Navigating the Sweet Spot of Collaboration

Collaboration is the cornerstone of progress, innovation, and success in both our personal and professional lives. It's the fuel that powers teamwork, enables creative problem-solving, and builds stronger relationships. However, finding the sweet spot of collaboration isn't always easy. Too much collaboration can lead to inefficiency and burnout, while too little can stifle growth and innovation. Navigating the sweet spot begins with awareness and honest reflection to determine whether what you call collaboration, actually is just that.

Interdependence: Collaboration is characterised by a high level of interdependence among participants. It involves working closely together, often with shared resources, responsibilities, and decision-making.

Common Purpose: In collaboration, all participants share a common, overarching purpose or objective. The success of the project or initiative depends on the collective effort and a deep alignment of goals.

Shared Accountability: Collaboration emphasises shared accountability. Participants are collectively responsible for the outcome, and decision-making is often a collaborative process that requires consensus or agreement.

Resource Integration: Collaboration often involves the integration of resources, expertise, and efforts from all parties involved. It may include shared budgets, shared workspaces, or joint teams.

Tight Coordination: Collaboration requires tight coordination, regular communication, and a high level of interaction among participants. The goal is to ensure that all contributions are well-integrated and that the collective effort is optimised.

Independence: Cooperation typically involves multiple individuals or groups working together while retaining a significant degree of independence. Each party has its own objectives and may contribute to the collective effort without a deep integration of resources or responsibilities.

Shared Goals: In cooperation, entities come together with shared goals or interests, but those goals are often pursued in parallel. While cooperation fosters mutual support, it does not necessarily require the same level of alignment and integration seen in collaboration.

Individual Accountability: Each party in cooperation is individually accountable for their part of the work. They contribute to the joint effort while maintaining their autonomy and decision-making authority.

Resource Sharing: Cooperation may involve some level of resource sharing, but it tends to be less comprehensive than in collaboration. Entities in cooperation may pool resources when necessary, but they often do so on a limited basis.

Looser Coordination: Coordination in cooperation is generally more flexible and may not require the same level of communication and synchronisation as collaboration. Entities coordinate as needed to ensure their efforts complement each other.

Dependence: Co-dependency occurs when collaboration becomes excessive and unhealthy. It's akin to leaning on someone else so heavily that you can't function without their constant input. This can lead to a loss of individuality and initiative. 

Individual Purpose: Whilst the outward purpose may be the same, in a codependent working relationship, there is an unspoken agreement that you each need something from the other in order to make each look good.

Limited Accountability: Co-dependent working can result in no one taking accountability. Each person makes excuses for the other, in an effort to sustain the relationship. No one is entirely confident in holding themselves or each other to account.

Resource Creation: Codependency in the workplace slows down resource creation. All resource creation is done together, often involving lengthy meetings. 

Slow Coordination: Codependency results in slow coordination and decision-making. One person is not able to make a decision without the other.

So how badly can it go wrong if we don’t find the sweet spot when collaborating?

Financial Impact:

According to a study by Project Management Institute (PMI), organisations waste an average of $97 million for every $1 billion invested in projects and programmes due to poor project performance, including collaboration issues.

Employee Dissatisfaction:

A survey conducted by Harvard Business Review found that 9 out of 10 employees believe problems with collaboration negatively impact the quality of work.

A study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) reported that 81% of employees believe that ineffective collaboration impacts their productivity.

Finding the Sweet Spot

To find the sweet spot of collaboration, there are a few starting points we need to consider.

Effective Communication: Communication is the backbone of collaboration. Open and transparent communication is vital. Regular check-ins, active listening, and constructive feedback create an environment where ideas can flourish. Establishing clear communication channels prevents misunderstandings and aligns everyone towards the collective goal.

Cultural Touchstones: Cultivating a shared culture is vital for a collaborative environment. Cultural touchstones refer to the shared values, beliefs, and symbols that define the culture of a group, organisation, or team. They serve as reference points for members and guide their behaviour and decision-making. Within his book, ”The Art of Winning”, Dan Carter shares some from his time in the All Blacks; “No one is bigger than the team”, “Better people make better All Blacks aka No D*#@heads”. When everyone is on the same cultural page, collaboration becomes smoother.

