Collaboration - Week 06

Collaboration

Blog Exercise:

The first Collaboration exercise involved us going through a list of qualities that display trustworthy and ethical behavior in the collaboration process. Mark then asked us to add two more qualities to the group and divide them up into the essential qualities and secondary qualities.  The point of this exercise is to identify what is important to us and also identify what situation would make the priorities vary. You are helping no one in a group if you are not honest about an idea.

Essential:

-       Being prepared to fully participate

-       Communicating in an open way

-       Honouring commitment

-       Sensitivity to social, cultural personal situations and dynamics.

-       Respecting property.

Secondary:

-       Honesty

-       Acknowledging discomfort or anger

-       Showing respect

-       Understanding the consequence of actions.

-       Be open to criticism.

Trust & creative partnerships Group Exercise:

Part 1: Who’s got a dollar?

Mark went round the room and asked everyone if they had a dollar to give him. Sunita handed over her dollar and Mark asked her to hold onto one side of the coin while he asked her questions about her aspirations for herself and the group in regard to this coarse.

Mark then asked everyone if they had a 2 dollar coin. Maha gave him a coin. Mark repeated the question to her and then took the coin back. He then got to me and when I responded, he handed the coin over to me.

Mark then upped the amount to 5 dollars. I handed over my 5 dollar note. He asked Rachel the same question and handed the 5 dollars over to Rachel. This was repeated with 10 dollars which Josie received in line with her response.

Mark then asked us the following questions?

-       - Would you volunteer your money? – Yes I volunteered $15 dollars.

-       - How did you feel? – It didn’t phase me as I new that there was a purpose to what we were doing. That is, Mark was trying to prove a point.

-       - Did you feel a little sheepish? No as If I didn’t want to give up my money I would have said I didn’t have anything. I would not have followed just because someone else did.

-       - What about when the ante was upped to ten dollars? Still no issue, as there was an underlying reason why people kept the money. It was all in their responses. I figured my response would be correct.

-       Did you think the volunteers were foolish? No. It was a group exercise.

I believe the point of this exercise was to see if any of us trusted mark and the group enough to hand over money and get it back.  I believe this exercise highlighted the trust between the group members.

Part 2:  Eye Contact

The next exercise involved us standing direct directly in front of a group member and staring directly into their eyes for one whole minute.  Mark asked us to take note of how we felt while doing this:

I felt extremely uncomfortable and my body language and behaviour reflected this. I started to laugh, look away and distract the other person. I also was easily distracted as I was not comfortable staring for a whole minute. We repeated this three times with different partners. By the third time I felt more comfortable but still was felt uneasy.

Part 3: Eye Contact with Touch

This part was the most uncomfortable I believe. Mark asked us to now stare directly into the person opposite us while holding their hand. I felt like I laughed more and was more easily distracted than the first time. We did this a second time and by then I started to feel more comfortable. I was able to stare and hold Maha’s hand without laughing, however I did look away a few times.

Part 4:  Proximity – comfortable / closer / further

By this stage I felt comfortable enough to complete this exercise without laughing, however I still felt very uncomfortable staring into Sunita’s eyes while being in such close proximity to her. I found the further away she was, the easier it was to stare into her eyes. By the time all the laughter wore off I think everyone understood the how effective the lesson was at teaching us to trust our team members.

I also think that this exercise helped to highlight the importance in trusting a team member to be able to work effectively with them. It also would strengthen the levels of respect between two people.

Overall the exercise was extremely confronting, and It left me feeling very exposed however it made me feel more comfortable with my group.

The following image is a rough diagram of the group exercise where we had to stare and hold hand. I asked Warwick and Sunita what they were thinking while doing the exercise and the comments are listed on the diagram. and a few of the comments made by

Group Exercise 1: Who’s got a dollar?

Ethical Behavior: In this exercise I believe everyone behaved ethically. The money that was volunteered was given back to the owner and no one judged any of the comments made by the peers. If any member refused to hand the money back, I believe that would be un-ethical behavior in a group task.

Trust: I feel that the members that handed over their money, not knowing that they would get it back displayed trust in the group. The members that didn’t either actually did not have money, or didn’t feel that they could trust the team to give the money back.

Group Exercise 2: Eye Contact?

Ethical behavior: I feel that the group behaved ethically in this exercise even though we all laughed I feel that no noe in the group disrespected anyone.

Trust: We all displayed trust as we continued on with the exercise regardless of how uncomfortable we all were. 

The following is another common trust activity. All text and images referenced from: http://wilderdom.com/games/descriptions/TrustLean.html

Trust Lean Create a careful, concentrating, respectful tone.  Watch out for bravado; focus on trust and care. Sequence appropriately e.g., after icebreakers, name games and initial get to know you activities, but often before or as part of  team building activities. If possible, use Trust Lean as part of a progression of trust-related activities, e.g., from Willow in the Wind to Trust Lean to Running Free to Slice N Dice Ask participants to find a partner of similar height and weight; same-sex pairs are not essential, but often occur One person is the Faller and one the  Catcher. Faller must have adopt the falling posture: standing upright feet together hands across chest, resting on shoulders tight butt cheeks and keep body stiff (to avoid buckling) Catcher is taught "spotting" one leg in front of the other, arms extended, "give" with the weight, taking it mostly through the legs. Start with small falls, then build.  Establish clear communication calls (like climbing calls), e.g., Faller: "I am ready to fall.  Are you ready to catch me?" Catcher: "I am ready to catch you.  Fall away." Faller: "Falling." Catcher: "OK" After about 5-10 minutes, swap Catchers and Fallers. Can progress to Trust Falls & Dives from chairs, tables, etc. with whole group catching. Debrief Ask partners to share with each other: What made you feel trusting? (e.g., clear communication, positive encouragement, etc.) What made you feel less trusting (e.g., laughing/joking, lack of communication, etc.) Invite people to contribute to a group discussion about what things their partner did to make them feel more or less trusting. The following clip is extremely dangerous, but i found it on you-tube to  use as an example of a bad way to build trust between people. See below:  Clip sourced from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6QqQpic_7w

Equipment: large area preferably with soft ground e.g, grass. Time: ~20-30 mins Brief description: In pairs of similar size, one becomes a Faller and one the  Catcher.  Teach methods for spotting, falling and catching.  Start small and build to bigger falls, then swap.  Debrief - what made you feel more or less trusting?