We talk about collaboration. But do we have a clue what it actually means? Why the maritime industry’s next breakthrough may depend less on technology and more on how we work together.
The maritime industry loves talking about collaboration.
Visit almost any maritime conference and you will hear the same messages: we need to join forces, connect ecosystems, accelerate innovation and work together to decarbonise shipping. I have probably used those words myself hundreds of times. But here is a question I believe is crucial: Are we actually good at collaborating?
After years of working with ports, corporates, startups and governments, I have become convinced that our ability to collaborate is one of the biggest barriers to scaling innovation. And that is something we need to change rapidly.
We have the technology. Where is the scale?
Europe has impressive companies developing technologies for cleaner shipping, renewable energy and smarter ports. But turning promising technologies into large-scale commercial solutions remains extraordinarily difficult.
We once worked with a scaleup that needed to take its technology from a table-sized unit to a container-sized installation. This required approximately €10 million. Corporates were reluctant to invest because the technology was pre-commercial. Governments struggled to justify supporting one individual company. Everyone recognised the potential. Nobody could move.
We proposed a different approach: rather than financing one company’s installation, why not develop a shared innovation and testing hub around it? Suddenly, the proposition changed. The facility could benefit multiple companies, technologies and partners. It became an ecosystem investment rather than an individual company’s challenge. But obviously this required lot’s of collaboration.
The technology hadn’t changed. The collaboration model had.
We collaborate. But are we really making impact?
We are excellent at bringing people together. We organise conferences, sign agreements (preferrably MoU’s with no commitments), establish partnerships and launch innovation networks. But are these collaborations actually creating impact?
I have experienced projects where progress accelerated dramatically once a launch date appeared in a senior manager’s calendar. Why wasn’t the project’s impact itself enough to create urgency?
In large organisations, employees are often rewarded for managing internal expectations, avoiding risks and maintaining stability. Not necessarily for delivering transformational results outside their organisational boundaries. I don’t think this is primarily a problem of individual motivation. It is a problem of how we organise collaboration.
We need structures that make it easier for large organisations to contribute meaningfully, share responsibility and pursue outcomes beyond their own boundaries. Otherwise, collaboration risks becoming another activity to manage, rather than a way to accelerate change.
Real collaboration is not frictionless
One of the most important lessons I have learned is that successful collaboration is not about avoiding friction.
It is about how we deal with friction when it inevitably appears.
In one large project, two partners were contributing different amounts to the project. One became frustrated and raised concerns with me. Another partner, who was actually a competitor of the first, offered to speak directly with them. They knew each other, understood their respective positions and regularly worked together despite competing in the market. That conversation helped resolve a crucial bottleneck.
What struck me was that the second partner didn’t have to intervene. They could have left the problem with me. Instead, they took responsibility for the success of the collaboration. That is what ownership looks like and brings partnerships further.
Looking beyond your own interests
I saw something similar when a startup in one of our programmes was working with a large corporate. The corporate focused almost exclusively on its own interests, paying little attention to what the startup needed to succeed. Another corporate involved in the project stepped in and challenged that behaviour. It made an enormous difference, both for the startup and for the project.
These experiences have taught me that collaboration requires more than shared objectives and formal agreements. It requires openness, trust and people willing to take ownership of the bigger picture.
Sometimes that means confronting a partner. Sometimes it means helping a competitor. Sometimes it means accepting that your organisation will not capture every benefit. And sometimes it means doing something simply because it is the right thing for the project.
The future belongs to ecosystem builders
The maritime sector faces challenges too large for any individual company, port or country to solve. We need leaders who don’t just optimise their own organisations, but actively build the conditions for others to succeed. We have to build the context that makes the pie bigger for all involved and is not about dividing the pie so we create win/loose situations. This needs leaders who create trust, design smart collaboration structures, embrace difficult conversations and make collaboration work in practice. Competition will always exist, and it should. But we should question whether we are competing in the right places.
I believe the next generation of maritime leaders will not just build successful companies. They will build the ecosystems that make success possible, creating a bigger pie for all of us.
Because ultimately, the question is not what our organisations can achieve individually. It is what we can achieve together that none of us could accomplish alone.