The Science of Team Science

The individual scientist has been largely replaced by the collaborative scientist as the demands of today's complex problems require the concerted effort of individuals with diverse expertise. The aim of the upcoming Science of Team Science (SciTS) Conference is to produce “evidence-based effective practices for scientific teams.” It will take place April 16-19, 2012 in Chicago. For information about similar conferences, see my previous blog post on interdisciplinary collaboration.

Collaborative Tensions

Many authors have written about the paradox(es) of collaboration. I’m not sure that the following qualify as paradoxes, but they certainly contribute to making collaboration difficult, as attention is focused on one end of a spectrum of concern at the expense of the other. I call them collaborative tensions.

Plan efficiently ↔ Involve everyone

Is it true that a collaborative meeting should be planned collaboratively? Convening a collaborative is often a non-collaborative activity. To engage others, conveners have to provide enough information about the purpose and plan of the collaborative – but not so much as to be perceived as predetermining its definitive purpose, scope, or outcome. The more complex the issues, the more collaboration is needed and the more difficult it is to get everyone involved, so conveners start with a smaller, less diverse group and then invite others – who might be offended or put off by the work that was done in advance. How do you plan enough but not too much?

What's in it for me? ↔ What's in it for them?

If there weren’t anything in it for me, I wouldn’t bother trying to establish this collaborative effort in the first place. And it’s the same for everyone else, too. If there isn’t something in it for them, why should they join? Thinking through “what’s in it for me” as well as “what’s in it for them” is key to building a collaborative. To get what I want, I have to figure out how they can get what they want.

Process ↔ Outcome

When a collaborative forms, it is usually because the participants want some outcome, some change from the status quo. However, there are usually differences in the outcomes desired by the various members, some are compatible and some are less so (or downright contradictory). So it is the job of the collaborative to come to an understanding of all of those desired outcomes and their underlying bases and to develop a set of outcomes that all can agree to. Collaborative leadership advocates process, not outcome, but leads to outcomes for, by, and of the collaborative as a whole.

Short Term ↔ Long Term

In the short term, we want to fulfill the purpose for which the collaborative was formed. However, in complex situations, it may simply take more time. Nonetheless, short term products may be more important to strengthening the process – by demonstrating to participants that the collaborative can be productive – than to actually providing products of importance or lasting value. In the long term, the most valuable thing may be the collaborative itself, enabling its members to address emerging issues and produce outcomes that were not initially anticipated.

Your Organization ↔ Our Collaborative

Once an organization (or an individual) makes an investment in forming a collaborative, it identifies with and feels ownership of the collaborative and expects to receive benefits from it. An organization might want to guard its investment and be reluctant to accept newcomers into the collaborative, even if having additional members would contribute to the collaborative’s success. How can the organization protect its investment in the collaborative while enabling newcomers to join – and reap its rewards – without having made the same investment in it?

Proprietary Information ↔ Shared Information

Often, the success of a collaborative effort depends on sharing information. How can individuals and organizations share their privately-gained information and make it available where everyone in the collaborative can benefit from it?

Building and maintaining collaboratives is time consuming and frustrating because we have to work through these collaborative tensions. What makes collaboration necessary is what makes it difficult.

The Paradox of Collaboration

The most critical competition we face is not between one person and another, or between teams, businesses, corporations, states, nations, regions, or religions. Rather, the most critical competition we face is between our constructive human tendency to care for the world and improve our collective lot, and our destructive tendency to exploit the world and dominate each other. Morally, we are at our best when we collaborate for the good of all. Practically, we are at our best when we collaborate to compete. That is the critical paradox of collaboration.

Improving Interdisciplinary Collaboration - A Hollywood Example

Science on FIRE—Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research and Education, a  symposium sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), recognized that “interdisciplinary research will have to be taken to new levels to address exceedingly difficult challenges” because the demands of complex problems require that experts from different disciplines and backgrounds have to work together, share and integrate information, and develop and test solutions that none of them alone could imagine. And as I noted in Creating a Culture of Collaboration, collaboration is seen as the way to address complex problems, add value, and achieve desired outcomes in fields as diverse as business, science, recreation, health care, social work, engineering, governance, and libraries.

