What Amy and Jeff Learned about Collaboration (from Jeff’s POV, but Amy Helped Write It)

Amy growled at me. Last evening. I think she had a right to, and this was not the first time we have sat down to practice for a musical number, and I have left feeling picked on and offended. I’ve been learning to play the banjo, and I still don’t play very well, but we were going to play a duet in church, me on banjo, Amy on flute and mandolin, and both of us on vocals. I was forgetting the words to “For the Beauty of the Earth” and the chords, coming in late, starting early, starting on the wrong beat, and I wasn’t communicating very well, and it was messing her up. And so she growled. And glared. So I got frustrated and clamped my mouth shut. Just got really quiet. Just like that one time. And the time before that. And that other time.

I’m sure you can see that that’s a pattern.

My outward reaction to my inward frustrations over my lack of skill mirrors my reaction to the perceived slight from my wife. She was reacting to my initial frustrated silence, and then I reacted to her irritation in a way that not only compounded the situation but my silence was actually both the cause and the effect of this conflict. An effect to which she reacted. And so the spiral descended.  

One thing I learned early on about writing curriculum vitae and resumes is the value of the words collaborative and collaboration. It’s one thing to say you accomplished something grand on your own; employers look at individual achievements and begin to make notes about the potential value of a worker’s motivation, ambition, and drive to succeed. However, if you can say that same grand thing was collaborative, that you managed to work with someone to accomplish it, then a potential employer will have the same kind of thoughts about your motivation, ambition, and drive, but with the knowledge that you can put aside differences, egoism, narcissism, and problem solve within a group dynamic for the good of the task and the good of the group (“What if none of us goes for the blonde?”). If you know how to collaborate right, you can probably lead by example, delegate effectively, and receive correction and instruction gracefully.

Oh, and let’s not forget that accomplishing goals as a node in a larger social network is hard; some people always want to lead, and others always want to follow, but a truly collaborative mind thinks adaptively and accepts a more fluid role in a group environment, thoroughly willing to lead, but eager to follow.

What I have just described, the ideal collaborator, is facilitated by negotiated roles, proper attitudes, and work ethic, but these social relationships with their tricky dynamics and shared objectives are rarely ideal. Some people can collaborate really well with certain people because their shared strengths complement each other so well, but that doesn’t mean they can collaborate with just anyone. If you have two people who are really good at the same set of tasks, but can’t negotiate their individual roles in completing the tasks, then you have conflict. If you have people who don’t do their job right, and others who don’t forgive easily, you have conflict. If you are tired and the baby won’t go to sleep, you’ll get conflict. If you want to discuss a problem and your husband won’t talk about it, you get conflict. If your wife is hungry and you need to talk about something that’s bugging you, trust me, you’ll get conflict.

Contrary to popular belief, not all conflict is avoidable. Also contrary to popular belief, conflict is an inherent by-product of group dynamics. Interaction between individuals with divergent personalities, cultural backgrounds, and training will almost always bring about some kind of conflict, to a greater or lesser degree. It’s really natural to have conflict. What’s more, conflict can be educational. My ability to play my D7s with Amy’s accompaniment encountered my expectations for myself and revealed an underlying conflict.

How we dealt with it revealed some of the mechanisms that Amy and I employ to cope with conflict in this very particular situation in which we prepare to play music for an audience. When I was a kid and then a teenager, I had a terrible temper. For example, I would frequently fly off the handle when my brother presented me with a range of inflammatory stimuli from teasing me in front of his friends to a humiliating loss on the basketball court. Those situations created conflict, and to cope with it I got angry and reacted. I later learned to control my anger, but I really only traded coping mechanisms; instead of becoming vocal with my fury, I would become silent, and this is a learned pattern of behavior I have followed ever since. These kinds of patterns are difficult to break out of; there’s a reason they’re called patterns, after all. And we all have them, we are often aware that we have them, and we generally know that we need to—and can—do better. Yet, conflict arises, and we resort to those negative coping mechanisms, those ingrained behaviors, for no other reason than that’s how we’ve taught ourselves to act in the presence of certain conditions and stimuli.

And one of the most frustrating parts of the things I’ve written is that they are mostly intuitive. Most people know they deal with conflict in potentially negative ways, and they also realize that it’s difficult to curb their behavioral patterns. I know I do these things, and I expect myself to be better than I am. How can I cultivate healthy coping mechanisms for the conflicts I encounter on an almost daily basis?

I can start by looking at the person next to me.

When it came our turn during church, Amy went and gave Max to Sister Rasmussen, and I set up the chairs and the music stand. We got our instruments out, Amy with her mandolin and flute, I with my banjo. Amy counted off, and sure enough problems arose. I had trouble with my D7s, for starters, and Amy was having problems sound quality and resonance on the mandolin. Then, when we were supposed to start singing the first verse, I started in on the second verse instead. I corrected myself halfway through the first verse, but I was embarrassed. But something happened. Something different than the last time. And the time before. And that other time. Instead of our mistakes pitting us against each other, throwing off our flow, our failings were synched together, moving us in the same direction. I glanced over at Amy, sitting there playing. This time, the Amy-bear didn’t growl and glare. She just smiled, and we kept playing. 

And you know what? We sounded pretty good together.