Collective Purpose: A shared purpose provides the glue that binds collaborators together. It answers the question, "Why are we doing this?" When a compelling collective purpose is created, it ignites passion and commitment, making collaboration more meaningful. 

Consider the Details: Effective collaboration involves practical planning and execution. Discussing how you will work together, establish roles and responsibilities, set deadlines, and define expectations is required. Attention to detail ensures that collaboration is productive and not plagued by chaos.

Navigating the sweet spot of collaboration requires finesse and intentionality. It's about finding that perfect balance between collaboration and cooperation while avoiding the pitfalls of co-dependency.

As we strive for this balance, let's remember that collaboration is not just about working together; it's about working together effectively, passionately, and purposefully.

The Essential Role of Emotional Intelligence in Education

As educators and school leaders, we deal with many challenges daily. It's not just about teaching the subjects and running classrooms – it's also about understanding and handling our emotions and those of our students. Emotional intelligence (EI) is now considered a vital skill for educators and educational leaders.

As someone deeply entrenched in the field of education, I've come to realise that understanding and managing emotions, both our own and those of the people around us, can have a profound impact on the learning environment. EI has emerged as an indispensable skill set for educators and educational leaders.

Emotional intelligence, in simple terms, means being aware of and managing your own feelings and those of others. It's made up of various skills, including knowing yourself, controlling your emotions, empathy, and getting along with others. These skills are super important for creating a positive learning environment and ensuring students do well.

We often find ourselves in high-stress situations. We have to handle lots of tasks – from managing the school's paperwork to teaching and dealing with students' behaviour.

Balancing all this can be tough.

As Reuven Bar-on, an expert in emotional intelligence, says, "Our emotions are strong. Learning to handle them is important for our personal and professional success." So, developing emotional intelligence helps us deal with stress better and stay well.

Here's why working on your Emotional Intelligence is a good idea:

• Knowing Yourself: When you understand your strengths, weaknesses, and what makes you upset, you can make smarter choices. It's like knowing yourself better.

• Better Relationships: When you're emotionally intelligent, you can connect with students, parents, and colleagues in a positive way. Research shows that teachers with higher emotional intelligence have better relationships with students.

• Managing the Classroom: Emotional intelligence helps you be kind and helpful when students need it. That makes it easier to keep order in the classroom. Teachers with high emotional intelligence are better at dealing with disruptive behaviour.

• Success at School: When the classroom has a friendly atmosphere, students get excited about learning. That helps them do better in their studies. Some research by Dr. Maurice Elias and others shows a link between teachers' emotional intelligence and students' success at school.

• Helping Whānau: Teachers with high emotional intelligence can talk well with parents. That means they can provide support and build trust between families and the school. That's great for students.

Improving emotional intelligence is not just about growing as a person; it also helps us handle the challenges of our jobs, deal with stress, and create a welcoming learning place. By getting better at emotional intelligence, we not only help ourselves but also make a positive impact on our students and their families.

Want to know more about the mahi we are doing in this field? Get in touch today for a conversation!

Pānui - October 2023

Welcome to the last term of 2023. The term that’s not just about getting to the end of what for many has been a busy year, it’s also about celebrating successes and planning for the next year and beyond.

This edition looks into the mahi the Momentum team have been doing over the past few months and a couple of great reading suggestions for you.

Read the October edition HERE

Soft skills are THE skills

I feel so incredibly grateful and privileged to do the mahi I do. Last week affirmed that for me ten-fold.

The day centred around building Emotional Intelligence in a group of incredible educators, with the view of taking this mahi to their students.

Through a day of professional learning, they began to understand the history and key competencies that underpin their emotional capital. They then explored their individual profiles, grounding their new knowledge within their own world. We also explored their team Emotional Capital profile and looked at how they could amplify their strengths and work together to lean into areas for development.

Conversations throughout the day interchanged between their individual, team and students, as they made meaning, asked curious questions and came to new understandings.

Through this journey, and linking with research, they came to realise the following things:

• Soft skills are THE skills to be learning…they are at the heart of what it means to be human.

• We can do the doing, but it is how we are being together that role models to those we teach, and sometimes this means talking about the uncomfortable stuff in a safe way.

• When schools, whānau and students work together on developing these competencies, we create both a caring and daring culture where everyone belongs.

