The Sensemaker’s Guide to Collaboration

You can see the mess. You’ve even got the imagination to fix it. But somehow, you can’t seem to get anyone else on board with making it better.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. As sensemakers, we have a special knack for spotting chaos in systems, language, and structure. But having the vision to fix something and having the power to make it happen are two very different things.

This guide is about closing that gap. It’s about understanding what collaboration actually means when you’re the one pushing for change, and how to work with others when they hold the keys to making it real.

This article covers:

What does Collaboration mean in Sensemaking?

Collaboration in sensemaking isn’t just “working together.” It’s about finding the people who can actually help you move your ideas forward and figuring out how to align your efforts with theirs.

Think of it this way: as a sensemaker, you’re often the cart looking for a horse. You’ve got a useful load to carry—your ideas, your vision for better structure, your plans to fix the mess. But without someone else’s momentum to hitch yourself to, you’re just sitting there waiting to be useful.

Real collaboration means:

Finding alignment, not just agreement. Someone can nod along with your idea and still never help you ship it. You need people whose goals match yours, not just people who think your ideas sound nice.Understanding power dynamics. You might see the problem clearly, but if you don’t have the power to fix it and the people who do have different goals, collaboration becomes nearly impossible.Accepting that timing matters. Sometimes the best collaboration happens when you wait for the right moment, when someone else’s needs finally match what you’ve been trying to do all along.

Collaboration in sensemaking is less about convincing people and more about understanding what drives them, then finding the overlap between what you want to fix and what they need to achieve.

Reasons to Collaborate

You might be wondering: why even bother collaborating? Can’t I just fix things on my own?

Sometimes, yes. But most of the time, collaboration isn’t optional. Here’s why:

You don’t have the power to make changes alone. If someone else controls the budget, the team, the timeline, or the final decision, you need them on board. No amount of good ideas can replace actual decision-making power.Different people have different knowledge. You might understand the information structure, but someone else knows the business goals, the technical limits, or the customer needs. Collaboration helps you build a complete picture.Change is harder to undo when multiple people support it. When you collaborate well, you create buy-in. That makes your work stick instead of getting rolled back the moment you move on to something else.You need resources you don’t control. Time, money, people, tools, all of these often belong to someone else. Collaboration is how you get access to what you need.Some problems are too big for one person. Even if you have the power to fix something small, bigger messes require multiple perspectives and skill sets to solve.

The bottom line: collaboration multiplies your impact. You might have the vision, but you need other people’s resources, power, and knowledge to make it real.

Common Use Cases for Collaboration

So when should you actively seek out collaboration? Here are the situations where it matters most:

Redesigning navigation or structure across a product.
This touches design, engineering, product management, and often marketing. You’ll need all of them to make it happen.

Creating or updating a language system.
Whether it’s a content style guide, a taxonomy, or just standardizing terms across teams, language change requires coordination across everyone who uses those words.

Fixing technical debt in information architecture.
The mess might be obvious to you, but engineering owns the work to fix it. You need their time and priority, which means you need to understand what drives their decisions.

Launching a new feature or product.
This is collaboration by default. You’re working with a team from the start, and your job is to make sure the information structure supports what everyone else is building.

Responding to outside forces.
New laws, changing user needs, business pivots, these often create the pressure you need to finally fix problems that have been sitting around forever. Use that moment to collaborate when everyone’s incentives align.

Scaling systems across teams.
What works for one team might not work for another. Collaboration helps you understand different needs and build systems that serve everyone.

Post-merger integration.
When companies combine, the clash of different systems, language, and structure becomes impossible to ignore. This is prime collaboration territory, even though it’s messy.

Types of Collaboration

Not all collaboration looks the same. Understanding the different types helps you pick the right approach for your situation.

Partnership collaboration.
This is when you and someone else share power and decision-making. You’re equals working toward the same goal. This works best when you both have similar levels of authority and aligned incentives.

Support collaboration.
Someone else is driving the work, and you’re helping them succeed. Your role is to provide expertise, feedback, or resources they need. This is common when you’re a specialist or an internal expert being pulled into someone else’s project.

Leadership collaboration.
You’re driving the work, and others are supporting you. You own the vision and decisions, but you need help executing. This only works when you have the power to make final calls.

Peer collaboration.
You and your collaborators have equal standing but different expertise. Think designers and developers, or content strategists and product managers. You need each other’s skills to get the work done.

Consultant collaboration.
You’re brought in to provide an outside perspective. Your job is to spot what others can’t see (or say) and give them the tools to act on it. This type has built-in time limits and clear boundaries.

Cross-functional collaboration.
This involves people from different departments or disciplines working together. It’s often the messiest type because everyone has different goals, language, and ways of working.

Knowing what type of collaboration you’re in helps you set the right expectations for how decisions get made and who does what.

Approaches to Collaboration

Once you know what type of collaboration you’re in, you need an approach that fits the situation. Here are the most effective ways to collaborate as a sensemaker:

Start with questions, not solutions.
Ask people what drives their decisions. What are they measured on? What keeps them up at night? What would make their job easier? These questions help you understand their incentives, which is the foundation of good collaboration.

