There’s no “I” in ‘Team’ but there is one in ‘Collaboration’: The WHAT, WHY and HOW of Effectively Working Together

A Transformative Education (TE) competency-based Jayhawk Flex program is currently being developed through C3BE, in collaboration with the Curriculum and Teaching (C&T) Department. One aspect of the work is to operationalize a key competency: Collaborating for Change. This blog post reflects our thinking and shines a light on the essential principles that undergird this competency. It also illustrates how important this competency is for addressing a variety of issues in education and beyond. 

Contrary to popular belief, successful collaborations involving others actually begin with the self. The true power of collaboration (for any reason) cannot be realized through the direct observation of other people’s work, alone.

No. 

The true power of collaboration can only be harnessed through a growing awareness of one’s sense of self and the world (Mograbi et al, 2024). Cooperation and collaboration have different meanings, and each comes with its own guiding or operating principles. Both have the same constructivist roots with the common aim of leveraging people to achieve a goal. But this is also where the two paths seem to diverge. Cooperation can involve supporting others on projects and tasks without requiring a shared vision for change. When cooperating rather than collaborating, individuals can hold on to their individual goals rather than work toward common goals. On the other hand, collaboration not only requires collective action in the direction of a common goal but a shared process for achieving them. Successful collaborations are those whereby people work together to construct knowledge, create interdependencies that strengthen bonds and tighten team associations as well as reinforce ‘what works’ over time. Traditionally, effective collaborations have included the following set of operating principles (U.S. OPM, 1997):

• Trust
• Role clarification
• Appreciation for diversity
• Common purpose and goal
• Transparent communication
• Balance of collective focus to measurements of success

Missing from this list are two (2) guiding principles that I believe are essential for effective collaboration:

• Awareness of self and others
• Courage

Individuals who understand their own social identity aspects, limitations and strengths are better able to understand the perspectives of others, especially those who are different (Holmes, 2020). This is sometimes referred to as positionality (Yep et al, 2016). The term is used to describe how people come to understand the relationships that exist between their individual identity aspects and the identity aspects of others. Positionality illuminates the hidden aspects of who we are (Yep et al, 2016). It interrogates our belief systems and reveals underlying motivations that can easily be overlooked. It also situates what we are learning about ourselves and applies these learnings to the work we engage in as a team. Understanding ourselves and others are essential ingredients that add considerable value to collaboration efforts.

Increasing our self-awareness can simultaneously reveal things about ourselves that induce feelings of fear, guilt and shame. It can also contribute to psychological stress (Mograbi et al, 2024). This is why practicing courage is such an important factor in facilitating collaboration that is active, effective and sustained over time. Fear is debilitating but courage is invigorating! It is through our acts of personal courage that we prove to ourselves that the strength and wisdom needed to navigate life’s complexities lie within. When we practice courage and achieve positive results, our reward is what we learn about ourselves—learning that can be applied to our ever-growing sense of the self (Mograbi et al, 2024). 

While it is true that it is important that we continually engage in work to understand ourselves deeply over time, understanding ourselves and changing ourselves requires a different set of human competencies. The collaborative process or our ways of working together are just as (if not more) important as the things we discover about ourselves. In fact, it is quite possible to be extremely self-aware while at the same time finding it very difficult to work with others and collaborate effectively as a team.

Salient Human Competencies
Needed for Effective Collaboration Efforts

Conclusion: Globally, we are finding ourselves in a rapidly changing and highly charged socio-political environment. The need to collaborate, specifically with the idea of change in mind is more important today than perhaps it has ever been. Success in this area is dependent on the knowledge, skills and dispositions of those who possess the courage to engage and the willingness to endure despite opposition. The best way to build competency in the area of effective collaboration is to practice the art of collaboration, using our minds as a playground for practice and the exchange of new ideas.

Community-Centered Ideas for Collaborating with Change In Mind

• Create multi-cultural gathering spaces in local neighborhoods to support communities in learning to solve problems important to them
• Create partnerships that bring together city leaders, business leaders and school-community groups around something they want to grow or expand
• Create town halls or meeting spaces for residents to share their hopes and fears and to devise a plan developed with them in-mind
• Create a platform or space for uniting people with similar interests and community desires
• Create and implement a plan to engage community members in wildlife advocacy, climate change or the environment
• Create a space (online or in person) for others to highlight an issue they care deeply about

School-Centered Ideas for Collaborating with Change In Mind

• Educators work with parents/caregivers and students to create student-led think tanks whereby learners in schools lead change & transformation by working together to solve problems that impact them all
• Schools work with career and workforce industry partners to establish paid apprenticeships and other career development opportunities for youth seeking to learn and gain exposure to the world of work beyond high school
• Engage in ‘future school design’ together with parents/caregivers, students and business/workforce industry partners to improve the positive impacts of neighborhood schools and accelerate the pace at which change occurs
• Explore innovative ways to deepen knowledge/expertise by integrating multiple subjects through project-based ideas that center multi-stakeholder engagement and student-led efforts
• Create secondary school-university partnerships that leverage research, connect professors to school-based teachers as well as make new resources available to secondary schools with the primary goal of strengthening post-secondary pathways to a college education and closing the knowledge & skill gaps that currently exist

If you would like to explore opportunities to collaborate with us on YOUR visionary ideas, get in touch with us at c3be@ku.edu.  

Bibliography

Andrew Gary Darwin Holmes, “Research Positionality: A Consideration of its Influence and Place in Qualitative Research – A New Researcher Guide,” Shanlax International Journal of Education 8, no. 4 (2020): 1-10.

“Building a Collaborative Team Environment.” U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Aug. 1997, www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/performance-management/teams/building-a-collaborative-team-environment/.

Mograbi, D. C., Hall, S., Arantes, B., & Huntley, J. (2024). The cognitive neuroscience of self-awareness: Current framework, clinical implications, and future research directions. WIREs Cognitive Science, 15(2), e1670. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1670

Yep, G. A., & Mutua, E. M. (2016). Intersectionality, identity, and positionality. In Globalizing intercultural communication: A reader (pp. 85-102). SAGE Publications, Inc. 

BIO:

Dessalines (Des) Floyd, EdLD (Senior Associate Researcher): Des has a passion for empowering others and his professional background combines expertise in educational equity, leadership development, innovations in teaching & learning as well as self-determination and autonomy in learning. Des taught English Language Arts and Reading in both brick-and-mortar as well as online settings. He also served as the Special Assistant to the Commissioner on Equity with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education (MA DESE).