The
Collaborative Leader
Primus inter pares
Department of Recreation Administration
California State University, Fresno
Volume 2, Issue 4
March 2011
If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. John F. Kennedy
On the E.D.G.E.
We have a new element on the E.D.G.E. Challenge Course—a 12 foot wall. Undoubtedly the most challenging
activity on our course; we will be employing it sparingly over the next few months to gauge what will make it
an appropriate challenge for the variety of groups we serve. Read more…
Grit v. Breakthrough
Collaboration takes patience with wins rarely in clear evidence. Instead, incremental progress is the norm
with clear victories seldom achieved. A recent article in Fast Company discusses the psychological importance
of grit in contrast with hard work. Read more…
Why Teams?
In a newsletter on collaboration you might expect a significant bias toward teamwork. However, most of us
possess such keen aversions to meeting for meeting’s sake that creating a team must serve a well thought out
purpose and outcome. Prior to establishing a team, you should first take careful consideration into its
ultimate purpose. Read more…
Questioning our Questions
An eight year old answered the door. A salesperson asked “Is your mother home?” The boy said “yes” and
closed the door. Frustrated, the salesperson rang the doorbell again and asked “why did you close the door
after I asked whether your mother is home?” Read more…
Resources
High Performance Teams website is a great resource. What are the attributes of high performance teams?
Typically we focus on why teams fail. It certainly seems a more proactive approach to ask: “Why do some
1
teams succeed.” This resource is far from exhaustive but I liked their observations such as 75% of the work
will get done in the last 25% of the time.
The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies
by Scott E. Page (ISBN13: 978-0-691-12838-2, 448 pp.) is a very thorough assessment of the value of
cognitive diversity and how it typically trumps ability. If reading the entire tome seems daunting, I
recommend the first and final two chapters (the epilogue has some excellent insights for practical
application).
Desktop Initiative
Initiative is the term given to experiential problem solving activities traditionally presented to teams on
challenge courses. To challenge you, each newsletter will include a Desktop Initiative. The first person or
team to send in the correct answer will win a prize ($25.00 value). Send your answer to L-Jay Fine at
larryf@csufresno.edu. The winner will be announced in the next newsletter. Read more…
Full Articles
On the E.D.G.E. by L-Jay Fine
We have a new element on the E.D.G.E. Challenge Course—a 12 foot wall. Undoubtedly the most challenging
activity on our course; we will be employing it sparingly over the next few months to gauge what will make it
an appropriate challenge for the variety of groups we serve. We broke it in last Saturday (perhaps an
unfortunate selection of words) with the facility based adventure training class, RA 106. This turned into a
remarkable team of future facilitators and both Ryan and I are excited about new recruits.
In other news, Dr. Mitzi Lowe and I will be conducting a training in Collaborative Leadership on March 25 th in
Mariposa County. The grant has specific wording on collaborative leadership which was nice to see.
Ryan Soares and I returned recently from the Association for Challenge Course Technology Conference in
Minneapolis (negative eight degrees!). We both left with a fount of new ideas and inspiration. The field of
team development is maturing rapidly and so much wonderful material is available to bring out the best in
teams.
Thanks, again, to Dr. Nancy Nisbett for sharing her editing skills. For those who think these articles are poorly
written, you should have seen them before her review….
Grit v. Breakthrough
Collaboration takes patience with wins rarely in clear evidence. Instead, incremental progress is the norm
with clear victories seldom achieved. A recent article in Fast Company discusses the psychological importance
of grit in contrast with hard work. The authors use an example of a prisoner who devises a new escape plan
monthly in contrast with the one who spoons out a tunnel—the latter exhibiting grit. But more than a turtle
versus hare scenario, grit is a characteristic identified by a level of determination and perseverance focused on
a single and, sometimes, myopic outcome. Grit has proven to be a valid predictor of success, even trumping
2
creativity. This point can’t be overemphasized. In today’s fast pace world we tend to celebrate breakthroughs
and overnight successes. Companies are forced into quarterly profits and organizations must demonstrate
short term results through various obscure metrics. Certainly measurable outcomes are critical but in a
collaborative situation these benchmarks can also be discouraging. Big challenges take a lot of time, effort,
and multiple approaches. Consider the challenges with reducing tobacco use or stemming the obesity
epidemic. These challenges require unwavering dedication to small forward movements. There was once an
emeritus professor who was asked how he was going to spend his golden years. He replied: “I’m going to
solve the homelessness problem.” A laudable goal but when asked whether this was practical he again replied
that he had “a 200 year plan.” That’s true grit.
Why Teams?
In a newsletter on collaboration you might expect a significant bias toward teamwork. However, most of us
possess such keen aversions to meeting for meeting’s sake that creating a team must serve a well thought out
purpose and outcome. Prior to establishing a team, you should first take careful consideration into its
ultimate purpose. Scott Page, the author of The Difference, writes that the underlining reasons to establish a
team fall into one of these three domains: problem solving, prediction, and information aggregation (p. xxii).
Problem solving teams are formed when innovation and creativity from a diversity of knowledge, skills, and
abilities is needed to find unique solutions. Prediction refers to the ability of teams to foresee success in areas
such as job applicants, trends or business cycles. Information aggregation is best performed by teams
because the collective intelligence of team members will more likely identify patterns and insights than
individuals.
