K and P Chapter 9 - How Can We Effectively Foster Collaboration and Trust from the Middle?
Kouzes and Posner deliver another straightforward, approachable chapter with: Fostering Collaboration. The authors claim leaders who champion collaborative efforts reap heightened employee fulfillment and increased options for spurring corporate growth. This chapter discusses the main elements that need to be in place for stimulating collaborative success.
The authors assert that a working environment grounded in trust will allow individuals to feel respected, safe and more likely to offer new ideas. As a teacher, this is a value I understand and strive to model and provide for my students. Oddly, as an employee, I hadn’t given this much thought. Finance manager for Apple, Inc., Jill Cleveland recognized that “employees feel empowered when they feel important, especially in the eyes of others.� She added, “knowing that your work doesn’t go unnoticed builds accountability as well as pride� (223). If individuals do not trust their co-workers, they will be more likely to hold back and keep ideas to themselves. Reflecting on personal observations and experiences with professional peers, I believe that many past unsuccessful interactions and initiatives might have been averted had trust been grounded in the workplace.
In aspiring to create an environment of trust, leaders are asked to change imbedded behavior of employees and shift individual attitudes toward a shared and enlightened value system of the collective good. Trust. Listen attentively to others. Learn from others. Share resources. Be consistent and honest. Relinquish the individual drive of self-preservation first and refocus energy toward the “common good.� No one can dispute that these are certainly admirable ideas. Gandhi and Mother Theresa come to mind. I tried to imagine this socialist workplace of reciprocity where no individual was jockeying for a titled position, where no one took the ideas of their co-workers and claimed them as their own, where all smiles were genuine and all promises were kept. This working environment might easily have found office space in the movie, Pleasantville with Jim Carrey. These enlightened principles are at the core of many religions. So, will my boss find a quick recipe to inspire these intentions from his ‘followers’ that will trump the examples and teachings of Jesus and Buddha?
In previous chapters, I was able to draw valuable information that I could use to affect change from my non-titled position in the company. In this chapter, I concluded that I hold little influence in affecting behavior of the collective since I am not in a leadership position. K and P seem to narrow this chapter to an audience of positional leaders only. It’s not that I couldn’t attempt to model and follow attributes that the authors suggest, but the risk-to-benefit ratio seems in favor of risk, especially if I know that my company doesn’t identify trust as a school-wide value.
Two years ago, I volunteered to co-teach a class with a new hire. (I had previously been teaching the course topic for years.) This new instructor held his doctorate from an influential music school and the topic was one of his proclaimed specialties. Since I didn’t even hold a Masters degree, I was pleased that I wasn’t cut from teaching the class altogether and excited to collaborate and learn from a peer, especially one so highly regarded. Long story short, I taught and planned 90% of the classes while the co-instructor observed and occasionally corrected my grammar. When he did teach the class, he used class time explaining a software program that the students were already familiar with, the intro class for the software was a prerequisite for the class we were teaching. In an effort to encourage reciprocity (and some effort), I asked the new instructor to rewrite the midterm test. I gave him parts of several ‘sample tests’ that I had used in the past. I again reminded him of the new test days before the midterm. On the day of the midterm, in the hallway on the way to class, I asked the instructor if he needed me to make copies of the test he had written. He hadn’t written the test, citing some misunderstanding on my part. I scrambled to put together a test minutes before class. The new instructor offered no remorse or help. This was one example of many uncomfortable value conflicts with this instructor. At the end of the semester, the instructor spoke of the fun we had and asked if I’d like to do it again the following semester. I respectfully declined.
This experience with trust and reciprocity ‘taught’ me to withdraw and mistrust (at least with this individual). What can employees in non-leadership positions do to build trust without risking personal dignity and damage? Chapter nine doesn’t seem to address risks or alternatives for the non-titled leader (employee). Obviously, there are more individuals working under a hierarchical leader than there actual leaders. What can employees do when leaders who hold positions of power are short-sighted to pursue and name trust and collaboration as company values? What applicable suggestions could support non-titled employees toward the Kouzes and Posner ideals in creating a stronger collective movement toward trust and collaboration in the workplace?
Liz Kuivinen
Comments
Liz - I wonder what steps could have fostered more trust and collaboration between you and your teaching partner to avoid the "misunderstanding" about the class responsibilities. Did this person and you have meetings outside the class where you spoke freely and worked together on the syllabus? Did you ask for feedback and for the opportunity to provide feedback in a respectful environment? What happened to make you withdraw? Why did you think your dignity was at risk? You were the senior teacher and your experience was important to the success of your students. Was his academic pedigree somehow used to intimidate you?
I'm thinking that the initial set-up with this person was fraught with power issues and they were the "elephant in the room" going forward. Next time, I'd include a purely social interaction in the early stages of a collaboration. Share a meal, share some personal information, build an environment of mutual appreciation. Something was missing from the start in this case, I think. Perhaps what was missing was the "shared vision" of class outcomes on behalf of your students. Putting the focus on the mission neutralizes a lot of the political/power "stuff" and moves the agenda forward.
How unfortunate for you to be so uncomfortable that you were not able to continue to teach together. -- nan
Posted by: Nan Jahnke | March 8, 2008 12:46 PM
Liz, your experience is a prime example of how group 'projects' many times become weighted on the shoulders of one or even the remainder of the group when one member doesn't perform. It is a key reason I so strongly dislike group projects and prefer to proceed on my own. Perhaps (she says hesitantly) there have been times that I've wanted to shine on my own merits or just wanted to avoid looking bad if one or some of the group members didn't do their part, thus contributing to a failed outcome. But I've had many group experiences that have found me doing the majority of the work, leaving me frustrated and angry.
