1. Crucial benefits
In a group, you collaborate to accomplish a shared goal, you constantly interact through communication, and the outcome is an achievement that even the same people couldn’t have realized by working independently. Everyone cooperates with each other to combine efforts for the greatest success. There’s no competition. Instead, we grow with each other. One person’s success does not mean that others are less successful or cannot be thriving at all. In fact, there are infinite opportunities for positive interactive growth and progress for individuals.

2. 1 + 1 != 2
1 + 1 is not equal to 2. It’s equal to infinity. Stephen Covey described this phenomenon of creative cooperation as “synergy”. Synergy means that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” It’s in the group’s relationship and the cooperation that creative powers are maximized. So even if only two people come together to collaborate they may achieve something much more valuable than what both of them may have achieved individually.

3. Empathy is key
Empathy is the key to effective communication. Only if you understand someone emotionally and intellectually, you can cooperatively solve problems. People see things through different lenses. They have different perspectives and there is not always a right or wrong answer to a problem. We should be aware of this and listen with the intention to understand holistically rather than to reply, keeping in mind that it may even happen that we unintentionally filter what we hear through our own personal perception. We can control this, at least to some extent, through self-awareness.

4. Working with more experienced people
When collaborating, group members reflect a lot about yourself. They can help you in the process of becoming an independent, fulfilled individual with the ability to create profoundly satisfying and prolific relationships with others, e.g. by treating you like someone who “can” from the very beginning. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said, ”Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.” Even when you are stuck or something does not go according to plan you should never feel as if you would not have been able to accomplish it. There should always be will. There should always be a belief. And the group makes a big contribution to maintaining this philosophy.

5. Handling disagreements
When collaborating and dealing with disagreements, you should always seek to find mutually beneficial or satisfactory solutions. How can this be achieved? By observing the issue from the other perspective and emphasizing the necessities and worries of others better than they can, by classifying the fundamental problems and concerns, by defining what outcomes would create a thoroughly agreeable solution and finally, by recognizing new options to accomplish those results.

How do my learnings apply to future projects?
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1. I acknowledge collaboration as the most effective way to handle problem solving.
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2. I aim to listen empathically to fully, deeply understand group members.
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3. I am aware there is not always right or wrong.
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4. I can see unseen potential in others and help them become more independent, fulfilled individuals with the ability to create profoundly satisfying and prolific relationships with others.
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5. I am prepared to transform disagreements into Win/Win situations with mutually satisfactory intent.

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