Collaboration

by Rebecca Crichton

When I retired from Boeing, I thought that I would engage in the usual list of activities retirees are supposedly looking forward to. I would travel and write and maybe dive more deeply into some of the interests I had toyed with in my life.

Three months into my retirement, I realized that my empty calendar depressed me. I missed my friends, the structure of my days, and the sense of purpose that I needed to feel engaged in the world.

As a certified Life Coach, I asked myself the same questions that I ask clients when they try to figure out what comes next. What attributes characterize you? What are the strengths you bring to any gathering or endeavor?

I landed on what I called my 3C’s – Contribute, Collaborate, and Create. I found them helpful in terms of reminding me to include at least one of them in my daily life. If I didn’t, I felt like I was wasting my time. I have since revised my opinion about what qualifies as wasted time, but when I was recently retired, I had more than enough time on my hands, and it felt heavy.

People who worked with me recognized how my 3 C’s manifested professionally. Throughout my career at Boeing, I had teamed up with other people, often forming strong partnerships with clients and other colleagues. I recognized that while I did good work by myself, I did better work when I did it with another person. I often say that I both play and work well with others.

Now, after 12 years of my Encore Career as executive director of Northwest Center for Creative Aging, I collaborate closely with my associate director, Ruth Neuwald Falcon.

We recently talked about what we do when we collaborate and why we both enjoy it so much. We trust each other enough to engage intellectually and noncompetitively. We laugh with each other and at ourselves. We count on each other. We bring complementary and overlapping talents to our work. 

When I taught at the Boeing Leadership Center, we facilitated a week-long experiential game, a simulation based on Star Trek. Instructors sported Star Trek captain uniforms and pitted two teams against each other.

The opposing teams were supposed to strategize separately. The point of the exercise was that if they were only competitive, they could not win. The way they ‘won’ was to discover the necessity for collaboration.

One week, the teams broke the rules and decided to collaborate before the end of the game. An air of smugness clung to the proceedings. When we debriefed the experience, we learned that when they decided to collaborate, some members of each team pulled back and allowed others to make decisions. The game felt flat and uninteresting in a way that surprised us. The competitive aspect was part of engaging people. Both competitiveness and collaboration were necessary. 

Teams are good learning places for both collaboration and competition. They require respect, valuing ourselves and others, holding ourselves to high standards, and having a shared goal in a construct of shared values. For me, those shared goals – often referred to as soft goals – require compassion, respect, and curiosity.

I often write about the importance of interdependence as the desired corrective to too much independence or dependence. I now recognize that interdependence is where collaboration flourishes. It is also the ground for shared discovery.

In the aging world, people frequently ‘over-help.’ It is easy to forget that sometimes helping is encouraging people to recognize how and in what ways they still can contribute, collaborate, and create.