What do Procter and Gamble, Einstein and Grossmann, and the Genographic Project have in common? All of these names entered history thanks to what we now call “interprofessional collaboration” (also known as IPC) in business, science, and research respectively.
Working collaboratively is a staple of the medical field, but it’s a major understatement to limit it to the healthcare industry. As modern professionals in sectors as varied as business, education, legal, research, and even the travel industry share, the rewards of professional collaborative practices embrace both the experts and their clients.
Below, we’ll explore how interprofessional partnerships maximize professional output and will give actionable tips for everyone at the table to leave their differences behind and reach productive solutions.
Navigate:
- What Is Interprofessional Collaboration (IPC)?
- Interprofessional Collaboration Examples
- Benefits of Interprofessional Collaboration
- Intercollaboration Drawbacks
- Main Barriers to IPC
- How Do You Develop Interdisciplinary Collaboration?
- IPC Is the Synergy We Need to Succeed
What Is Interprofessional Collaboration (IPC)?
Interprofessional collaboration is a mode of professional cooperation where experts from two or more industries or backgrounds work together on a set task. The unique expertise that each member brings into the group allows for faster and more insightful solutions. Intercollaboration is highly important in medicine, education, business, research, legal practice, and practically any field that can benefit from the exchange of ideas.
Think of team members as individual working parts of a big machine that, with interprofessional collaboration, keep the wheels turning. When it comes to ideas and efforts […] this type of teamwork creates a common goal that your entire organization is working together to achieve.
– Trey Ferro, CEO, Spot Pet Insurance
Interprofessional Collaboration Examples
Interprofessional partnerships are a common aspect of healthcare. The synergized work of medical professionals can make a life-changing difference for a patient. However, it’s harder to find an industry that would not benefit from interprofessional relations. As renewable energy resources entrepreneur Alan Duncan reminds us, ‘If you want to be successful, you need to bring together the best and brightest minds from different fields.”
Healthcare
Interprofessional collaboration in healthcare is a practice where different specialists work together to diagnose and treat patients – most often, those that require input from several medical experts. Since time is a critical factor in medicine, interprofessional collaborative practice can reach solutions that doctors would’ve taken months to accomplish on their own, thus saving lives in the process.
Examples include:
- Interprofessional practice between different departments and/or clinics assessing a complex patient
- Doctors working in close alliance with nurses and technology specialists and making patient rounds together
- Cross-department education for healthcare students and interns
- Simplified information sharing between departments and medical clinics
Collaboration is very useful in my field. Neurologists, physical therapists, and ENTs can all provide very useful information, which gives more context to a particular patient’s symptoms and can help to elucidate a complex constellation of symptoms and provide insight.
– Dr. Amy Sarow, Doctor of Audiology
Business
How does interprofessional collaboration work in a business context? You may hear it referred to simply as “professional collaboration”. Usually, companies focus on internal collaborative practices. One such example is an agile working structure with cross-functional teams. Instead of handing the project back and forth between departments for review, teams work together in a single space and solve issues on the go. However, companies may also interact with each other through knowledge sharing. This is an important and highly effective partnership opportunity.
Examples include:
- Cross-functional teams, also known as multidisciplinary teams, where specialists from different fields work together on a common task
- Open partnership between experts within a single organization
- Knowledge sharing between companies and employees
- Several experts attending to customer needs
Our team members collaborate and set their goals for selling products within a specific time limit and find ways to improve customer retention. In the e-commerce industry, this helps to achieve sales targets and retain customers.
– Angus Chang, Founder, Iupilon
Education
Collaborative alliances in the education system occur in both student learning and between teachers to improve educational practices. Another aspect is interprofessional education (IPE) – when students from different departments study and work on projects together to deepen their learning.
Examples include:
Interdisciplinary learning for students and interns
Extracurricular activities for students from different fields
Knowledge exchange between teachers in shared learning environments, classrooms, collaborative workshops and seminars
Legal
Legal practices can encourage the exchange of ideas with professionals from complementing fields. The purpose of such interprofessional communication is to streamline services and provide a holistic approach to customer concerns.
