5.2: Collaboration: Trust Floats the Boat

By Janet Grace Riehl and Stephanie Farrow

See a two-part conversation between Janet & Stephanie reflecting on their 37-year collaboration. These are the third & fourth posts on this blog-of-the-month theme of Making Collaboration Work. 

Part 3
Part 4

At the 2010  SCN National Memoir Conference in Austin Janet gave a workshop on how to Put Story Poems in Your Memoir Tool Box. You can listen to her discussing story poems on the SCN podcast: http://is.gd/9xpv5

Collaboration: Trust Floats the Boat

Trust, at the core of collaboration, is a heart skill needed for emotional intelligence and effective joint work. Sure, you need a work partner who balances your skills and temperament. But without trust, it ain’t gonna work.

How do you build trust?

Personal trust begins with common points of reference. It’s often a shared experience or sensibility. When you share a wider passion, your work becomes an extension of friendship and respect, and vice versa.  

For example, Stephanie and I are the same—only different. We look different, have different lifestyles, were brought up differently in different parts of the country.

At first blush you might not think that we would ever be friends, much less collaborators. Truth be told, we didn’t  become true friends until some years after we met in Ghana. Over 37 years we’ve translated our relationship from Ghana to New Mexico and continued as I moved to California and then to Missouri. Thank goodness for email and wide-area calling!

Our common sensibilities and core values allow us to bridge our differences.  Our decidedly quirky sense of humor doesn’t hurt either.

How do you sustain trust? 

Beyond trusting each other on a personal level, sustaining trust in a collaboration relies on the indispensable ingredients of a shared work ethic, sense of purpose, and discipline. In effective collaborations both partners share goals, desire quality work, and respect one another. Both need to be committed to seeing the job through to its mutually agreed-upon end, no matter what.

In any collaborative project, each partner brings her own strengths and skills to the table. In the best of circumstances, these interlock with and complement each other. Partners often find that one is better suited for a certain task. This makes the division of responsibility logical, even easy. When partners are equally adept, or when a task appeals to both, the key is to parcel out tasks fairly and to the satisfaction of both partners. Fairness and successfully solving a problem jointly bolster trust. 

The shared quality of stick-to-itiveness generates a history of reliability. You can trust that your partner will be there with you from beginning to end of the project. Together you build a strong track record. 

Trust is the vessel that holds the messiness and chaos of creative collaboration. If you’re gonna float your boat, you don’t want it to leak.

Out next post on collaboration (5.3) will guide you to check your ego at the door as you explore further the emotional and relational side of collaboration. What does trust look like in action?

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Pose questions about practical creativity; give ideas for future cycle themes; and join in the dialog in the comment section below. Peruse the Creative Catalyst archive at: http://is.gd/9xolA.  Create connections through the arts and across cultures at www.riehlife.com.

 

 

Comments

[eeleenlee]

I love the line about checking your ego at the door
, for a collaboration that is a prerequisite.

[Janet Riehl]

Yes...within the collaborative unit competition isn't useful.

I've just posted an interview with Stephanie Farrow my long-time collaborator on www.riehlife.com. You might enjoy this.

Janet Riehl

[Nancy Kelly Allen]

Enjoyed the interview with your friend and collaborator. Trust is essential in any positive long-lasting relationship, from that of a spouse, to sibling to business partner to next-door neighbor. Excellent point made where each of you bring your own strengths and skills into the partnership. Great blog.

[Karen Pierce Gonzalez]

You capture the process of building trust so simply; especially the idea of having a common point of reference...
Thanks, Karen/Folkheart Press