5.3 Collaboration: Check Your Ego at the Door

by Janet Grace Riehl

  with Stephanie Farrow

Our second heart skill focuses on the emotional and relational part of collaboration. The important question here is, once trust is built and sustained, what does it look like in action?

Trust infuses work with support, ease, and humanity. With trust you can resolve conflict by telling the truth. With trust you can check your ego at the door.

When looking good gives way to a desire to support your partner and your jointly held work, then a new dimension emerges.

 Humility: It no longer matters who gets credit for an idea. In fact, Stephanie and I often laugh at our tendency to ascribe the origin of a good idea to the other. We can tell when a collaboration has been truly successful because the end product seems to be a seamless whole. The warp and weft of our individual ideas are woven together smoothly.

 Spaciousness and Generosity. We give each other room to create. And, we give each other room to mess up without making a big deal of it. It’s safe to make a mistake. No blame, just joint acknowledgement and resolution. Cutting each other slack over mistakes (or temporary “stupidity”) keeps our work flowing and fun. Rather than chipping away at each other’s confidence, we bolster it.

 Kindness. Kindness is such a simple courtesy, but often not used enough. In good collaboration we honor each other’s needs. We stay sensitive to nuances. We nurture each other with our good will.

 Gratitude: When our working relationships include these qualities, we build a virtuous cycle rather than a vicious one.  When we are treated with care and respect, we feel grateful and even more generous. Of a mentor and colleague I once said, “Hal gave me the world, and in a tick I would give the world back to him.”

 For myself, work is more than product. How I’m allowed to create is as important as the end result. A collaboration that allows me to check my ego at the door fosters the trust I need to do my best. And for that, yes, I’m more than willing to check my ego at the door. I might not even ask for the ticket to have it returned to me when it’s over.

 Is collaboration all soft-focus and watercolors in a gentle spring rain? Not in this lifetime! It’s like a marriage. You make a commitment, then keep plugging away, using your best heart skills to make it work.

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Pose questions about practical creativity. Give ideas for future cycle themes. 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

[Susan Gallacher-Turner]

Janet and Stephanie,
I let out a sigh reading each quality necessary for a true creative collaboration. This is the true essence of creation, the path that leads all of us onward by joining together.

Wonderful post, thanks.
Susan

[Janet Riehl]

Susan,

Good to hear your voice here. Coming from an artist and writer who works both on her own and collaboratively, I especially appreciate your affirmation of the truth we've felt and presented.

Keep on sculpting a life, Susan...and making your marvelous masks.

Janet Riehl