Map incentives before mapping architecture.
Before you propose any changes to structure or language, understand what each person involved is incentivized by. If their success depends on speed and yours depends on quality, you need to find the overlap before you start drawing diagrams.

Find the horse for your cart.
Don’t attach yourself to just anyone. Look for people whose momentum is already heading in a direction that helps you. If someone is incentivized by the exact thing your idea improves, that’s your collaboration partner.

Wait for the “until” moment.
Sometimes the best approach is patience. Organizations often can’t change until something forces them to. When that moment comes, be ready with your solution.

Speak their language.
If you’re talking to product managers, frame your ideas in terms of user metrics or revenue. If you’re talking to engineers, frame them in terms of technical efficiency or reducing bugs. In other words, match your message to what they care about.

Tips to Getting Started with Collaborating

If you’re new to intentional collaboration or feeling stuck, here’s how to start:

Make a list of what you want to change.
Write down the messes you see and why they matter. Be honest about which ones bug you personally versus which ones actually hurt the intention of the organization.

For each item on your list, ask: who has the power to make this change?
Not who agrees with you, who can actually approve it, fund it, or make it happen? Those are the people you need.

Research their incentives.
What are they measured on? What goals did they share in recent meetings or emails? What problems keep coming up for them? You can often find this out just by paying attention.

Look for overlap.
Where do your intentions and their incentives meet? That’s your opening for collaboration.

Start a conversation.
Don’t pitch your solution. Ask about their challenges. Listen to how they describe their goals. Look for the moment when you can say, “That connects to something I’ve been thinking about.”

Test the waters with something small.
Don’t propose a six-month project right away. Find a quick win that helps both of you and proves you can work well together.

Be ready to wait.
If the timing isn’t right, that’s okay. Keep building relationships so when the moment comes, you’re the first person they think of.

Get help from your manager.
If you’re hitting incentive walls, talk to your manager. They should be helping you navigate stakeholder dynamics and clear the path for your work.

Collaboration Hot Takes

These might sting a little, but they’re true:

Your good ideas don’t matter if no one with power cares. Being right isn’t enough. You need alignment with people who can actually act.

Most collaboration problems are actually incentive problems. If you’re constantly fighting with stakeholders, stop looking at their personality and start looking at what they’re measured on.

Managers who don’t help with incentive alignment aren’t managing. If your manager keeps telling you to “sell your ideas better” without helping you navigate stakeholder incentives, they’re not doing their job.

Sometimes the best collaboration is walking away. If you can’t find alignment and can’t change the incentives, it’s okay to stop trying. Save your energy for work that can actually move forward.

Being the expert doesn’t mean being in charge. You might know more about information architecture, ontologies, or knowledge management than anyone else, but if someone else owns the decision, you’re still in a support role. Act accordingly.

People quit over incentive misalignment more than anything else. If you’re surrounded by messes that no one will fix despite everyone agreeing they’re problems, that’s a sign of broken incentive architecture. That’s a management problem, not a you problem.

Collaboration without aligned incentives is just performance. You might have meetings and make decks and get nods of agreement, but nothing actually changes. Real collaboration requires everyone to need the same outcome.

Collaboration Frequently Asked Questions

What if everyone agrees something is a mess but no one will fix it?
This is incentive misalignment. Everyone can see the problem, but fixing it doesn’t help any of them reach their goals. Your options: find someone whose incentives would be helped by fixing it, wait until external forces make fixing it necessary, or back-burner it.

How do I collaborate with someone who has more power than me?
Understand what drives their decisions. Frame your ideas in terms of what they care about. If you can’t find alignment, you might need their manager or peer to advocate with you. And remember: you can’t force someone with more power to change. You can only influence them if it helps them.

Should I collaborate on everything?
No. Some things you can do alone, and you should. Save collaboration for work that requires buy-in, resources, or power you don’t have. Not everything needs a working group.

How do I know if collaboration is working?
Things are moving forward. Decisions are being made. You’re not rehashing the same conversations every meeting. If you’re not seeing progress after a reasonable amount of time, something about the collaboration isn’t working.

What’s the difference between consensus and collaboration?
Consensus is everyone agreeing. Collaboration is working together toward a goal, even if you don’t all agree on every detail. You need aligned incentives for collaboration, not unanimous agreement.

Can I collaborate with people who have opposite incentives from me?
Not effectively. You might be able to work in parallel on different things, but true collaboration requires at least some shared goals. If your success hurts them or vice versa, you’re opponents, not collaborators.

How do I collaborate across teams with different languages and cultures?
Start by learning how each team talks about their work and what they care about. Translate your ideas into their terms. Find the person on each team who naturally bridges gaps: they’re worth their weight in gold.

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Collaboration as a sensemaker isn’t about being more persuasive or making better presentations. It’s about understanding power, finding alignment, and knowing when to push, when to wait, and when to walk away.

We can only work smoothly when incentives are aligned. Everything else is just going through the motions.

Now go find your horse.

If you want to learn more about my approach to collaboration, consider attending my workshop on 11/21 from 12 PM to 2 PM ET. Working Together: Tools for Better Team Design — this workshop is free to premium members of the Sensemakers Club along with a new workshop each month.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for our focus area in December – Change Management.

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