Collaboration is Key

Last night, I took singing bowls over to Dar’s (a dear colleague of mine) house.  I had ordered them for us to use in our trainings, as attention getters.  Before we had dinner with our poor husbands (who have to sit through shop-talk, whether they like it or not), Dar and I tried to figure out how to make these bowls sing.  We watched a youtube video of the proper posture, the proper hand technique, etc. and we ended up laughing and saying, “Maybe we will just use the mallet as a gong and ring the bowls that way.”  I was thinking about this on Dave’s and my drive home last night, and I said, “That is the best scenario for collaboration, isn’t it?  Good rapport between partners, an ability to laugh at ourselves and each other without egos getting in the way, learning something (or, in our case, trying our best to learn it) new together, and perhaps coming up with a new way of doing things, together). 
 
Dar and I had experience working together several times and knew our personalities were nicely matched for collaboration.  In addition, we have now taken long road trips (5 hours one-way) to go work together in Northeast Arizona.  At the return of one such trip, Dave asked me, “Did you guys listen to the radio?” I laughed and said, “In the 10 hours of driving, we never once turned on the radio.  We talked the entire time.” 
Recently, Dar had a project she wanted to work on together.  While she did most of the footwork ahead of time, due to our schedule conflicts, she came over one day last week and we spent about five or six hours putting together a one-day training.  Several times throughout the day, we commented on how much we were getting done (yes, patting ourselves on the back) and I attribute that work production to the fact that I didn’t feed her lunch.  I only allowed her to eat one banana throughout the day.  As we finished our work for the day and actually assigned each other homework, we talked about what made the day so productive.  Here are the top three things we decided:

1. We agreed that, while this work was critically important, the main important factor is the relationship and respect and trust between the two of us.
2. While everyone has really great ideas, no one person has all the great ideas and no one person is more important than the other.
3. True collaboration has the benefit of producing a product that actually becomes more than the sum of two parts. 

We have all worked in teams.  We have all worked on committees, grade levels, department meetings, and groups in which one person’s voice was always louder and stronger than the rest.  We have all left such meetings with a bit of resentment or ego bruising, wondering what we should have or could have done to make the person realize that their dominance keeps the group from being as productive as it could be.  Maybe we have even been that person who was the most dominant voice, believing that, if we didn’t say it, the “right way” wouldn’t rise to the surface or, if we didn’t maintain control of the group, people wouldn’t “do it right”.  I have a friend who used to be a mom at the school where I was principal.  She is still a mom, by the way, just not at that school.  And I am no longer principal there, either.  This friend was sharing with me that her oldest son cannot stand the group work that schools are asking students to do, now.  I laughed and told her I wasn’t a bit surprised. This dear boy remains one of my favorite kids from Edge, and to say he was a fellow control freak is a bit of an understatement.  He doesn’t like group work because the other kids don’t do it the right way or the way he believes it should be done.  The great thing about allowing students to construct meaning with one another, though, is that the students, if given a chance, often come to find out their idea is not the only good one and they often come away with an a-ha they never had before.
 
This is precisely what happened with Dar and me.  We each had some ideas, but I was the peas to her carrots and she was the bacon to my eggs (just go with it, and don’t ask questions---you know what I mean).  When she would say, “We should get them into groups of four, don’t you think?” I would say, “Yes, how about we do it like this..”.  When I would say, “I’m not sure what this will look like…”, she would say, “What do you think about…?”  The danger is in believing we have all the answers, or perhaps that we have to have all the answers or someone won’t believe we are Captain Wonderful.  In fact, people begin to trust us to work in groups with them even more when we show our vulnerability and group-work ability.
 
I’m grateful for Dar and for all the other dear colleagues with whom I have been given the gift of collaboration.
 
Happy Communicating!
 
 Shelly