Examples include:
- Attorneys cooperating with accounting, finance, estate planning, and tax experts
- Learning exchange between legal and finance experts
- Solving complex client cases together
A comprehensive business retirement plan will likely require the services of one or more of: an estate attorney, a financial planner, a business valuator, a business attorney, a business broker, a CPA, a tax attorney, and perhaps others. My role as the exit plan architect is to provide business consulting expertise to complement the other specialists that may be required, as well as to lead the team. Leading the team ensures that we all understand the retiring business owners’ goals and values, that all our work is coordinated and synchronized with each other, exit plan components are delivered on a committed time basis, and to design, develop, and deliver the exit plan. It’s a highly collaborative, consultative process.
– Don McCrea, Ph.D., Family & Small Business Exit Plan Architect, Your Business Legacy
Research
Once upon a time, the double helix structure of DNA was discovered through interdisciplinary collaboration between four experts from different backgrounds. In the same way, we recently saw modern researchers working together on COVID vaccines to ease the global crisis. When done with respect to the intellectual property of all parties, collaborative research drastically speeds up scientific developments and sparks discoveries.
Examples include:
- Cross-departmental partnerships within one facility
- Interdisciplinary research and shared projects between research facilities across the country or even across the world
- Learning opportunities between researchers and other experts
Benefits of Interprofessional Collaboration
When several qualified people bring their minds to a specific task, things are bound to work faster, smoother, and a common solution is sparked.
Think of a crew team being stranded in a still lake in a boat where all the oars are attached on one side. No matter how hard they work, they’re going to go around in circles. The benefit of IPC is you have someone coming at the challenge from another side, which is their expertise. That perspective, which is outside of your experience, will help you get to where you want to go.
– Melinda Marcus, Psychologist, President, Influence Advisors
Here are the advantages our experts mentioned when talking about their collaborative experiences.
- Efficient brainstorming – collaborative teams bring rich and diverse ideas to the table. In this respect, the more diverse your experts are, the more fun you’ll have during the brainstorming session.
- Skill development – knowledge sharing is powerful in developing interdisciplinary skills. Find yourself spending time with an expert in a complementary field, and your own skill set will naturally expand.
- Increased productivity – interprofessional teams work faster while adding quality, thus saving each other time.
- Wide access to information – with input from people who think in different ways, you are presented with a greater scope of knowledge
- Increased team competency – the sense of camaraderie between experts develops communication, empathy, respect, and other soft skills bound to bring value to the workplace
- Energy preservation – Combined teams solve errors faster than one expert alone can do. This conserves resources and propels solutions.
- People-oriented, result-driven work – In all fields, the focus of cooperation is to bring the most value to the end result – whether that is the most effective treatment for the patient, new life-saving discoveries, business growth, or customer care.
Intercollaboration Drawbacks
The definition of interprofessional collaboration implies lots of communication. But as any interaction between people with different backgrounds and experiences proves, listening doesn’t always mean hearing.
One of the biggest challenges is managing different personalities and egos. When you have a lot of people with different opinions working together, it can be difficult to keep everyone happy. If teams are not properly coordinated, it can lead to confusion and frustration.
– Alan Duncan, CEO, Solar Panels Network USA
Take a look below, and you’ll notice that most of these “cons” have something in common: the inability to hear each other.
- Conflicts of opinion – When alliances occur on a wider level, such as several experts coming together to resolve a problem, opposing professional opinions may clash. At this point, the outcome depends on your ability to keep the end goal in mind (who/what you are doing all this for), mediate, and come to a common denominator.
- Power struggles – In an environment where two or more people are experts in their field, who has the final word? Power and domination struggles may occur in collaborative environments where people are more concerned about status than solutions.
- Professional jargon – Many industries have a specific language which is second nature in their own field but incomprehensible and quite a nuisance to outsiders. Limit jargon in reports and during conversations with specialists outside of your field.
- Interpersonal differences – We’re all human, and when working with another individual or group, interpersonal relationships may get in the way of effective work. The most common clashes are on the level of ego and criticism, so focus on empathy and watch out for impulsive behavior.
Main Barriers to IPC
We already talked about the possible drawbacks you may experience when working on a shared task with other experts. However, experts that encountered them point out that each of these are reversed through paying attention to the environment that your interactions are brewing in.
