Collaboration can be controversial. Some loathe the idea of working on a project with a partner or in a team. Others thrive off of sharing ideas, insights, and experiences with their colleagues. One thing that ultimately defines the success of a collaboration is the results it achieves, and achieving that success takes much more than idly gathering as a group. Regardless of company or industry, successful collaboration involves people who are communicative, focused, and honest, allowing them to achieve both personal and professional growth.

The catalyst that pushes collaboration forward is communication, which Vivas Kumar deems the “bedrock” of collaboration (Ep13). Communication not only allows for ideas to be shared but also helps drive conversations and interactions in the right direction— toward a specific goal. Ruth Lopez Turley, a sociology professor at Rice University and the director of the Houston Education Research Consortium, explains that the members of a team must also be very clear in their goals and opinions (Ep18). Maintaining clarity is especially important for collaboration because it allows ideas to be better articulated and responsibilities to be thoughtfully delegated, allowing tasks to be completed efficiently (Ep17). In terms of leadership, Nigel Levy, citing Jurgen Klopp—the manager of Liverpool F.C.—, agrees that collaboration and leadership are no different in the sense that everyone in a team is a leader since they contribute original and significant ideas (Ep12). Denise Reyes claims that problems in the modern world are only becoming more complex and thus solving them requires leaders in various fields to develop and emphasize these impactful ideas (Ep16).

A diverse team of leaders often brings diverse ideas, which can decrease productivity when managed ineffectively. Therefore, it is crucial to align those diverse ideas with the main purpose of forming a team: to accomplish a shared goal. Collaboration, according to Ameer Jumabhoy, should allow employees to perform more efficiently, whether they are sharing their unique ideas or testing their unprecedented solutions. Additionally, interacting with others in a team helps solve the problem sooner as long as everyone is “on the right track” (Ep14). In other words, an influx of varying ideas and perspectives is often beneficial (Ep15) when the team keeps the common purpose in mind.

A successful collaboration has the ability to naturally benefit each team member. Everyone in the team learns from each other and changes their perspective somehow, especially when their contrasting ideas receive honest and insightful feedback. Therefore, the outcome of a successful collaboration is not limited to achieving certain goals; it extends beyond that and into personal improvement. Being open-minded while collaborating with others can improve both interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships as people explore new and fulfilling endeavors, wherever they may be.

Join us on Longitude Sound Bytes to hear more insights and experiences.

 

Hi. My name is Ruth Lopez Turley and I am a professor of sociology at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

I would like to share a little bit today about collaboration. Collaboration is something that I have given a lot of thought to, given the type of work that I do. I just want to share a few highlights of some of the things that I learned that are really important for true collaboration.

The first thing is that, in order for people to collaborate they need to be really clear that the work they are doing is benefiting each other. It is mutually beneficial.  Otherwise, what is the point of collaborating, if the two parties aren’t getting something out of that effort?  That may seem obvious but it is amazing how easy it is to lose sight of that. Sometimes to make clear what the benefit is to each others’ work.

The other thing that is really helpful when it comes to collaboration is that, there has to be trust and understanding, that the people that are collaborating with one another have to be able to trust one another. Trust that they will meet deadlines, that they will do the work that is expected in the time, in which it is expected to be completed, and that they understand each other so if things come up and they can’t deliver, that they understand and that they are patient with one another for that collaborative effort to be successful.

The other thing that is helpful in collaboration is that it is helpful for the partners in that effort to be really transparent with one another. To be transparent about what the goals are, to be transparent about their concern about the challenges that they are facing. And, to be transparent just about how they are feeling about the work. This is especially important when it is a long-term collaboration, because a lot of things bound to come up.

Lastly, I would say that it is very important for any collaborative effort for the folks involved to be flexible and responsive.  As new challenges come up, this is something that is very important in my work right now with the pandemic. As different crisis come up we have to be very flexible in our work so that we can be responsive to the needs.