Once you have established the purpose of the team you will need to select members. Typically, collaborative
leaders identify appropriate stakeholders based on their interest and influence. The value of this is
paramount. Nonetheless, there are other factors which should be considered in the team make-up. Having
cognitive diversity, multiple perspectives rendered from differences in training, experiences, and abilities, will
facilitate synergies better than teams made up largely of homogeneous members. Cognitive diversity should
not be confused with identity diversity. Identity diversity, ones identification to race, religion, political party,
occupation title, often leads to initial turf protections and squabbles; tensions with cognitive diversity tend to
be less intense because the collective goal trumps individual differences. Certainly, having a team reflective of
the population it is serving must be a primary consideration. Successful collaborative leaders can alleviate
tensions by focusing members on their interests instead of positions (a topic to be addressed in a future
article).
Because of the challenges in creating the right mix in a collaboration or team—cognitive diversity, reflective of
the population served, and the appropriate stakeholders--you should be certain that collaboration is essential
to solving your challenges. As all encompassing as problem solving, prediction, and information aggregation
might be, there will be times when consultation, cooperation, and coordination will be far more efficient and
effective than collaboration.
Questioning our Questions
An eight year old answered the door. A salesperson asked “Is your mother home?” The boy said “yes” and
closed the door. Frustrated, the salesperson rang the doorbell again and asked “why did you close the door
after I asked whether your mother is home?” The boy said, “My mother is home but I don’t live here.”
Effective leaders have learned that powerful questions can serve as a keystone to their influence.
3
Unfortunately, poorly formulated questions cannot only obfuscate the situation but can occasionally be used
as a weapon which can lay the collaborative process to ruin. Lawyers might find this type of questioning
useful in the courtroom but not in a problem-solving collaborative situation. Former Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld was renowned for attacking subordinates through his questioning. When questions subvert
to interrogation than the collaborative process is null and void. Instead, the effective collaborative leader
seeks to create a dialogue through a well thought-out line of questions.
At our disposal are five types of questions: memory, translation, interpretation, application and analysis.
Each of these has value but certainly the latter ones delve more into higher level problem solving. Memory
focuses on facts whereas translation provides an opportunity to mitigate confusion (a leading cause of
problems in collaborations is the lack of a shared language). One caveat with these is to avoid the “what am I
thinking” type of questions. In such cases asking questions can be more a crutch than a facilitation tool.
Interpretation questions have team members compare and contrast a series of facts or find similarities.
Application requires the team members to put their insights into a real life situation such as creating scenarios
or rapid prototyping. Analysis asks the team to assimilate all the facts into general principles or concepts. The
following are examples of the five types of questions.
Memory: “What are the names of the stakeholders who will have the most influence on our project?
Translation: “Juan, how would you describe the problem Sam has identified in your own words?”
Interpretation: “Are there any parallels to the solution in Merced County with the one in ours?”
Application: “What steps could we take to get children more active based on the research we just reviewed?”
Analysis: “After hearing all the problems each stakeholder has experienced in dealing with the truancy
problem what can we identify as the underlining issue?”
Collaborative leaders and facilitators adept at questioning usually prepare by writing their questions in
advance. After asking a question wait several seconds to allow members an opportunity to think. Silence can
be intimidating but allow members a chance to formulate their replies.
Responding to a question is equally important. “Did I answer your question?” is a polite way to acknowledge
someone. Also, a simple technique to allay a team member’s fear of asking “stupid” questions is to ask:
“What are your questions?” Simply presupposing that they have questions will encourage more people to
speak up.
Some recent thinking on problem solving suggests that the first thing a team should do is to identify the
question your group is targeting. Most teams dive into generating solutions before they have a good question
in mind. A question can serve as a mission statement, what you are about. Questions can also guide the
process.
Moral: Ask the wrong question and get the wrong answer. The same is true for the adage: Ask old questions
and get old answers.
Any questions? (Or what are your questions?)
4
Desktop Initiative
Initiative is the term given to experiential problem solving activities traditionally presented to teams on
challenge courses. To challenge you, each newsletter will include a Desktop Initiative. The first person or
team to send in the correct answer will win a prize ($25.00 value). Send your answer to L-Jay Fine at
larryf@csufresno.edu. The winner will be announced in the next newsletter.
Last Month’s Desktop Initiative Solution
In this exercise of linear thinking (convergent), how many triangles can you find? The answer is 38. I use this
exercise to contrast linear (convergent) with non-linear (divergent) thinking. Convergent problems have clear
answers and require a general assessment of the problem and a level of analysis. Collaborative leaders will
more often be confronted with problems requiring creative solutions and rely on divergent thinkers but that
should not exclude convergent solutions which are often the most logical and reasonable. There’s the saying:
When you hear hoof beats outside your door, don’t assume zebras.
This Month’s Desktop Initiative
15 Pennies
Picture fifteen pennies (or any objects) laid out in a row (as below).
Your goal is to force your opponent to take the last penny. On your turn, you can take one to three pennies at
a time (and your opponent can do the same). If you went first, how many pennies would you take to assure
that you could win? Can you explain your answer? This exercise illustrates the importance of knowledge
sharing and the pitfalls of knowledge withholding. When you figure out the answer it will appear obvious.
However, not knowing the solution forces us to struggle and feel “out of the loop.” Keeping your team
members apprised of the latest information is an important task for the collaborative leader.
Primus inter pares: Latin for first among equals.
5