Collaboration

Simply put, collaboration is difficult because we are human.  At the root of much decision making lies our primal instinct of survival and self-advancement.  This leads to competition being the primary means or working with and motivating others; competition is embedded in Western culture throughout our schools, sports teams, and work.  Competition brings out many positive results in people including ambition and perseverance, but in turn it makes collaboration difficult because there must be a winner and a loser.  I believe that competition is healthy and certainly has it's place in society, but there are some arenas where cooperation, comprising, and collaboration are needed.

As discussed in class, collaboration is synonomous co-creation.  This means that neither party enters the meeting with ideas or agenda on how to specifically achieve the shared goal.  Each party should think about the common purpose behind the effort and focus on how they want the end game to look like.  It may be a simple question, but asking "What do we want it to look like" is very important because it encourages members to think about common purpose and nudges them toward collaboration rather than compromise.  The issue is that achieving true collaboration is much easier said than done.  Most of us think strategically and 
have been culturally trained to debate and argue one's point.  However, the real world isn't black and white; in many disagreements both parties are correct on some points and have legitimate facts to back them up.  We need to learn to put ourselves in the other person's shoes and allow ourselves to think "win-win"