Just to give you a quick example, the work that I am doing right now as director of the Houston Education Research Consortium, involves. This is a research practice partnership between researchers at Rice University and district partners at 11 school districts in the Houston area.  We work with various district leaders. And what we have learned in our collaboration with these partners, especially right now, in times of crisis, is that we need to be really flexible and really responsive to their needs, even if it means changing plans, reprioritizing our projects so that we can put more emphasis on the projects that they need help with right now. So that is what I have learned about collaboration. Thanks.

Thank you Ruth for those wonderful insights on collaboration. I’m sure our listeners will appreciate your takeaways — I know I did. In the past years, especially in high school, I worked on a lot of group projects, and oftentimes, the collaborative aspect of it was as difficult as the actual project at hand. With technology facilitating communication, I find that students often choose to work separately on projects, breaking tasks up at the beginning and not reconvening until the end. Without trust, which is an important aspect of collaboration as you mentioned, this kind of divide and conquer method often fails, as some students will fail to uphold their end of the bargain, leaving other students to make up for their work at the last minute. Despite how much schools will stress collaboration as essential to learning, I think the lack of emphasis on how successful collaboration takes place deems group work daunting as opposed to helpful. However, done correctly, and keeping the highlights you shared in mind, collaboration can facilitate and enhance our work.

Hi, my name is Denise Reyes. I live in Houston Texas and I’m a doctoral candidate at Rice University studying industrial/organizational psychology with a specialization in teams, leadership, and training. One key to successful collaboration that I’ve found to be important both in my research and personal experience working in teams is to have a team made up of individuals with complementary skills. Especially with the complex problems that we are trying to solve today, you need expertise in many different areas, and that’s just not possible for one person to hold.However, one challenge that you can find by working with people from different backgrounds, is that you might have different goals. For example, when I work with engineering professors, it’s more helpful for them to publish in engineering journals, whereas I’d prefer to publish in psychology journals.  To make sure that we can succeed in our collaboration, we have to make sure that we have goals that align. A great way to make both parties happy in this case is to search for an interdisciplinary journal, or make an agreement to focus on one person’s goal and then the others.

I’ve also found that my most successful collaborations are with those who share a passion toward the same goal. When one person clearly cares more about a project than the other, I’ve noticed that social loafing can sometimes occur. Social loafing is when a person on a team exerts less effort on a task in a group setting because others can pick up their slack. When this happens, it hurts the overall team and those who really care about the project might end up feeling really frustrated and in the worst-case scenario, decide to give up on the project as a whole. However, when you meet people who are equally passionate about the project, it helps build team morale and fosters creativity. The way that I’ve picked up on someone’s interest in a project is when I have an initial meeting with them over coffee to share research ideas and then we find ourselves bouncing ideas off each other and getting excited about a potential project to work on together. Collaborations that have started out that way have been my most enjoyable and successful collaborations.

I have had similar experiences when collaborating.  It is very interesting how a group of people often match each others level of enthusiasm for a project.  I have  experienced this going both ways; either motivated individuals are able to elevate the group leading to a successful collaboration or the loafers end up disrupting the project by lowering the standards for the whole group. 

Another aspect of collaboration that is often overlooked is working independently. In the past I have worked on projects that involved editing video with after effects.  It was great to be able to get feedback and ideas from teammates.  But at the end of day I preferred to do the editing independently because people often have very different approaches to how they organise a project file.  It made the process easier because I knew where everything was. At the end I could mentally keep track of what was completed and what was still unfinished.  So I think it is necessary to identify what parts of a project benefit from working in a group and what parts need to be broken up so individuals are better able to tackle them.  This supports Reyes point that groups of people with complementary skills are able to progress the most through collaboration. 

Hi everyone! My name is Nick Marsella. I live in New York City, and I am a graduate student at Juilliard studying Music Composition.

As a composer, I live and breathe collaboration. My work is completely dependent on it. And if there is anything I’ve learned about it, it’s that diversity is its fuel. At the foundation of their craft, before the notes that they write, I’m convinced that a composer’s role in music is to create the context for people to collaborate. Music may be the primary result of this work, but it is not the end of it. 

For example, if you watch any orchestra perform a Beethoven symphony, what you will likely see is around one hundred individual human beings from different countries, languages, and world-views working together despite their differences to accomplish that performance and invite us as the listeners to experience it with them. 

