Part One: Focus on “Strengths”
Starting a new collaborative effort means getting to know each individual’s strengths (the ways that person excels). Listening and watching for what excites an individual can provide powerful clues to his/her unique abilities and interests. Often friends or colleagues can offer useful insights as well.

After identifying individual strengths, we determine what the student group, as a whole, is good at. Are many members good at the same things?  That’s where the group’s success will lie. Do members have varying talents? Then the group’s success may mean fusing their strengths into something new.

Part Two: Share the Power
Once a group begins working from collective strengths, it is important to foster shared power. Students find it useful to determine- ahead of time- how they will work together when issues arise. This involves recognizing who has well-developed communication skills and can encourage others to contribute when things get tough. It also involves deciding in advance how conflicts will be managed- through compromise, reframing, voting or what? When people share equal power- not just at the beginning but throughout the collaboration- they are more apt to freely contribute their resources and gifts to create a real win-win.

Part Three: Approach challenges with a positive “learning focus”
When challenges arise, and they always do, I encourage a positive, “learning focus.”  No matter what happens, there is always a way to learn something new. This approach may not come naturally; today’s students are not used to persisting when their vision gets clouded. But, if their work stops, they lose a valuable chance to learn. That’s why emphasizing a “learning focus” becomes critical.

Collaboration in Action
One semester my students worked with a local nonprofit to design a new brochure. The students were excited about creating something innovative. But the community partner wanted a brochure like those from the past. It seemed there was an impasse- the community partner wouldn’t give in and the students grew discouraged. The challenge: break the collaboration or learn. Fortunately, the students persisted.

Their solution? They made two brochures and let the community partner decide which one to use. The students learned, produced some great samples for their portfolios, and the community partner got the unexpected benefit of two brochures.

Celebrate Successes
These out-of-classroom experiences are gratifying for me and eye opening for students. It’s rewarding to see them recognize their strengths, develop ways to share power, and cultivate a “learning focus.” I know their collaborative work gives them important leadership tools for the future. That’s something to celebrate- and we do!

Photo from www.sxc.hu.

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In my training as a business coach, I was fascinated to learn a term for the space between where you are and where you want to be: edge.

Two examples in my manual are:

1. Trying on a new idea or perspective.
2. Being a shy person and choosing to speak up.

I certainly know the feeling and suspect you do, too. That’s where the word edgy comes up – that uncomfortable place between who you are now and who you’d like to become.

The illustration in one of my coaching manuals describing this scenario as an upside-down V.  Over the holidays I received a delightful holiday card from my friend and colleague bearing an illustration by her son. It was actually a more memorable representation than the one in my fancy notebook, illustrating the unstable and scary place between those worlds. There’s the “skier” whose primary identity (shy person) is on the left. The secondary identity (one who speaks up) is on the right and an arrow crossing the peak of the V pointing from the primary to the secondary. When we’re poised on the top of that mountain, it’s a tenuous place.

I have a fairly successful track record, but there are still times when I find myself terrified when a new challenge comes my way. Part of my success has come from consistently looking for higher bars to vault over.

My recommendation for those of you “on the edge” is to break intimidating tasks into their tiniest fragments. Basically the way to overcome fear boils down to writing a letter, dialing the phone or putting a higher sticker price on your product or service. More often than not, what terrifies me and a lot of other people, is the anticipation before you do something and the fear that comes afterward. Actually doing the thing you are afraid of is often the easy part. Go for it!

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Then one day, I got up the courage to go to the dictionary.  The definition of humility I like the best is “a lack of false pride.”  These words gave me permission to see I didn’t have to be better than anyone else.  More difficult to swallow at first was that no one had to be worse than me. All of that was false pride.   If I could start my meeting assuming we were all on equal footing – coming to the table with individual talents and no answers, things got easier and I seemed to become for myself and others, a more delightful person to be with.

Here’s a tip I use to prep for meetings now that makes me feel empowered and no less or more powerful than anyone else:  I concentrate on what I most want to give to this client, or group.  What in my heart of heart do I know is MINE to give – my gifts.   I give very little thought to what I want to get.   I listen for what others have to give as if I am being given the best they have to give and that collectively we’ll come up with the solutions and answers we need.  In the end, I feel I have played “my part” and I am a “part of” the whole.  It is always personally satisfying.  The results are usually terrific.  It makes me happy.  After all, what I am looking truly for is all the joy I can experience.  I love the whole pie.  I’m no longer so interested in just accepting crumbs.

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