If interdisciplinary collaboration is so important, then we should know how to improve it, and we should have a way a measuring it so we can know if it's getting better or worse.

This was the subject of another AAAS workshop, Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Innovative Science & Engineering Fields. The workshop report noted that in addition to measuring the outcomes of interdisciplinary collaboration we should look at process measures.

Indeed, I have found subjective process measures to be useful. Laura Bronstein's Index of Interdisciplinary Collaboration* uses a 42 item questionnaire to measure five components that give useful feedback to the members of an interdisciplinary team:

• Collective ownership of goals
• Interdependence
• Flexibility
• Collaborative activities
• Reflection on process

When I use the Index of Interdisciplinary Collaboration with a group, I usually ask them to complete the questionnaire in advance. When I present the results, I talk about the five components and illustrate them by showing video clips of a highly successful interdisciplinary team: the band of thieves in the 2003 film, The Italian Job. It's a fun way to learn about and reflect on what contributes to successful interdisciplinary collaboration.

If you are interested you can download a handout that briefly describes the five components, shows the questionnaire items for each, and lists the specific video clips I use from The Italian Job. If you would like more information, please let me know.

* Bronstein, L. R. (2002). Index of interdisciplinary collaboration. Social Work Research, 26 (2), 113-126.

   Bronstein, L. R. (2003). A model for interdisciplinary collaboration. Social Work, 48 (3), 297-306.

The Future of Facilitation

Michael Wilkinson asked me for some comments about the future of facilitation. He’s going to present a keynote at the upcoming Southeast Regional Facilitation Conference entitled, “Facilitation: What's Next?” He offered the following for starters:

Facilitation as an industry has perhaps moved from infancy to adolescence. Where are we today and what might this industry look like 10 years from now? And more importantly, what might we do as facilitators to make our future and to be prepared for it?

My first reaction was to the word industry, so I looked up a definition at merriam-webster.com. The early uses of the term include, “diligence in an employment or pursuit; especially: steady or habitual effort” and “systematic labor especially for some useful purpose or the creation of something of value.” So in that sense I can understand facilitation as an industry, although I’m not entirely comfortable characterizing it that way because of the more contemporary meanings of industry, “a distinct group of productive or profit-making enterprises (the banking industry)” and “manufacturing activity as a whole (the nation's industry).”

Enough quibbling about whether facilitation is an industry. Or perhaps not. If facilitation is an industry, then perhaps some lessons from industry will apply.

The Fan Belt Lesson. When I was a kid, electric motors were big and external to the thing they were powering. In Neiderstien’s Restaurant, a neighborhood restaurant where I grew up, the place was cooled by a series of ceiling-mounted fans, spaced throughout the restaurant. Each fan had a pulley mounted on its shaft. Off to the side was a single electric motor with a pulley on its shaft. A long belt – a fan belt – made a circuit through all of the pulleys. When the electric motor was turned on, it turned the belt through the circuit of pulleys and all the fans rotated in unison. Today, every fan has its own motor. Heck, my cell phone has its own electric motor! (That’s what makes it vibrate.)

Perhaps this will be the future of the facilitation industry. Instead of facilitation performed by a central pool of experts, facilitation will be integrated permanently into every group. (Of course, this is already true to some degree, since many facilitators are members of the team or group rather than central-pool specialists.) If so, then there might be more demand for training in collaboration and facilitation than for facilitating meetings.

The Whitworth Lesson. Another possible lesson from industry can be taken from the Whitworth thread. Prior to its specification (in 1841), every industry and manufacturer had its own system of threads for screws, bolts, and nuts, and they were incompatible. That is, if your wagon was held together by bolts, and one of the bolts fell off, you had to replace it by finding a matching carriage bolt of the same manufacturer. A stove bolt simply would not do. After the Whitworth Standard was adopted, any bolt of the same Whitworth specification would do the job.

