Healthy and effective collaborations require trust to encourage free-flow of ideas, contributions and actual delivery of the work.  But trust is abstract – you’re relying on the actions of others to get things done.  When you’re working on your own you can maintain control over everything you create, so essentially when you collaborate you’re taking a risk.

What are the risks in collaborating?
The risks of collaborating for an individual creative practitioner /business include:
1. Damage to reputation – the quality of the outcome may be lower than independently-produced creative work
2. Creative ideas being ‘stolen’
3. Losing money, time or other resources
4. Efforts go unrecognised/undervalued/un-credited (thanks Bruno for this one!)

(remember these – they’re re-visited at the end of this post!)

Establishing trust
Trust can take a long time to develop, so what happens when you’re collaborating with someone you don’t know, or a collaborative project needs to be delivered quickly?  Is there a way of fast-tracking trust?

When working with someone for the first time, one way of minimising the above risks is to have a written agreement, which covers what happens if something goes wrong. Contracts exist to protect those involved, but they can sometimes be a contentious issue. Mairin Murray (@mairinmurray) said to me via twitter: “NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] jinx embryonic collaborations a bit like prenups – so we need alternatives”. Formats such as ‘manifestos’ tend to be morally-binding rather than legally-binding, but rely on the goodwill of others, potentially opening up the risk all over again.

Trust-worthiness
Some of the elements that make someone trustworthy are:
- Clarity of purpose – they state clearly what they want to get out of it
- Consistency – they do what they say they are going to do
- Reputation – they have a track record of delivering

Not only do we need to look for these qualities in others, we also need to make sure we have these ourselves so that we are also attractive potential collaborators.

Assessing the ‘risk’
When entering into a new collaboration, it’s important to keep all the above factors in mind to minimise the risk to your own creative practice.  But remember that the risks listed above can also easily be flipped around to make them opportunities!:
1. Reputation – the quality of the outcome may be even better than independently-produced creative work
2. Creative ideas could be developed further or more solutions generated
3. Costs and time can be reduced, and access provided to new resources
4. Being recognised as part of the collaboration can valuable for profile and business development

These ideas were developed during/after the ‘Achtung Baby: Trust – is it a good thing?’ session delivered by Islay Consulting at the Shine Unconference 2009.