Group Contract Memo COLLABORATION

Emily Eldridge's View on Collaboration

In her presentation, "Why Collaboration is an Individual Effort," Emily Eldridge is of the view that though individuals may not be naturally inclined to want to collaborate with others, they must make an individual concerted effort to learn to collaborate as collaboration is a powerful tool in our professional and academic careers. Emily uses her own experiences to explain how her views about collaboration have changed over time. When she was in elementary school, she hated working with other kidspeers. Driven by her introversive and perfectionist character, she always wanted to work alone. For her, it was faster as well as more productive and constructive. According to Emily, collaboration is not necessarily a natural ability as often assumed. Some individuals prefer working alone as they usually perceive other people to be slow, or to have nothing to contribute in a group. With time, however, owing to her encounters with other individuals in the professional world, Emily has come to appreciate that collaboration is a valuable tool for her professional and academic life. In as much as personality is important, and to the extent that one may always want to be heard, they should also learn to listen to other people. Emily argues that whether or not one is naturally inclined to collaborate, they must make an individual effort to collaborate. An individual can learn to collaborate by understanding and articulating their unique perspective, explaining their quirks, valuing the collaborative process and encouraging others, as well as knowing the goal and working hard.

The case of Emily is not isolated. There are many individuals out there who naturally feel more comfortable and productive when working alone. Nonetheless, I cannot agree more with her that today's workplace requires individuals who can collaborate. Workplace tasks have increasingly become complex and demanding, making individual work quite slow and somewhat ineffective. With a culture of profile as a team collaborator. First and foremost, I bring to the table excellent communication, interpersonal and conflict management skills, which I have honed over time. I consider these as the three most important skills any team member should have. I strongly believe that it is important for a team collaborator to acknowledge other people's ideas and feelings, listen to their opinions, give credit where it is due, give and seek input from other team members, as well as support group decisions even when they do not entirely agree with them. It is also important for a team collaborator to ensure interpersonal conflicts are resolved in a manner that leads to win-win outcome.

As a team collaborator, I often prefer playing the role of a facilitator. A facilitatorIn so doing, I would enables the team to achieve its goals and objectives coherently, as opposed to leading or guiding the team. Informally, I tend to favor group-based thinking. I acknowledge that it is important to think about others, and give them a…