Collaboration-Two Are Better Than One By Michele Wilbert
Sitting on my back porch, I noticed two California scrub jays in my yard.
The birds landed on the fence together, and then one swooped down on the limb of our apricot tree. The other darted from tree to tree, and my eyes bounced with it, and I realized it was distracting me from the handiwork of its friend who was knocking down apricots. The two then pecked at something in the ground underneath the apricot tree and took it back up high into the coastal redwood. I became more curious to learn about their collaborative efforts rather than the fact they were stealing my apricots. How had they figured out how to work together?
If you have ever been part of a team or led one, you’ve experienced collaboration. It’s the group effort towards a common goal. Group projects sometimes bring up memories of school projects where there was always the take-charge person and the person who let others do the work. Some resign to go it alone to avoid the tension when no one can agree on a solution. The significance of collaboration gets lost when the process isn’t seamless. Sometimes it’s not until the completion of the project that you see collaborations’ significance.
Intrigued by the team effort of these scrub jays, I learned that they usually forage in pairs, family groups, or non-kin groups. They work together to store volumes of food. It brought to mind Mark 6:7 when Jesus sends the disciples out two by two. Perhaps Jesus had lessons to teach us all about the effectiveness of co-laboring together and the need for us to see one another’s gifts to the body.
Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12 instructs us,
"Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up: but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up.” In Romans 12:8, Paul encourages the members of the young church in Rome to work together. A metaphor of the body is used where Christians are described as “members one of another.”
Paul desired believers to understand that each has a part to play and a gift to use for the glory of God and the edification of the body. Jesus’ relational ministry with the disciples involved cooperation, compromise, and thinking of others more highly than ourselves.
How can you foster collaboration in your teams?
Invite your Creator, the master of all creation, into your collaborative efforts. Ask the Lord to help your team work together, be creative, and innovate.
Celebrate collaboration! When teams come together to solve problems, praise these efforts. Give them time on the schedule in meetings to share their successes and shortcomings. Teams that share misses offer valuable lessons learned for future teams. Be vulnerable about how failures are as much a part of the process as the successful results.
Invite everyone into collaboration by grouping unlike people together on teams. Place an IT teammate and a marketing person together on a project. Ask your worship leader to team up with your facility team to tackle a future project.
Put teams in creative environments different from their own. Set up a team meeting after a tour of a candy factory or a behind-the-scenes stadium tour. Take a hike or try a new restaurant. Get your team out of their ordinary surroundings and watch creative ideas flow.
Problem-solve together. When small irritants arise in your organization or church, enlist a cross-functional team to brainstorm together. Gather volunteers with your staff team and brainstorm ideas. Ex: Do we still need to print bulletins? Let your organization see that collaboration is not just for big projects but everyday problem-solving.
Brainstorm as a regular rhythm in your smaller teams and the large team as a whole.
Enlist the “no idea is a bad idea” in the brainstorming phase of collaboration. Do popcorn-style free-flowing idea generation before people say why something won’t work. This includes silence being a necessary part of the process. Throw out the idea of pro/con lists early in the brainstorming phase.
Don’t allow naysayers to be the louder voice. Squash critical voices and encourage constructive conversations.
Laugh! Don’t always take your ideas so seriously, nor discount a silly idea.
Creating a collaborative culture takes intention, time, vulnerability, and effort. In a work culture that values swift decision-making, sacrifice time to allow for a collaborative solution. You will gain internal buy-in, which goes a long way toward a lasting solution. Collaboration unites a team and makes it stronger. Don’t be surprised by the out-of-the-box solutions to broken processes and the new ideas that will flourish in a culture of collaboration.
Michele Wilbert is a writer, speaker, entrepreneur, and Bible teacher who lives in California with her husband and son. She is passionate about equipping women to lead right where they are no matter what stage of life. She speaks about how we can engage culture with our faith and use our gifts in our spheres of influence. She writes small group curriculum, devotions, leadership development and is co-author of Unshakable Peace in an Unsteady World. She is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and finds joy teaching others to study God’s Word.