Perhaps the key is to confront (which many of us avoid because it makes us uncomfortable), but in a respectful way (making it non-confrontational, actually). Producing a win-win is the goal: it's called assertiveness.
Becoming assertive means approaching the "slacker" as soon as it is felt that he isn't living up to expected responsibilities (in this case, teaching 50% of the course). If put off, it only becomes more difficult to approach. I think it's imperative to feel confident in your own abilities first so that the discussion is about the mission rather than his failure to perform. Keeping the tone "I feel" and "we should" rather than "you" also helps keep the right tone.
It's so easy to give advice, isn't it? When we find ourselves in similar positions, however, it becomes difficult to follow what we ourselves know to be the best way to handle things.
Posted by: Cheri Ptacek | March 8, 2008 03:32 PM
Liz,
Great story and example. Thank you for being willing to share. As a former teacher, I was wondering some of the same things that you talked about while I was reading this chapter. Many of these things (collaborating in others, trusting, fostering relationships) don't always happen in schools because the leadership either doesn't know how or doesn't foster it.
Teachers get used to being fairly autonomous in their own classroom and although they are great with students, they withdraw from their colleagues- often for the same reasons you have, Liz. I think it is important to have someone at the top pushing those ideas and modeling that behavior of sharing and that working together is more than saying hi at the copying machine. Collaboration in schools should be paramount and needs to be a skill looked for when hiring people- not just credentials. (knowledge does not equal teaching and relating ability)
Because of where I work currently, I was most struck by the part about creating a climate of trust: "individuals who are unable to trust others fail to become leaders, precisely because they can't bear to be dependent on the work and words of others." and "be the first to trust" and "the more people feel trusted the better they innovate." If your "leaders" are not great at trusting others, it is difficult to find ways to do this yourself in your work place. Feeling untrusted creates negative feelings, even if that mistrust is communicated in very small ways.
Posted by: Kristin Farrell | March 9, 2008 01:05 PM
Nan,
Thank you feedback!
One drawback of telling a story, in one (long) paragraph, is that I only communicate the highlights. Maybe asking for advice was unfair. The readers in this class were not given all the details of the story. (I’ll remember this in the future.) There were some assumptions made about this situation.
Now, I find myself in a quandry. If I address, what I believe, to be assumptions in your posting, I'll sound defensive and only do more 'finger-pointing' of my co-instructor to clarify my position. K and P 'teaches us' this is not the enlightened way. I understand the idea.
So, you know half of the story and I will choose not to do more 'finger-pointing.' What would K and P tell us to do now?
Posted by: Liz Kuivinen | March 9, 2008 04:02 PM
Cheri, you make a good point in suggesting to use 'we' over 'I' in conversations. I’m sure I didn’t use ‘we ‘ enough when the co-instructor and I discussed the class we were teaching. This may have been part of the problem.
You mentioned: “Producing a win-win is the goal: it’s called assertiveness.� Wow, okay. I believe I was assertive. (I understand I'm sounding defensive - but, I was not intimidated by this instructor, I spoke my mind. We disagreed on several points.) If I was ‘aggressive,’ I may have lost my job.
You also mentioned: “I think it's imperative to feel confident in your own abilities first so that the discussion is about the mission rather than his failure to perform.� Please let me clarify: I was (and am) very confident in my own abilities. And yes, I was 'finger-pointing' in my post. Yes, this is petty on my part. I should've approached the story from a K and P perspective - on how I could've handled the situation.
Posted by: Liz kuivinen | March 9, 2008 04:16 PM
I work in a department that has what I would describe as low but improving trust among the employees, the employees to the leadership, and the leadership to the employees. While I am not in an official leadership role within my department, I was recently enlisted by my supervisor to head up a committee to establish a sustainability/"green" program within my department. That was an action of trust on the part of my supervisor in me, and I have to say, I did feel more respected and encouraged (at least by my supervisor) to offer up new ideas .
I am one of the youngest members of my department and the committee, by at least 15 years. The first few meetings were painful for me. I planned, I prepped, and I was nervous. The trust right off the bat among the employees was not great. Some seemed to be upset that I was chairing the committee, others seemed somewhat intimidated by the idea, and many seemed to be skeptical of my abilities. In any case, I tried to counter that by setting the first few agendas with no input from anyone else in the committee in an attempt to exhibit my abilities and create trust. I talked incessantly (out of nervousness) and left no space for others to offer input. When I finally did shut up, everyone would just stare at me blankly. I wasn't intentionally preventing trust from forming within the committee, but after reading K & P, I realized my fear and mistrust in the situation was preventing exactly what I wanted to engender. I wanted trust! I wanted collaboration!
Happy to say, the last few meetings have been much better. I began asking questions and getting opinions of the group members, both during the meetings and on an informal basis outside of the meetings. I was always legitimately interested in what they thought and had to offer, but the way I was operating did not facilitate that response. Now, they seem to have more trust in me. We are beginning to laugh together, joke together, and collaborate. People are beginning to volunteer their resources more willingly. I'm getting excited about what we can achieve, and others are too. It's somewhat amazing how little effort it took to begin engendering that trust and start turning things around. I think people are hungry to trust, they want to participate in meaningful opportunities for growth and change, both for their own benefit and benefit of the common good. Establishing trust, in my case, seems to be having a 'snowball' effect, and right now at least, that is thrilling.
Posted by: Nick Deffley | March 11, 2008 06:23 PM