• Emotional-social intelligence mahi is context-free and runs like an aqueduct at the deepest level of our being. It is foundational for happy, healthy learners, not an add-on, programme, or an afterthought. It needs to be at the heart of every curriculum.

• Cultural Capability is underpinned by empathy, relationship skills and self-awareness. Without these competencies, you will struggle to understand another’s world.

Back in 2019, when doing some research with Leamington School in Cambridge, Principal Mike Malcolm stated:

"Most schools talk about developing happy, emotionally rounded and resilient children, but don’t have a deliberate way of supporting this, or have any metrics to determine whether they are making a difference. We wanted to make a deliberate transition from hoping we are making a difference to having the confidence that the many resources we already put into supporting these things is having an impact."

(as cited in Posselt, 2019)

Our mahi at that time used metrics and included staff, students and whānau, was planned and considered, and made a significant difference to the wellbeing of all. Three of the teachers became trained Emotional Capital Coaches and then led this initiative in the school. This was what made the difference to its success on the ground.

And so, with Ministry of Education support over subsequent years, we are able to continue this journey with not just the teachers of this school, but the students and their whānau.

It is exciting, and such deeply important mahi…the stuff that makes my heart sing.

Fostering Happiness, Collaboration, and Purpose in the Workplace

We are not machines, nor are we robots. As humans, we are complex and multi-dimensional in our neurology, psychology, spirituality, and physicality, to name a few. As organisational leaders, leading a group of people is (I believe), one of the most complex parts of your role. 

The thing is however, we can sometimes lose focus on the people over the product or outcomes. When deadlines are looming, work is piling up and the pressure is on, it can be more about the grind, than any purpose or meaning. 

The question to ask yourself is “How often are your people in this mode? Is the ‘grind’ your normal?”

Research on workplace well-being clearly links happiness with raised levels of performance, collegiality, collaboration, and innovation.  

In a massive study published in the Psychology Bulletin, a leading psychologist in the field of positive emotion, Sonja Lyubomirsky, at the University of California, along with colleagues, reviewed the results of over 200 separate studies involving 275,000 people from around the world. The research found that positive emotions lead to success, not only in our personal lives but also in business. Happy people spend twice as much time thinking about what they’ve accomplished, how achievable the task ahead is, and how capable they are of achieving it. The persistent frustration of not loving what you do makes you a difficult character to be around and has been clinically proven to damage your health. Positive emotions impact employee engagement, job satisfaction and performance, customer satisfaction, innovation, absenteeism, and turnover.¹

There are also different types of happiness.  In psychology, there are two popular conceptions of happiness: hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic happiness is achieved through experiences of pleasure and enjoyment, such as a shared morning tea, appreciation, positive feedback, or even clearing your desk! Eudaimonic happiness is achieved through experiences of meaning and purpose (our why) e.g. when you understand how what you are doing contributes to the big picture, or you are connected with, and living out your values. Both kinds of happiness contribute to overall well-being in different ways. They also contribute to organisational culture, well-being, and ultimately outcomes.

As leaders, it is important to be purposeful in the development of wellbeing in your organisations. Your deliberate acts of leadership will set the tone and pathway for this development.

This requires leadership that moves from controlling employees to encouraging collaboration, and from top-down leadership to inspired conversations and shared goals. Moving customer focus, team development, employee engagement and Emotional Intelligence to centre-stage, and as a result, building thriving, happy organisations.

So, what are some small steps you can take towards creating happiness capital within your organisation?

Grow your own emotional capital. Check your own leadership motivations and emotional intelligence capabilities and determine whether there is alignment between your espoused and practised leadership.

Seek first to understand. Value asking a question over telling. Find out what makes people tick, their values and aspirations and support them to achieve these through a series of mini goals.

Move from a mode of seeking ‘buy-in’ to a mindset of engagement and collaboration. Utilising methodologies such as human-centred design ensures a structured approach to the complexities of gaining multiple perspectives.

Use a blended approach: hedonist and eudaimonic to create opportunities for people to experience happiness and a sense of achievement at work.

Join the dots… connect people with the “Why”, not just at a head level, but at a heart and gut level where they not only believe in it but are being it.

¹ Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., and Diener, E. (2005), ‘The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does Happiness lead to success?’ Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803-855.