Ah, the two cultures - Engineering and Management
I feel quite qualified to comment here because a) I have been an engineer and a good one at that IMHO, and b) I am a manager of both engineers and business types, who has an MBA.
I've seem both sides of the argument and, you know what, it's everybody's fault! Some engineers don't seem to feel the need to seek other people's input in what they do or tell people about it, and sometimes managers make decisions which are clueless or appear clueless because they've failed to tell people why it's actually not a clueless decision.
Firstly, we need to understand what we mean by collaboration. This doesn't need to mean four hour status update meetings with touch-feely talk about our emotions to a backdrop of whalesong (although that's fun too - hey, I am an MBA after all.) All it really means is getting input from people with an interest in:
a) what the problem really is and not what the engineer thinks that it is, and
b) the best way to solve it because, even if you really are a genius, then there may be other people out there who have a better way of doing it
...and then letting people know what you're doing and how it's going so that know when they can do whatever follows on from your work. Let us not forget that engineers don't (shouldn't?!) work in isolation of the rest of the organisation.
Actually doing the work largely is a solo event I agree. I've never had much luck doing something detailed or complex with someone else breathing over my shoulder either; and division of labour is clearly the way to go; but that division of labour must be based on a common understanding of what the problem really is, and what the right way is to go about solving it.
Engineers are often bad communicators and lack empathy; the failure to see a problem from someone else's point of view leads to bad engineering. Managers need to recognise that engineering can be a creative work and standing over someone and shouting "Be creative now" Go team!" in their ear rarely yields good results.
EC