Collaboration

“Getting on the same wavelength” is more than a common metaphor for collaboration.

 

Collaborative teams literally are on the same wavelength. 

 

Brain scanning shows people working together as collaborative teams become neurally synchronous – their brainwaves align – whereas collections of individuals working on the same tasks and challenges do not. 

 

Synchrony leads to synergy. Being on the same wavelength promotes communication, cooperation, innovation and problem-solving. Outcomes and ideas that emerge from the collaboration of diverse skills, experiences and perspectives are greater than the sum of individual contributions. 

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Collaboration entails a fair and open exchange of ideas in service of shared purpose. It cannot be forced and it’s impossible in the absence of trust.

 

Trust is a requisite of collaboration because our brains construe the collaborative environment as a social one. 

 

Social connection is a core human need, so we are keenly attuned to its threats and rewards in our interactions with others. We tend to ‘move away’ from threats and ‘move towards’ rewards. 

 

Much of this happens beneath the level of our conscious awareness. However, once social threats are detected, task thinking goes ‘offline’, taking with it our ability to focus, plan, compare, decide and create with dire implications for collaboration.

 

The conditions for collaboration are mostly shaped by the words we use, particularly the values they encode, the emotions they evoke and the meanings they entail. 

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Collaborate comes from the Latin collaborare, ‘to work together’. It is composed of col (together) + laborare (to work).

 

Working together is a deeply ingrained cognitive practice expressed and understood through language. It’s a pervasive and enduring theme of proverbs, idioms and metaphors. For example:

• “Two heads are better than one.”

• “Let’s join forces.”

• “Put our heads together.”

• “Sing from the same song sheet.”

• “Many hands make light work.” 

• “A problem shared is a problem halved.”

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Cooperation and collaboration have driven our species’ evolutionary success for millennia, yet in recent times, these natural processes and practices have become obscured by the opposing forces of competition and individualism. 

 

Consider the pervasiveness of competition and individualism against the keystone finding of Harvard Medical School’s longitudinal study of Adult Development, now in its 85th year. This study distills the essence of a good life into, “being engaged in activities I care about with people I care about”. 

 

If working with others on things that matter is the key to a good life, then meaningful, collaborative changemaking must be a powerful elixir. 

 

Again, we can turn to contemporary neuroscience to learn more about the biological benefits of collaboration. The brain's bonding and reward systems are activated during positive collaborative experiences prompting neurochemical changes that enhance focus, creativity, motivation and cooperation. Remember, we 'move towards' such rewards. Positive associations with collaboration are then reinforced through feedback loops.

 

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How can changemakers create the conditions for collaboration?

 

As a guiding philosophy, think about getting people on the same wavelength. Imagine diverse collective brainwaves synchronising through shared purpose, values and understanding. 

 

Scale up. Extend the notion of collaborators beyond your immediate team to encompass your audiences and communities of change. Regarding everyone involved in the change you seek to make as collaborators shifts the way you perceive and interact with audiences, partners and stakeholders.

 

Given you ultimately want to change hearts, minds and actions pay particular attention to the impact of messaging and framing choices on how people feel, think and act. Do these choices promote or compromise collaboration?

 

Starting messages with widely shared values emphasises what we have in common, rather than our differences. This provides fertile ground for collaboration. 

 

Framing choices that emphasise care, connection and curiosity prime optimistic, creative and cooperative mindsets, orientating us towards the possibilities in change together. 

 

Further, values with a ‘greater good’, social or collective motivational focus, such as kindness, social justice, responsibility, and environmental stewardship, fosters creative solution-seeking mindsets. This type of generous and generative big-picture thinking is needed for positive long-term collaborative changemaking.

 

Conversely, framing choices that foreground fear, guilt and other threats to connection, activate individualistic mindsets and short-term thinking because we become focused on threats instead of rewards. Threats signal us to ‘move away’, both physically and psychologically. This leaves us unable to collaborate or innovate and thus the status quo prevails.

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As changemakers, our goal is to get people ‘on the same wavelength’, be they our immediate team or our broader partners and collaborators in change.

 

Merging the energy and potential of diverse individual brainwaves into the collective force of synchronised collaboration, both fulfills a shared human need for meaningful connection and creates a powerful and enduring force for system change.

 

Go deeper

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Castañer, X., & Oliveira, N. (2020). Collaboration, coordination, and cooperation among organizations: Establishing the distinctive meanings of these terms through a systematic literature review. Journal of Management, 46(6), 965-1001.

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Coan, J. A., & Sbarra, D. A. (2015). Social baseline theory: The social regulation of risk and effort. Current Opinion in Psychology, 1, 87-91.

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Eisenberger, N. I. (2011). Broken hearts and broken bones: A neural perspective on the similarities between social and physical pain. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(1), 42–47.

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Léné, P., Karran, A. J., Labonté-Lemoyne, E., Sénécal, S., Fredette, M., Johnson, K. J., & Léger, P. M. (2021). Is there collaboration specific neurophysiological activation during collaborative task activity? An analysis of brain responses using electroencephalography and hyperscanning. Brain and Behavior, 11(11), 2270. 

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Reinero, D. A., Dikker, S., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2021). Inter-brain synchrony in teams predicts collective performance. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 16(1-2), 43–57.

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Rock, D. (2009). Your brain at work: Strategies for overcoming distraction, regaining focus, and working smarter all day long. HarperCollins.

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Shirom, A., Toker, S., Alkaly, Y., Jacobson, O., & Balicer, R. (2011). Work-based predictors of mortality: A 20-year follow-up of healthy employees. Health Psychology, 30(3), 268-275.

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Waldinger, R. J., & Schulz, M. S. (2023). The Good Life: Lessons from the world's longest scientific study of happiness. Simon & Schuster.

 

© Trudi Ryan, Words for Change

wordsforchange.com.au/collaboration