Three Elements to Effective Collaboration + Getting to the Guts of Imprecise Terms

Most years my high school basketball team was pretty crap.  Senior year we flopped from one side of the court to the other, running our assignments without purpose or enthusiasm, hoping that one of our shooters might get the ball and do something with it.  We won a few games that year, but not nearly as many as we could have.  We had a lot of problems, but the one I remember most is trust - or in our case, lack thereof.  We didn't respect each others' abilities on the court.  We passed the ball but without confidence.  There were those of us who already lacked confidence in our abilities, and distrusting teammates certainly didn't help the matter. 

But suppose you're just crap at basketball... asking your teammates to trust you on the court would be a bit of a stretch (if the end goal is winning, that is).  Next component: competency.  Simply put, when a group member fails to meet his or her responsibilities, either because they are lazy or incapable, collaboration becomes one-sided.  A resource group in a computer firm cannot effectively solve a customer's technical problem if even one member is struggling to turn on the monitor. But even if trust and competency are present, collaboration is not necessarily effective.  Even if everyone in an architecture firm was competent and trusting,  a failure in communication can destroy a project.  Without a free flow of ideas, the firm loses efficiency and can fumble revolutionary ideas. 

'Collaboration' is a useful term in the education world.  Too often educators have used imprecise phrases such as 'group work' or 'cooperative learning' to describe the action implicit in 'collaboration.'  True, there are varying definitions of what is means to collaborate, but at least it is only word word that describes an action rather than goal or abstraction.  A phrase like 'group work' leaves room for interpretation because the verb 'work' is applied to the group rather than the individuals of that group.  It stresses the importance of the final product rather than the interactions of the individuals.  'Group work' can be lopsided.  Some members do more than others, but it is still 'group work', no matter the proportion.  Similarly, 'cooperative learning' might be equated to 'collaboration', but it can be interpreted in many different ways.  The juxtaposition of 'cooperative' and 'learning' is confusing since 'learning' is traditionally an individual experience, and individuals learn in ways that might not necessarily be cooperative.  'Collaboration' avoids this confusion by implying learning rather than explicitly stating it, allowing us to focus on the action rather than the idea.  In short, 'collaboration' is just a more powerful, succinct way of describing the action that 'group work' and 'cooperative learning' imply.  So instead of talking about 'group work' or 'cooperative learning' we should simply say 'collaborate' and allowing learning and group work to simply happen.