Much has been written on the benefits of collaboration; but we’ve all been subject to bad collaborative scenarios, when working with others has slowed down progress, decisions have been vetoed and we end up in confusion over who’s doing what, when.

Collaboration is an art and knowing when to collaborate (and when not to) can save everyone time and angst in the long run. Listing ten ways that collaboration can help you would be informative, but its been done many times before and always slips into vague generalisations. So here are our top ten work scenarios where more is less, where less collaboration looks like the better choice.

Legal

We all have opinions, in fact some of us like to share them liberally. But few have legally informed opinions that can stand up to scrutiny. Opening this corporate function up to all-takers would make legal matters more akin to those conversations about politics or celebrity court cases held over happy hour. Let’s leave it to the professionals.

Are you a lawyer? Then don't get involved

Corporate event planning

Who knew there were so many logistical details involved in putting on the company picnic? Unless you’ve had a previous gig as an air traffic controller, you may not have the skill set or the patience to put on a corporate event. The simple way around this conundrum is to make sure the job goes to someone who will love it.

IT

Unlike the Lego sets we played with as children, IT necessitates an exceptionally more strategic form of plug and play. In fact, even the experts can sometimes be found pulling their hair out at the complexities of cloud and server upgrades. Put the uninitiated to work in IT and you might end up doing your corporate computing via stone tablets, and doing the ‘off and on’ trick in blind hope.

Accounting

Accounting is a perpetual dance of debits and credits. There are plenty of folks who can’t even balance their own checkbooks. Making one small mistake in a spreadsheet can have disastrous consequences in the boardroom – something that even a Finance Ninja can’t fix. So, unless you have a fetish for figures, accounting is best left to the professionals.

Office cleaning

Yes, it’s quicker to get this done if everyone pitches in but asking staff to help clean the office is probably the only thing that could make Mondays even more deadly. Turn this into a mandatory collaborative activity and watch your absenteeism rates soar. The last thing you need on your hands is a bin bag battle. Let alone a mopping mutiny.

This is no way to motivate people

Salary negotiations

Best left to you and your hiring manager, salary negotiations are not to be made an office spectator sport. Talking openly about salaries without the safety net of a structured and well understood salary scale is like playing with fire. At the end of the day no one wants go the extra mile if they know the person shirking is being rewarded more than them. And who can blame them?

HR new hire background checks

Make this process collaborative, and you’ll run amok quicker than you can say: “privacy and HR compliance issues.” This is a task for HR. They know what they’re doing, and know how to do it sensitively. Importantly, they will make sure a new hire doesn’t walk into the office on their first day to be greeted by people who know them better than they know themselves.

Vending machine assortment selections

People take their snacks VERY seriously in the workplace. Open this process up to input from the general population and you’ll end up with warring salty or savoury factions. Surely the only time you should collaborate here is if you’re taking orders for so many people, that you need a help carrying the goods.

Company logo design/tagline development

It’s amazing how much angst and fisticuffs are thrown about when it comes to company identity discussions. Everyone has a favourite colour and best to keep this activity confined to a small group who are fully aligned with the company mission, vision and values. It might also help if they were colour-blind.

CEO

How would Glenda in Finance or Richard in Security do in their stints as “CEO for a Day”? Probably best that we’ll never know.  And probably best that the hard decisions are made in private, otherwise it could be like asking Turkeys to vote for Christmas. There is no amateur hour in CEO-ville – for good reason, so let’s let the CEO do his job in peace

When collaboration is done well, it really does make a difference. As the old adage goes, two heads are better than one and three heads are even better. In many cases then, collaboration can help teams develop ideas, share expertise and excel at projects. But we all know you can have too much of a good thing. The key is to know when collaboration is appropriate - and when it’s just going to cause problems.

Martin Hill is vice president of marketing, international at Epicor Software