As psychologist Melinda Marcus points out,
“Drawbacks arise when the problem-solving sessions are not facilitated by someone who knows how to make sure every voice is heard and nobody dominates.”
Eliminate the following roadblocks, and you’ll eliminate most challenges:
- Poor organization – Interprofessional communication isn’t just an informal brainstorming session between two experts. It needs a clear organizational structure. When the role of each person in the room and their input is poorly defined, interaction becomes chaotic and results in conflict.
- Miscommunication – According to experts, poor communication is one of the most frequent barriers to successful interaction on an interprofessional level. Miscommunication includes both the inability of the parties to clearly and respectfully communicate their point of view, and the lack of technology to keep conversations and ideas organized.
- Undefined goals – If one of the parties doesn’t know exactly why they are in the room, what the common goal of the project is, and importantly, what the goal of their personal participation is, they become the spoke in the wheel of your project, impeding the progress of others.
- Unprofessional mindset – Each member should have an equally professional approach to the task. People may be from different professional backgrounds, but make sure they have similar professional standards and values. Unprofessionalism may result in anything from disrespect to violations of intellectual property.
- Different workplace cultures – The overall company or organizational culture has a huge influence on the collaborative environment. Some organizations are agile and have cross-functional teams. For them, interaction with an outside expert is just an extension of everyday practices. Others have a strict vertical structure. When two and more different workplace cultures clash in one environment, solutions are more difficult to achieve.
How Do You Develop Interdisciplinary Collaboration?
You can eliminate many problems by foreseeing them ahead of time. If you want to start cooperation with another expert (or several) off the right foot, start with a clear agenda. You can always adapt things on the go, but being clear on expectations is key to a successful start.
Having a set list of things you want to achieve …is the best way to make cooperation effective and efficient and ensure [it] is done with a purpose and both parties gain something. For example, I do this when collaborating with retailers.
– Keith Terell, Founder and CEO, Backpacks Global
- Identify barriers – Do any of the barriers we discussed above apply to your environment? And if you’re already in the middle of talks, what main challenges are you experiencing? Write down any personal barriers as well and see how you can facilitate their resolution.
- Establish clear values and objectives – It’s best to do this at the planning stage, but it’s never too late to update your partner(s) on your values and goals if you’re swaying away from them.
- Be patient – Several different opinions and points of view may be difficult to process and harmonize, but they widen your perspectives. Stay patient and respectful, and you’ll come to a common denominator sooner than you think.
- Use technology to close communication gaps – People who have access to digital tools are up to 17% more satisfied with their job and workplace culture. When engaging in interprofessional teamwork, rely on visual project management software like Trello to keep everyone on the same page and a modern business phone system like MightyCall to keep the conversation flowing on all devices. Employees can have their own extensions and easily access their work conversations, messages, voicemails, and transcripts from any mobile device, not just their desk phone.
- Plan your time – Separate brainstorming time from vetting ideas and making decisions. Remind everyone that criticism will not be tolerated during brainstorming which is a conflict-free time for exploring solutions.
- Identify a mediator – A clash of opinions is bound to happen occasionally. Mediators help keep everyone focused on the goal of the problem-solving session and keep the atmosphere professional and neutral.
- Rethink your workplace culture – Employee turnover rates decrease by 50% in collaborative-minded workplaces. Even if this isn’t a staple of your organization, improved internal relations are positive for everyone.
- Inspire and reward co-workers – If you’re a company or organizational leader, encourage teamwork skills like open communication, respect, problem-solving, and horizontal leadership. You can also try virtual team-building activities for a simple and stress-free way to bond on a human level.
IPC Is the Synergy We Need to Succeed
Global industrial leader Ratan Tata once said, “If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together.”. Interprofessional collaboration is about the synergy that not only solves a problem but sparks unprecedented ideas and discoveries that could have never been achieved by one mind.
Synergy united to purpose is one of the greatest drivers of historical breakthroughs – in healthcare, science, business, and practically any field of ideas. Such efforts expand each individual’s core competency and put selfless service first – be it through helping a patient, client, or organization. Achieving this through direct, respectful communication and an unprejudiced mind is what will take us both fast and far in solving any challenge.