Today, we have the International Association of Facilitators’ “Certified Professional Facilitator,” Institute of Cultural Affairs’ “Certified ToP Facilitator,” International Institute for Facilitation’s “Certified Master Facilitator,” and others of various types and levels. Perhaps we have begun to standardize facilitation and the future will present us with interchangeable facilitators that reliably meet the same standards. However, there might be some undesirable consequences – reduced experimentation and innovation, greater difficulty for beginners to gain experience, disenfranchisement of those who can’t afford to become certified.

The Willys Lesson. My Father had a Jeep Station Wagon made by Willys-Overland Motors, once the second-largest American automobile manufacturer. Like many American automobile companies it was bought and sold and is no more, although its legacy lives on in the Chrysler Jeep Wrangler, Cherokee, etc. Of the more than a thousand automobile manufacturers and brands, relatively few exist today.

Perhaps that is what lies in the future of facilitation – more companies providing more varieties and brands of facilitation. The second edition of The Change Handbook (Holman, Devane, and Cady, 2007) describes more than 60 methods for whole system change, up from 18 in the first edition. The IAF Methods Database has 548 “methods for creating, leading and following up group meetings.” On the other hand, the Pattern Language for Group Process seeks “activities or qualities that repeat across many of those processes … commonalities that cross boundaries of method.” So perhaps over the next ten years we should be working toward a deeper understanding of the many methods, processes, tools, and techniques that will enable us to organize them in a coherent and parsimonious framework.

The Definition Lesson. Industry has difficulty agreeing on definitions, everything from “safe and effective” to “energy efficient” and “organic.” Wikipedia has a “disambiguation” page for facilitation that differentiates how the term is used in business, neuroscience, ecology, psychotherapy, education, adoptions, communication disorders, and illegal human trafficking. “Facilitation” can be an ambiguous term, “group facilitation” perhaps less so, but even this term can carry different meanings.

Perhaps in the future we will share the same distinctions between facilitation of group learning, decision making, and development, and between support groups, focus groups, and work groups. Or perhaps we will find another word or phrase to describe what we do or squeeze video-clip explanations on the backs of our holographic business cards.

I think I have pushed the “what can we learn from industry” metaphor far enough for now.

Advice for Helping Difficult Groups with Consensus

My colleague Lander Stoddard will be leading a session on consensus at the upcoming Southeast Regional Facilitation Conference. In preparation, he circulated the following question:

What are your top three things for helping difficult groups with consensus?

Here is the response I sent him.

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1. Don't presume that you can't reach consensus.

Years ago I facilitated a group of about 35 people who were convened to talk about the future of the Adirondack Mountain region in New York. About half of them were oriented toward economic development, the other half toward environmental quality. Most of them already knew each other, and knew of their established positions and disagreements.

Part way through the meeting I sensed that they presumed – at a fundamental level – that they would not be able to agree on anything. I was desperate to open up the possibility that they might be able to agree on something. I said something like this:

“It seems to me that you think you know each other well enough to know that you won't be able to agree on anything. Maybe you're right. But we've had this sort of problem before. We had this sort of a problem in Philadelphia when we wrote the Declaration of Independence, but then we worked it out and on July 4^th 1776 it was agreed on by an assembly of people in a room, just like we are. And we had this sort of a problem when we wrote the Constitution, but then finally, on September 17^th 1787, it was agreed on by a bunch of people in a room just like us. Who knows? Who can say? Maybe this is the day and this is the place when we can agree on something about the Adirondacks. Is anyone willing to give it a try?”

They did, and over the next day produced a long list of consensus recommendations. Fundamental to it was the suspension of belief that they couldn't.

2. Don't presume that you already understand.

At another meeting I facilitated – involving about two dozen senior and mid-level policy makers from different departments in a regulatory organization – I heard the phrase “order of precedence” during a discussion of an important issue. I said to the group, “It's not clear to me what you mean by ‘order of precendece,’ but so long as it's clear to you all, there's no need to explain it to me.” They assured me that they all understood what it meant, and eager to get on with their discussion, they continued.

A while later, “order of precedence” seemed to take on an important role in the conversation. I interrupted again to ask, “OK, ‘order of precedence’ seems to be a significant factor. I don't understand it myself, but so long as you all understand it there's no need to take time out to explain it just for my benefit.” Again, they assured me that they all understood it.