To take this example further, the music we hear certainly is something extraordinarily beautiful, but I would submit that even before a note is played, Beethoven’s actual role in that performance as composer was fulfilled when all of those different musicians gathered to collaborate in the first place. Listen carefully to the different instrumentalists and how different the timbre of each of their instruments is. The result of everyone’s work is an accomplishment that is just as much diverse as it is unified. And that is what I’ve observed real collaboration will always yield if it’s successful: a diversified unity in accomplishment.

Ed Catmull, in his book Creativity Inc, describes that when they were building Pixar’s campus, it was important to them that all employees from every department walked through a common intersection point on their way to and from their office. They designed the building to promote the intersection of differing viewpoints, because they know that people are relational and creative relationships that are diversified are much more effective than those that are not.

Going back to our example, if it was not for those musicians and their skillsets being so different, the performance we would have would be so much less exciting and much less interesting. This is why diversity is the fuel that collaboration thrives on. No matter how different the artists are from one another, it is that very difference that imbues strength and interest into the end result.

Nick brings up some very good points. I strongly agree that teams often perform better when they are composed of individuals from diverse backgrounds. As I’ve mentioned in a previous sound byte, our experiences are an incredible source for our creativity, and so when a team is comprised of individuals that share different experiences, then they can offer more creative input, which leads to greater ideas and actions.

While diversity is important, there are many other important criteria for a successful team. For example, as Nick described, a successful orchestra is composed of many talented individuals that each have a unique style or background that helps to add and improve upon the notes on the page. This is all made possible because musicians share a common language. Any classically trained musician whether they are from Sydney or South Africa can understand and collaborate with another musician because they both share a common language of music.

This is why it is important to understand that when collaborating with a team, you must be able to find a way to communicate effectively. Communicating does not end with a translator or learning a new language, but also being able to listen and respect those with different backgrounds. We’ve already talked about the importance of having diversity, but it is far more important to foster diversity. This can be done by recognizing and embracing our differences, while being mindful of not discouraging others to do the same. If a team can accomplish this, then I believe successful collaboration is sure to follow.

Hi, my name is Ameer Jumabhoy and I am the co-founder and head of Consumer Experience at UTU, the world’s first VAT refund and cross-border rewards app.

Today I am here to talk about the importance of collaboration within an organization, as I believe it is pivotal in enabling employees to brainstorm, innovate, work efficiently and effectively and make unified decisions. Being co-founder, my role at UTU is multi-faceted and involves me interacting with a variety of people throughout the day. Within the Consumer Experience department, my team and I work closely together when curating digital properties that are public facing such as our website and various apps, thus ensuring that we are on the same page and moving towards a common goal. This process ensures that we can identify potential problems earlier on and encounter fewer bumps down the road.

Collaboration is the driving force behind our greatest projects and is essential in ensuring all innovation is on the right track. Since I often have to consider how users interact and engage with our products, I work closely with the team that runs our social media accounts to brainstorm creative and novel ways to engage our customers. A collaborative environment also establishes better team relationships by creating more opportunities for our team members to feel comfortable in pitching fresh and unique ideas. For example, our Singapore team spontaneously came up with a UTU travel playlist on Spotify featuring music from countries all over the world and I truly believe it has been a fun and creative way to engage a wider consumer base.

Having offices in Singapore, Italy, Thailand and India means that we have an extremely diverse company culture with varied experiences, ideas and perspectives. When contemplating new ideas, the synergy between various international offices allows us to view suggestions through a different lens and come up with constructive feedback that supports our product development. I am particularly proud of our 100% refund initiative which restores tourists’ rights in claiming the full value of their refund as this is something that has not been done before and I truly believe it was a collaborative process that brought this product to life.

The travel tech industry is highly dynamic and is consistently evolving to accommodate new changes and develop products that save users time and money. I feel being a start-up is particularly advantageous as our small size allows us to coordinate and collaborate effectively across departments to develop solutions at a faster pace. This gives us the flexibility we need when times change, and products need to be adapted or developed. A good example of this is how we are responding to the Covid-19 pandemic by providing greater digitization and fewer physical touch points for tourists claiming their tax refunds in several European countries.

