Why Collaboration Theatre Fails Complex Projects

Three organisations forming a joint venture to deliver an infrastructure programme. Day one of alliance mobilisation: vision statements about partnership, shared values presentation, collaborative ways of working charter signed by all parties. Professional facilitators, experiential activities, genuine engagement. Photos taken for the press release. Everyone leaves energised about the partnership potential.

Three months later: working in functional silos, gatekeeping information that creates competitive advantage, escalating every disagreement through organisational hierarchies, pointing to contract clauses when interests diverge. The mobilisation workshop was excellent. People genuinely enjoyed it. But somewhere between the partnering charter and operational delivery, the collaboration became performance rather than practice.

What happened isn't unusual. You performed collaboration whilst maintaining competitive mindsets. The rituals were impeccable - governance structure looks perfect on paper, partnering language embedded in all documentation, regular alignment meetings scheduled. But when pressure arrives, behaviours default to self-protection. The performance was sophisticated. The transformation never occurred.

This is collaboration theatre: performing collaborative behaviours whilst operating with competitive or self-protective mindsets. Attending workshops, using partnering language, signing charters, creating governance structures - all the visible rituals of collaboration - whilst the actual work continues in silos, information flows remain restricted, and individual organisations optimise their own positions. It's organisational performance art, and we've become remarkably skilled at it.

The UK construction and infrastructure sectors have weaponised the language of collaboration in ways that make genuine partnership harder to achieve. When a powerful client says "we value collaboration", translation often becomes: comply with our preferences without pushback. Government's procurement consultation aims to "grow British industry, jobs and skills" through contractual requirements - a worthy goal undermined by fundamental misunderstanding. You cannot mandate collaborative culture through contract clauses. The attempt to legislate partnership through procurement policy reveals the categorical error at the heart of much collaboration theatre.

Collaborative capability develops through trust built over time, competence demonstrated consistently, and interests aligned genuinely - not through contractual obligation or governance structures imposed. The contract can create accountability for outputs. It cannot create the psychological conditions, organisational capabilities, or cultural foundations that enable genuine collaboration under pressure.

The cost of collaboration theatre is substantial but often invisible. Energy gets wasted maintaining the performance rather than solving problems. Talented people become frustrated by the gap between rhetoric and reality. Problems that need surfacing get suppressed because surfacing conflict violates the collaborative performance everyone's committed to maintaining. Innovation dies because genuine collaboration requires productive conflict - and productive conflict looks uncooperative to those performing collaboration.

Consider a contemporary example. Ørsted's Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm – an £8.5 billion development – it will use the Port of Tyne for construction and deployment. Offshore developer, port authority, local supply chain: three-party complexity where an announced partnership must become operational integration. Impressive governance structure? Certainly. Partnering workshops planned? Undoubtedly. Joint communications prepared? Absolutely. But will it be theatre or transformation?

Authentic collaboration shows in decisions not documents. It means surfacing capacity constraints honestly even when that creates vulnerability. Sharing information that enables joint optimisation even when it reduces an individual negotiating position. Accepting short-term individual disadvantage for long-term collective success even when contract doesn't require it. Maintaining open communication when conflict emerges rather than retreating to contractual positions. These behaviours emerge from trust, capability, and aligned interests - not from governance charts or partnering agreements.

The difference between authentic collaboration and theatre becomes visible under pressure. Theatre partners default to competitive behaviour the moment interests diverge or pressure intensifies. Authentic partners maintain collaborative behaviour precisely when it's hardest - because they've built foundations that withstand stress. Theatre focuses on appearance. Authenticity focuses on capability.

This matters because major projects - particularly in energy transition, alliance structures, and complex procurement - increasingly demand authentic collaboration not performance. Technical complexity alone requires genuine integration across multiple specialisms. Environmental and social imperatives demand real stakeholder partnership not consultation theatre. Market dynamics reward organisations that collaborate effectively whilst their competitors perform it.

Moving from theatre to authenticity requires honest diagnosis of specific barriers preventing genuine collaboration. What incentives remain misaligned? What capability gaps prevent collaborative behaviour even when intentions are good? What governance mechanisms inadvertently reward individual optimisation over joint outcomes? What information asymmetries create competitive dynamics despite partnering agreements? Then addressing systems, structures, and culture together - not just signing another charter and hoping behaviours change.

Genuine collaboration is harder than performing it. It requires parties to accept mutual vulnerability rather than maintaining defensive positions. It demands incentives aligned beyond the contract rather than just within it. It needs capability building to work across organisational boundaries rather than assumed to exist. It creates governance that serves joint purpose rather than individual protection. It is much easier to perform collaboration than achieve it - which is precisely why theatre is so common and authenticity so rare.

Recognition is the essential first step. Seeing the gap between stated values and actual behaviours. Acknowledging the performance. Understanding why it persists despite everyone knowing it's inadequate. Then genuine diagnostic work to understand the barriers specific to your context - not generic collaboration problems, but the particular impediments preventing authentic partnership in your alliance, your sector, your organisations.

The rituals of collaboration - workshops, charters, governance structures - have value when they are expressions of genuine partnership, not substitutes for it. The question isn't whether to have mobilisation workshops or partnering agreements. The question is whether these create capability for authentic collaboration or provide theatre that masks continued competition.

How do you distinguish collaboration performance from collaboration achievement?

Al Simmonite

Managing Director, Advance Consultancy

References
UK Government Procurement Consultation

NEC Contract - Transformation Research Report

Ørsted Hornsea 3