Seven Collaboration Skills
In which we talk about seven essential skills that are key to any collaborative enterprise. And about tropical marine biology expeditions.
There are as many ways to collaborate effectively as there are successful collaborations. I know, I know: what a profound statement! Truly, the wisdom of a sage.
But all kidding aside, it is true that every collaboration project, from theatre production to online conference, have similar strokes: effective planning, sound communication channels, awareness of limitations, efficient and clever use of resources, to name a few. It is equally true that collaboration is a very specific and contextual exercise as not two partnerships are the same. Technological, linguistic, international and, hell, even cultural barriers have different variants of difficulty depending on the specifics of the project. Everything’s dandy if everybody speaks the same language at the same table, but what if half the team is not a native-speaker, or some are collaborating at a distance, and what if your team leader is not a technical expert but everyone else is? What about time zone differences, or the long process of figuring out how different art forms or managerial styles or even people can work together without setting the world ablaze. Oh, I can tell you stories of trying to get artists with different mediums to play nice while setting up collaborative exhibitions and the headaches therein! Egos are worse than a caltrop on an autobahn.
My point is that every person who is thinking of setting up a creative collaboration project has to take into account that awkward phase a friend of mine calls the “What is this (gestures broadly) thing” phase. This (gestures broadly) phase is obviously informed by previous experience, successful past creative collaborations and non-creative projects. As such, we’re never really going in blind into a new collaborative enterprise. After all humans do naturally find a way to collaborate, even if the result may lack any immediate (or, as is the case, millennia later) meaning. Just look at Stonehenge.
Some years ago I was asked to join in the O’Dea Lab of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on an eight-day trip on a sailing boat around Coiba Island National Park in the Pacific coast of Panama. I was the scientific expedition’s official illustrator, capturing and documenting life on the boat and the arduous project of getting ancient DNA coral reef material. That’s been the most collaborative enterprise I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Twelve people trying to hammer 10-meter-long aluminium pipes into the seabed, by hand, without scuba gear, and then pull them out with a lot of rope, muscle, and the promise of a delicious meal at the end of the day. Now that was a decentralized collaborative enterprise.
So here are some general things I’ve personally learned from working with scientists on field work, as well as through the long process of science communication.
Cards on the table from the very beginning. If you have a goal in mind, communicate what it is. You have specific things you will not do for all the fake money in the world? Say it at the first opportunity. It is not possible to sort everything out at first, but the idea is that everyone should, if not on the same paragraph, at the very least, be on the same page. If your project has several people involved, having them think in a similar direction but through different routes can lead to insights that improve the results, without draining energy in a non-constructive way.
Physical time is invaluable. While digital and online tools allow us to keep collaborating even with oceans in the way, my experience is that nothing beats spending a couple of intense days in someone else’s workspace to come up with great ideas. I’d recommend any team starting a collaboration to try to have a physical ideation phase as early as possible and make it as intense as you can.
Early on, nothing is too crazy an idea. The creative process is sometimes about finding out what doesn’t work. Throw everything at that wall, some things will stay on to the end, others will be like some of those sticky 90s toys that stay up there on the ceiling for up to a year before they come down, all slimy and dusty. If the idea shatters on impact, then you may be glad it did now and not once it had become a load-bearing essential part of the project.
Your partner may not understand what it is you do. And that’s okay. We’re all specialists, of course. But this will lead to particular communication issues, especially if one teammate or the other ploughs along because they know what must be done, but others are not on the same level. To this, I recommend keeping a record of actions and always, always, informing other people of what you are doing. Think of it as waiting in an airport for the information screens to tell you at what time and which gate your flight’s going to be at. If the board says “Coming soon” you’ll be frustrated; but if it also gives you a time for when to expect information, you’ll be able to dedicate mental energy for other pursuits.
It will take longer than you initially thought. Like walking through a field you thought empty, but suddenly being besieged by a bunch of lapwings; a short stroll turns into a protracted effort of trying to flat away unexpected interruptions that may or may not feel like they require immediate attention. (This actually happened to me once). My rule of thumb is that if I think it’ll take two weeks, I add an extra one just to be save. Better to deliver a week early than two weeks late.
Sometimes collaboration takes a long time to happen. Even if we have the perfect idea and the desire to work together, the conditions may not manifest for many a year. This is disheartening, especially if your collaborators or team starts to drift away. But the added time is an opportunity to explore ideas, maintain contact, and develop a deeper, meaningful relationship. The more time you spent getting to know each other will increase the chances of success of future collaborations.
Repeat what they said back at them. Where two collaborators or more are not part of the same industry or sector, the best way to ensure that everyone’s on the same page, in my opinion, is by constantly iterating on knowledge. Which requires two main things: honesty and self-awareness. For example, when a biologist starts talking to me about “trophic levels” I have to stop them and say “you mean a food web?”, which makes them reconsider the language they’re using to communicate with me, but also opens up an opportunity for mutual understanding: I learn a bit more about the language they use, and they learn a bit more about how I understand their subject matter. Getting them to draw their ideas on napkins is the next level version of this.
I could keep going and going about what I’ve experienced when working with researchers, and the conversations I’ve had to have about how there is no such thing as “general public”, but this whole piece is already longer than a cigarette break.
Next time, I’ll be investigating a real-life collaborative project.