As the conversation became prolonged, there seemed to be some kind of disconnect. I interrupted again and said, “I'm having difficulty making sense out of how things some of you are saying relate to things others of you are saying, and ‘order of precedence’ seems to be an important element. Now I know that you all know what ‘order of precedence’ means, but for my benefit it would be helpful if you could explain it to me.”

One of the participants, who had broad responsibility in the organization, generously offered, “When a company is bankrupt or liquidated, their assets are distributed to pay off the various creditors. We have to decide which creditors should receive payments first, and how much they should receive. That's the ‘Order of precedence.’”

From across the room came a somber voice. “That's not quite how it works. The ‘order of precedence’ is established in law and ultimately decided by the court. We have little to say about it.”

There was a long silence as half the room reckoned with this difference in meaning. When the conversation resumed, the issue was quickly resolved.

A common barrier to understanding is the assumption that “I already understand.” As a facilitator, my understanding may have no purpose except that it might be a vehicle for the group's understanding.

3. Exact wording matters

At a recent meeting with 16 people, each representing a different organization, there seemed to be easy (and unexpected) agreement on some important issues. We wrote a series of statements to capture the agreement. As you might expect, it took several iterations, late into that evening and again the following morning, before everyone could fully agree.

There were many difficult wording decisions, and there was one that the group kept revisiting. Several seemingly innocuous options were offerred: people/ citizens/ residents/ agencies/ not-for-profits/ entities. It wasn't until each of these alternatives was discussed, and the reasons for and against understood by all, that the group was able to agree on “individuals and organizations.”

In other situations I have marveled to see opposition changed to support as a result of a subtle word change. In one such case, a single person refused to lend their support to a proposal. The other members of the group asked questions and gradually came to understand the person's concerns. After about 20 minutes of talk and a lengthy silence someone proposed changing the word “happen” to “happened.” This recognized that something happened in the past, but didn't necessarily continue. That small change – and the understanding behind it – won the person's support.

To paraphrase John Dewey (My Pedagogic Creed), “Through the responses which others make to [our own words we] come to know what these mean in social terms.”

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On further reflection I might choose a different “top three,” but this seems a reasonable start.

How would you respond?

My Name is Sandy Schuman and I Am a Group Facilitator

One of the challenges I’ve had is explaining to groups what I do as a group facilitator – how my role differs from theirs, and what they can expect. In the early part of my career, introducing myself as a facilitator had almost no value – people hadn’t heard the term and didn’t know what to make of it. These days, most people have not only heard the term, but they have been “facilitated” – and the experience has not always positive. So it’s still useful to explain my role as group facilitator, and not take a long time doing it. What follows is a generalized version of my introduction.

My name is Sandy Schuman and I am a group facilitator. My expertise is in how groups work and how to help groups work together more effectively. I'm not here because I have special knowledge regarding (the subject matter of this meeting) or because I know the workings of your organization(s), but even if I did, that's not my job today. My job is to focus on the process aspects of today's work, while yours is to apply your knowledge of the issue(s) and organization(s) to (the purpose or task at hand).

I would like to form a partnership with you for the course of this (meeting or project). I would like to rely on you for your knowledge about the (issues at hand) and about your organization(s) (and other organizations that might be involved). I would like you to rely on me for my expertise in collaborative problem solving and decision making and how we can work together effectively to address (the issues you face).

I would like permission to exercise some process leadership to help move things along, but I want to stay on my “side” of the room. (I draw an imaginary line across the room, between me from the group.) I would like to take some intiative regarding process issues, but I don't want to cross the line and directly address content issues; that's your side of the room. That's the “dark side of group facilitation,” and if you see me crossing that line I want you to call me on it, because I really don't want to be there.

On the other hand, you are welcome to come over on my side of the line any time you want. If you have a question about why we're doing something a certain way, or if you have an idea that might work better, please say so. I will be glad to explain the reasoning behind my process choices, and welcome the opportunity to learn of your ideas The choice of processes is yours, and indeed, so is your choice of facilitators, and whether or not you have a facilitator at all.

Shall we give this a try? Any questions about my role? Do you have any questions or comments before we take a look at a proposed agenda? ...

How’s that sound to you?