Collaboration agreements are necessary for any project, no matter how personalistic it may be. It needs to be livable. There is no other way and much less if this project intends to have a social component – here I am referring to being present in society, beyond its goodness or social contribution, as we know these concepts today.
Ni Ulises Ulysses have ever returned to ítaca if he had not counted on the collaboration and benevolence of Athena or the participation of Telémaco, the help of Eumeo, the benevolence of Zeus or the silence of Euriclea. Lampedusa wrote his Gatopardo in the strictest solitude but his characters came out of the whole world he had inhabited – to use Chillida’s words – until then and it was Giorgio Bassani’s decisive bet as advisor and editorial director of Feltrinelli, who managed to get the manuscript published posthumously, who opened the doors to one of the greatest masterpieces of twentieth century literature and not only him, it was Visconti who was the architect of its popularity, who by turning the novel into a great film made it known throughout the world. Monet wanted to give his great paintings of the “water lilies” to the French State as a commemoration of the victory after the First Great War; it was the combination of the art of the great impressionist master and the proven political ability of Clemenceau who made possible the Orangerie museum, one of the most beautiful temples of art, in Paris, where else? The first submarine cable between Europe and America was not the work of just one, even if one took the lead, there were many who participated and took up the baton at every obstacle of the project. The count would be infinite and would take us down paths, marvelous no doubt, but they would stray too far from our initial course.
Since nothing can exist in absolute solitude and nothing can bear fruit without the participation of some or many, it is clear that the implementation of any project, whether it has a business, social or simply recreational perspective, needs the collaboration of others and especially in the business world, to ensure its effectiveness, collaboration agreements are an essential part.
When the collaboration -collaboration which, for the purposes of these lines, will basically be of a business nature- is carried out through a company, the most usual way of documenting this collaboration is through a shareholders’ agreement -or shareholders, which is the same thing- and when the agreements are to be documented through the object and the participants, regardless or not of the existence of a company, they are usually called, more generically, collaboration agreements. In the first case, the focus of the agreement is on the company and its operation as an indispensable tool of the business project; in the second case, the focus is more on the participants and their commitments to make the project viable and, of course, successful. Partnerships may exist in both cases, but what differentiates them is the focus, rather than the content.
In the two types of agreement, the issues to be addressed are similar, but in one case, the actions are implemented through, and by default, the society, in the second through the people, a more detailed definition of the project and the reasons, whatever they may be, that move the participants to collaborate in this project. There is no one better than the other, what changes is simply the look, or rather, the perspective, which is no small thing, even if what is looked at is almost always the same.
Since collaboration agreements focus on the collaboration rather than on the functioning of the tools that will make it possible, it is essential to define it in detail (and defining is not “encapsulating” but marking on the map where we are going) because, as Georges Braque would say, “commitment begins with the definition”. To define the project is to give it a purpose, a meaning and a direction, and this is where the collaboration should be directed.
Once the project has been defined, we must determine what each of the participants in this project expects and what each of them expects from the others. It is a reciprocal relationship and I would say that it must be more or less balanced, in which what I commit myself to must always be accompanied by what the others commit themselves to. The commitment must have a common goal, which is the course we have set for ourselves, but the benefits cannot – in general – be the same, but complementary. Complementarity and, incidentally, diversity, in any project, is fundamental; after all, we already have photocopiers to repeat ourselves. It is also necessary to define who is part of the “hard core” and who can become part of it. It is not a matter of discrimination, but of participation and, in general, of involvement.
Tasks must be “rewarded” and “sanctioned”, since the achievement of objectives is fundamental in any business project, and I am not referring to economic, patrimonial or reputational sanctions, nor should the rewards be economic, at least not necessarily economic, but there must be a space for “accountability”, which is nothing more than the area in which collaborators explain their efforts, the obstacles they have encountered, the surprises, the decisions they have made and, in short, their successes and failures. It is not, or at least it should not be, about seeking public scorn for the defeated or the presentation of a crown of laurels to the victor, it is primarily about giving an account of the situation so that the collaboration – which to be such must be based on trust and not on purely material encouragement, which is what salaries or the setting of fees deal with – can be maintained and, most importantly, readjusted according to the reality of each moment.
The collaboration agreements must also define the way in which decisions will be made beyond the decision-making autonomy of each collaboration in the part of its competencies, these decisions are usually the most relevant and less conditioned by the day to day, and are the ones that will allow us to speed up or slow down, change course or stop to explore the new territories that we will find along the way. These decisions must be identifiable rather than embedded in a narrow framework and must be those that are really important so that those that are not do not serve either as ballast or as generators of unnecessary conflicts.
But, unlike partner agreements, which usually take this into account in a much more instrumental way through capital increases, capital reductions or the purchase and sale of shares, in partner agreements it is essential to establish mechanisms so that collaborators always feel part of the project, a project that cannot be rigid and therefore necessarily changeable. The collaboration agreements must seek spaces, the environment, more or less playful, more or less festive or disciplined, will depend on each project or the personality of those who compose it, to discuss the future – far or near – either through business plans, action plans, challenges to be undertaken, new projects or any other mechanism (the organizational “gurus” have a lot of methodology in this regard). No project can be collaborative if collaboration is limited to its foundation; by its very definition, collaboration must be continuous over time and this, more than a simple aspiration, must be reflected as a reality.
As always, the methodology is infinite, the points to contemplate in a collaboration agreement can be of any type and size, in this subject nothing is predetermined and for that reason the models can only serve as inspiration, never enough.
The above is only an admittedly too general view of the elements on which collaboration agreements are based, but it serves as a starting point for what a collaboration agreement should really be, a reflection on the project, its needs and its collaborators, and the latter, I will not tire of repeating, is what is truly fundamental. No one can carry out a project in absolute solitude, even Robinson Crusoe had to find Friday to continue surviving.
