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It’s A Question Of Collaboration Educators possess a meeting mentality whereby solutions to problems drop onto the table. Biases drive discussion. Persuasiveness, argument, and justification characterize the meeting flow. Meeting leaders or obvious decision-makers guide participants toward a predetermined solution. In contrast, collaborations, especially virtual ones, need new skills. For virtual collaborations, the most basic skill is that of asking the appropriate questions; a skill so basic that few educators use it. Rather, they resemble the student who, when asked to phrase a question for an assignment, responded to a professor “I know the answers, but I don’t know what the question is.” Questions like “don’t you agree that ...” and “why do you believe ...” are not acceptable. Any “Yes” or “No” question, beyond housekeeping questions, attacks the listeners, as does any question that begins with “Why.” They seek no information. They fail to reveal anything about the questioner. They simply have no place in collaborations. In collaborations, clarification drives the discussion. If participants are not talking about the same thing, but believe they are, confusion and misunderstanding abound. During the early stages of problem solving, collaborators need to phrase the problem, essentially, as a non-attack question. When given this task, collaborators typically respond with “should we” questions. “Should we install a video conferencing system?” “Should we require horizontal articulation?” “Should we have a common, system-wide application for admissions?” All of these are attack questions in that all can be answered “Yes” or “No.” Beyond the attack, they lead to argument and defense. People choose sides and defend positions. The “problem” for each of these questions could just as easily be distance education, fiscal responsibility, or Chancellor’s Office priorities. Consider, instead, if the problem were worded as “How can districts minimize travel costs?”, “How can the California Virtual Campus facilitate distance education courses system-wide?”, or “How can campuses/districts participate in statewide initiatives?” All these questions could lead to the same, single answer. Yet, just as easily, they could lead to widely different answers. Until the question is shaped and refined, collaborators need to delay their natural tendency to propose solutions. “How” questions evoke possibilities, alternatives. Yet, they are not the only questions that need to be asked. The words within the defined problem demand definition. For instance, in the question, “How can the community colleges implement e-conferencing?,” collaborators need to agree on what is meant by “community colleges” — the entire statewide system, the separate districts, the individual campuses? What is meant by “e-conferencing” — a linear discussion using e-mail, an asynchronous threaded-discussion using conferencing software, a synchronous voice-conference enhanced with web site materials? The actual definitions matter little. What matters is that agreement is achieved; an agreement which minimizes later confusion. The next question is “What are the alternative solutions?” In collaborations, all alternatives are acceptable initially, even the bizarre. Next, evaluation questions emerge. “What are the barriers to each alternative?” “What are the benefits?” Finally, the question of which alternative to choose arises. Throughout the question-asking, collaborators avoided attacking each other. Rather, they built trust, the second basic skill of collaboration. Send your comments to Virginia McBride via email at vmcbride@ix.netcom.com. |
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