Collaboration in the workplace is critical in maximizing success. This process has pioneered our best ideas and has effectively fostered efficiency, innovation and growth which are essential factors in our growth as a company.

Thank you, Ameer, for sharing such wonderful insights.

I agree, and I believe that collaboration is ever most crucial today – how we engage in teams and as part of larger organizations greatly shape the development of, not only our common goals, but also of the relationships and people involved. I think the increasing desires for innovation and efficiency also further heightens our need for effective collaboration to make beneficial progress. 

Collaboration is often taught at school from a young age. We learn how to work with others – teamwork, collaboration. However, I think that more and more of it is lost as we grow older and more competitive through later years of school and into our careers. Your remarks on collaboration as the crux of a company’s growth and success reminds us that we should all strive for better collaboration to reach higher goals.   

Hello, my name is Vivas Kumar. I am currently an MBA student at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. However, before I became a graduate student, I worked for several years as a supply chain manager at Tesla, which is one of the world’s most innovative electric car companies. 

One of the reasons why I was compelled to submit this audio today was because I was asked to speak about the topic of collaboration, which is one of Longitude’s core values. And collaboration is something that goes hand in hand with solving a problem or a challenge that is as complex as the one that Tesla is solving.

Building a car is tremendously detailed and difficult challenge. We had to source thousands of parts from hundreds of suppliers from six continents in the world, in order to make our cars.  And this is true of every car company, or every company that is making a complex and highly engineered technology that is being used by people around the world every single day.

Whether it be the phones that we use to make our calls and run our lives, the planes that we use to get from location A to location B, or of course the cars such as those that we were putting out at Tesla.  The reason that collaboration matters so much is to me is because there is no one person that can be responsible for sourcing these thousands of parts or for building hundreds of thousands of cars that a factory like the Tesla factory put out.  Also important to note is the fact that our suppliers were spread out all over the world. Collaboration, keeping in mind the unique cultures of people whom we were working these geographies is very important.

The bedrock of this collaboration was communication. Communication, tactically via phone calls, and emails, but also most importantly, through in person interactions.  That, although may not have been asked frequent, because of the large geographic distances that separated us were very vital when they did happen.  Communicating needs and expectations, and desires, as well as our feelings about our work, and the importance of the mission of bringing sustainable energy to everybody was a core pillar upon which we operated as a company with our suppliers. It was inspiring to see suppliers get on board and want to collaborate with us due to the shared mission. And like I said, all of the tough challenges in engineering but also in society, in business, and law, can be boiled down to many groups of people who have similar and shared values, working together for a common good, and collaborating as teams, as companies, and potentially even as nations.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak about my experiences, and I look forward to seeing what Longitude program leaders do in the future.

After hearing Vivas’s insights on collaboration, I was instantly reminded of group projects that I had taken part in as a student. At the beginning of high school, I absolutely dreaded group projects, especially those in which I had to work with people whom I didn’t know too well. It was almost always difficult for me to get my own ideas across, to share my honest opinions about others’ ideas, to contribute meaningfully. Consequently, many of the group projects that I worked on often lead to a much different outcome than I had envisioned, causing me to wonder what would have happened had I simply spoken up, had I simply used my voice.

As time went on, I learned that passively allowing a new idea to replace or accompany an older one without fully discussing it was counterproductive. I realized that having a clear focus in mind, a shared mission as Vivas mentioned, perhaps, is essential to collaboration because it sheds light on what’s necessary at any given time. In other words, when everyone in a group aims towards the same target and is aware of that shared target, they gain a much better sense of what ideas are needed and what ideas can be modified. Collaboration is where communication, or lack thereof, can make or break work-in-progress. To achieve successful collaboration, everyone’s voice must be heard. 

By allowing thoughtful and transparent communication within collaborations, multiple ideas can coexist or better yet, improve upon each other and lead to achieving a common goal. After all, many goals, whether they revolve around finishing a group presentation for a class or releasing the next big social media app, are achieved through diligent and honest collaboration. All it takes is at least one idea, some careful analysis, and a voice.