Changing Perspectives

Being able to learn and unlearn new perspectives is the fundamental skill required for effective collaboration.

You are already very effective at meeting challenges in your own field with your own methods. But the point of collaboration isn't to get more people implementing your methods. The goal of collaborative problem solving is to gather a variety of experts and create new, hybrid lenses for understanding your challenge.

You will continually be confronted with new perspectives, new tools, and new knowledge. You ability to internalize, integrate, and apply your collaborators' perspectives will make or break a collaborative effort.

The collaborator's oath:

You are always right if I understand why. I do not need to be right, I can be wrong. You can always be right if I understand why. I can always be wrong if I understand how. Everyone is right from some perspective, everyone is wrong in some perspective. I will do my best to first learn the best perspective for each challenge, only then will I decide which path is correct. I am neither right nor wrong until we agree on a context/perspective/set-of-facts

Being Wrong

The traditional view on being wrong is that you are wrong. If something you believe or know is wrong, that must mean that you are at fault. This is far from the case. Continuing to believe this will lead to ineffective collaboration.

What follows is three ideas that can help you be gracefully wrong:

Ideas vs. Identity

The ideas you have are not you. Separating your pride and identity from the ideas you propose will enable smooth collaboration.

You and the group can focus on navigating the problem and solutions spaces rather than your own personalities.

Contextual Truth

Right and Wrong are contextual. Your suggestions may be correct in your field of expertise, or in a previous project, but that does not mean they are right in every context.

Different contexts come with a different set of relevant facts, and facts define truth. When you are working with an interdisciplinary group the goal is to come up with novel ways of approaching a problem, this will inevitably create a context that is both new and familiar to each of you.

This contextuality of truth is valuable, it allows people to specialize.

ie. product person vs marketer. delivering quality is paramount vs closing deals is paramount. each is completely right in the context of their role, and wihtout each other they would both struggle.

Perspective-based Truth

There are more than one ways to interpret the same set of facts. Depending on your background and motives you will interpret the same facts into a different truth.

When working with a group you must be aware that it's possible for two seemingly contradictory propositions to be true.

This is the strength of collaboration. By accepting that there are multiple ways to view the same situation, you can begin to explore the apparent contradictions. Exploring these liminal zones is what drives true innovation.

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Empathies

This isn't a sentimental empathy. we're talking about developing the skills necessary to build a concrete understanding of someone else's perspective. What fundamental beliefs underly their world? how will they react? why do they believe what they do? ...

cognitive & emotive cognitive vs emotive

http://blog.teleosleaders.com/2013/07/19/emotional-empathy-and-cognitive-empathy/

understanding empathy https://lesley.edu/article/the-psychology-of-emotional-and-cognitive-empathy

applying empathy practice it, then use it https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2015/04/practical-empathy.php

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Asking Good Questions

link to or modify from studying&motivation

how would

good study questions come in many forms: not open ended predictive and falsifiable

What do I plan on doing with an answer to this question?

diversify your questions: 100 chemists vs 10 + 90

metaquestions: why did i privilige x question? Does this question have a definitive answer? Will I know I have the right answer when I find it? Is this question in a reference class with other questions that led to important or significant answers?

good questions will come with bounds on answers: ie. i'm asking about how variables work, if i come accross the word 'hoising' i'll back off for now

levels of questions knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation

https://thinkeracademy.com/questioning-improves-your-learning/ it's very easy to be a lazy learner with stackoverflow

drawing concept maps http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Concept-Map

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