Easier Ways to Success Through Collaboration

To collaborate or not to collaborate, that is the question. Or, should this ever be a question when provided the opportunity? It only makes sense to share ideas, split workloads, and assign expertise to given parts of a project in order to more easily and effectively accomplish a project. These ideas were expounded upon in a talk that Howard Rheingold gave on the website ted.com. He explains that we are coming to an age where “cooperation, collective action, and complex interdependencies” play a more important role than competition in order to achieve success. Our society has been transformed in a way to view competition as the best way to display success, however this needs to change to better accomplish the challenges that we face today. Howard explains that humans have always collaborated to accomplish feats throughout history. He quickly walked through our history and discussed our collective action along the way. He poses a great idea through explaining that we imprison ourselves, but we have the unique ability to overcome this imprisonment by banding together to create new ideas which will lead us in new directions. Please check out his talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html

My first experience with success through collaboration was while working with a Wrap Around service in Pennsylvania. Here, we organized teams to aid children in overcoming their disabilities. The teams consisted of a child client, his/her family members/caregivers, a behavior specialist, a mobile therapist, a therapeutic aid, and often times, teachers and staff from his/her school. The team would meet and decide the best plan for everyone to follow for the child to have the proper supports to ensure success. This collaboration of multiple circles of supports ensured that everyone followed the same plan and provided consistent aid to the child throughout his/her day. This type of collaboration was necessary to ensure consistency throughout all of the child’s environments.

Collaboration has everything to do with community work. Like Howard Rheingold says, humans have always collaborated throughout history to accomplish large tasks and lies at the very basis in forming a community where tasks are divided amongst members in order to assemble a working system. When there are large systems to navigate, independence and competition create deterrents from the system’s ability to flow. Also, when collaboration is formed, expertise can be allocated to many different tasks to ensure higher quality work.

My learning of collaboration as a function of community work is being reinforced by several projects that I am currently involved with. One of which involves the creation of a transition book to address concerns that families of children with special needs may have as they are about to enter the regular school system. This is a product that parents have requested and the local Office of Education has formed a collaborative with members from its Special Education Department, the local Regional Center, and the local chapter of First Five. This team has also decided to invite families to provide their input towards the book as well. This is a great example of how a well rounded product can be produced by incorporating the collaboration of multiple systems’ ideas of readiness for school transition.

So, when one has the ability to cooperate with others to accomplish a given task, it should always be viewed as advantageous. As, collaboration creates an easier and more effective path to success.