Beth Tener on working together

If you want to arrive at a shared vision and a plan that integrates and builds on the breadth and depth of expertise and perspectives of the group, it has to be developed together. The challenge is that in order to get to that, there is a time early on where you have to bring everyone together without a clear vision or clear plan. But wow, is this territory uncomfortable for people! ¹

For collaboration to work, one has to be willing to enter uncomfortable territory of not having the answer. People can feel it when they are asked to collaborate but the plans and answers are already determined. … Real collaboration enables us to develop ideas and solutions that could only emerge from this combination of people thinking and working together. … We need to make sense of the landscape and needs, drawing on as many perspectives as we can, and then create and try various actions, learning and reflecting as we go. ²

Here are some of the ways … how to work in this uncomfortable territory of not having a clear answer or plan:
• Name the discomfort
• See it as ‘iterative design’
• Frame strategic questions
• Appreciate the value of the mystery
• Cultivate patience
• Meditate
• Orient people to working in this different way ³

Notes:
¹ Beth Tener, NAVIGATING UNCERTAINTY TO GAIN THE REAL VALUE OF COLLABORATION, PART 1, 4 April 2016. (Accessed 16 April 2016)
² Ibid., PART 2, 7 April 2016. (Accessed 16 April 2016)
³ Ibid., PART 3, 11 April 2016. (Accessed 16 April 2016)