One of our group members was asked to share her understanding and experiences about collaboration in a narrative form. The rest of us in the group listened and perhaps tried to understand how close or how far we are from her experiences and conceptualizations of collaboration. This activity called story harvesting was useful to understand how the power of narrative structures can seal our own individual understanding albeit through different experiences.
While the narrative itself was powerful, I came away with these lessons concerning collaboration. They have been detailed below:
1. I am because we are. The African Philosophy of Ubuntu truly clarifies the fulcrum of collaboration. In order for any collaborative activity to be successful there has to be a building of trust. It isn’t the division of labor, or the distribution of labor judiciously that allows for successful collaboration but a building of trust. This can start from the simple activity of building a sandcastle in the playground as children and go all the way to large collaborations for research projects as adults. This building of trust is the intangible element that keeps the relationship going and, in many ways, defines the success of the task at hand. If one person decides to be selfish, or decides to be independent, then the dynamics of the situation changes, and the collaboration is diluted. And, yes it does take the investment of time, effort and the right frame of mind to build this over time.
An aside, the narrative was told by my lovely friend from South Africa, not only does she have a way of creating pictures in our mind with her powerful story telling ability, but she truly embodies “ubuntu.” She embodies the true collaborative spirit.
2. Next, “knowledge networks” that are “heterogeneously distributed repositories of knowledge and agents” (Phelps, Heidl, & Wadhwa, 2012, p.117) makes the collaborative activity tangible. I suggest that these knowledge networks are the stockpiles of information and people that have a functional element which requires varied investments of differing perspectives, expertise and let us not forget egos! Most collaborations that emerge at the workplace are of this nature. These knowledge networks allow for interaction within multiple levels and have shared leaderships. I suggest that these knowledge networks gain momentum when they engage in active and open listening.
One new perspective that I gathered from understanding knowledge networks was the successful use of ‘moving mentorship.’ That is a new member in a collaboration is assigned to a small group with an immediate senior and a senior’s senior. This moving mentorship allows for scaffolding where a new person in the knowledge networks understands the true spirit of the collaboration. He does this by asking his immediate senior questions; and, the senior’s senior provides the direction and specifies of the key defined outcomes. This idea of moving mentorship allows safe scaffolding.
3. Thirdly the defining challenge that tests the tensile strength of the collective is the amount of autonomy (Schuster, Hartmann, & Kolleck, 2021) that can be facilitated in these collaborations. This key factor ties back to the Ubuntu philosophy of understanding that true collaboration works only if the collective succeeds. While autonomy can be enjoyed in collaborative projects, it is the shared understandings that make it successful.
4. Finally, it is in these collaborations that the individuals practice active and open listening (Bodie, Vickery, Cannava, & Jones, 2015). Active listening allows us to reframe questions and seek clarifications that might impede successful collaborations. The ability to paraphrase and reflect on what is being told allows us as individuals to gain successful membership in the collaborations.
I end this post with a question… aren’t we all designed naturally for collaboration?
References
Bodie, G. D., Vickery, A. J., Cannava, K., & Jones, S. M. (2015). The role of “active listening” in informal helping conversations: Impact on perceptions of listener helpfulness, sensitivity, and supportiveness and discloser emotional improvement. Western Journal of Communication, 79(2), 151-173. doi:10.1080/10570314.2014.943429
Drossel, K., Eickelmann, B., van Ophuysen, S., & Bos, W. (2019). Why teachers cooperate: an expectancy-value model of teacher cooperation. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 34(1), 187-208.
Phelps, C., Heidl, R., & Wadhwa, A. (2012). Knowledge, networks, and knowledge networks: A review and research agenda. Journal of management, 38(4), 1115-1166.
Schuster, J., Hartmann, U., & Kolleck, N. (2021). Teacher collaboration networks as a function of type of collaboration and schools’ structural environment. Teaching and Teacher Education, 103, 103372. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2021.103372
