Ten lessons in collaboration

Collaboration is a substantive idea repeatedly discussed in health care circles. The benefits are well validated. Yet collaboration is seldom practiced. So what is the problem? The lack of a shared definition is one barrier. Additionally, the complexity of collaboration and the skills required to facilitate the process are formidable. Much of the literature on collaboration describes what it should look like as an outcome, but little is written describing how to approach the developmental process of collaboration. In an attempt to remedy the all too familiar riddle of matching ends with means, this article offers key lessons to bridge the discourse on collaboration with the practice of collaboration. These lessons can benefit clinical nurse managers and all nurses who operate in an organizational setting that requires complex problem solving.