developed ideas and learned more about problems other organizations are encountering, and how they've handled them.

MacLennan says he is reinvigorated after several days of collaboration at a conference, which, he says, "helps [him] to inspire and motivate [his] management team."

Becky Rauen, Director of Human Resources at Maple Grove Hospital in Minnesota, says her time at ASHHRA served as a reminder about what's really important to her. "There are many ways attending this conference benefits us," she says, "but I think it's really about getting back to basics. Let's get back to the why—the purpose of what we do—that we're here for our patients."

2. It Leads to Problem Solving
Gary Pastore, MSL, Director of Human Resources at Honor Health in Scottsdale, AZ, says he was surprised to learn during a forum at the conference that many organizations were facing similar challenges around managing physicians—and the solutions those organizations found for managing these issues. "I think I learned a lot about how we need to behave moving forward."

And it wasn't just him. Several attendees I spoke to said they encountered solutions to problems they had been mulling for months or years.

"I learned that we're not the only hospital facing the issues and problems we face," says Lisa Halley, MSHRD, SPHR, vice president of human resources at Holzer Health System in Gallipolis, OH. She believes she'll be able to apply information she learned in sessions and from other HR leaders at the conference.

3. It Creates Opportunities to Help Others
Some of the most valuable time at conferences is simply time spent getting to know others in your field and comparing notes, says Jeremy Rogers, HR manager with Intermountain Healthcare in Provo, UT.

"I used to understand networking as, 'how do I get a leg up?' But it's really about helping each other, about mentoring and giving others in this profession opportunities, as others have given me," he says.

Rogers says he's met HR professionals at events he has later been able to introduce to management teams looking for new candidates. Through these connections, he was able to help both an organization find a top-notch candidate and help a colleague find a placement where he knew they would be happy.

"This kind of networking is about being able to reach out to others; it's about being able to refer others to opportunities."

Rogers took advantage of a session on emergency preparedness to get ideas for his hospital's emergency management program and generally compare notes with other HR leaders. "It's nice to be able to reach out to another HR professional sitting next to you and say, 'have you ever done this before?'"

There's no need to wait until the next national conference to take advantage of these kinds of activities; there are local chapters of professional organizations, groups on social media networks, and other opportunities available to meet with other HR leaders who will be able to relate to your interest and excitement around HR-related topics. If you're really craving the opportunity to spend time with other HR professionals, you could even look into creating a local meetup.

Chances are, someone else in your area will be grateful for the opportunity to network. "Sometimes, it's just being able to turn to the person next to you and know that they understand [when you] say, 'this is hard,'" says Rogers. "And then, being able to say, yeah, it's hard, but you can do it."