Collaborative cultures characterized by psychological safety, transparency, and an ability to engage in productive conflict provide the strongest foundation for accountability.
What roles do research and development agencies have in actively preparing research teams to engage productively in collaborative research? Is it enough to require that teams engaging in funded research prepare themselves to collaborate effectively?
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator Program was launched in 2019 to fast track the development of ideas into real-world applications and solutions intended to have substantive societal and economic impact. Building upon basic research and discovery and using a convergent approach, the program accelerates use-inspired research toward impact by funding multidisciplinary teams from a wide range of disciplines and sectors to solve complex societal and economic challenges.
How often do you think about what you are thinking about?
How about what you believe? What your values are? Or your deep set needs?
Do you recognize that everything you say, do, or write as a member of an interdisciplinary team is influenced by what is in your head? And your team members by what is in theirs?
We can all relate to what it is like to be doing a project with close colleagues when things work seamlessly, the group is productive, everyone innately seems to know what to do and how to do it, people are comfortable pointing out things that need to be changed or fixed, and everyone is fully present.
I’m guessing we can all also relate to what it is like when there is tension among colleagues. Maybe there is something amiss that everyone sees or notices, but no one is willing to surface for discussion, so everyone sidesteps.
How does a team develop purposefully from an assembly of individuals with a shared research interest to an integrated and interdependent team? What process can they put in place to explore and discover not just their own but each other’s motivations, needs, and values? What needs to be put in place to collaboratively establish a team culture, norms, and processes from which they can agree to operate?
Here we describe the Reflective-Reflexive Design Method that addresses intra- and inter-personal dynamics for team development. Two assumptions underpin it:
reflection and reflexivity are necessary dynamics for teaming success, and
interventions that build successful teams take advantage of both dynamics in context and as intersection points.
How might teams create norms to scaffold the use of confidentiality and anonymity in team settings? How could a team integrate language about confidentiality and anonymity into their collaboration agreement? How can teams use these approaches and simultaneously build psychological safety and trust?
In an earlier i2Insights contribution, we provided a collaboration agreement template to help teams improve their chances of collaboration success by facilitating dialogue about shared values, norms, and processes of collaboration. This template is designed around three central dimensions of collaborative research: team management, team dynamics, and team communication.
Do confidentiality and anonymity have a place in teamwork? What are the risks and how might they be mitigated? Can teams move past the need for confidentiality and anonymity?
It takes time and intentional effort to create an environment within a team that is safe for interpersonal risk-taking (ie., a psychologically safe environment). As a team works to develop a psychologically safe environment, teammates will likely be more and more willing to speak openly about challenges. As part of this work, and in an effort to make certain all team members are comfortable sharing issues and challenges, teams may suggest adopting confidential and/or anonymous communication channels; however, there are significant risks associated with their use in teams. Here we detail some of the common risks and provide a set of design elements for dealing with them.
Confidentiality
Teammates who have concerns and are uncomfortable sharing them openly with the full team might choose to communicate confidentially with another person, who may be on the team or outside of the team.
As scientific research continues to move towards collaborative knowledge production, scientists must become more adept at working in teams. How can teams improve their chances of collaboration success? What is a good way to facilitate dialogue about shared values, norms and processes of collaboration? Are there ways of anticipating, identifying, and addressing obstacles as they arise?
We have designed a collaboration agreement template to assist teams in:
Making explicit and therefore transparent important aspects of their approach to collaboration
Ensuring they have a shared vision for their work together
Recognizing that their working relationships are dynamic, individually and as a team, and will require flexibility and a willingness to adapt over time
Establishing expectations for working together, including what they do and say
Preparing for disagreements and even conflicts, especially in the early stages and along the way when there are changes in team composition.
What are the key lessons for building a successful collaborative team? A new version of the Collaboration and Team Science Field Guide (Bennett et al., 2018) provides ten top take aways:
1. TRUST
It is almost impossible to imagine a successful collaboration without trust. Trust provides the foundation for a team. Trust is necessary for establishing other aspects of a successful collaboration such as psychological safety, candid conversation, a positive team dynamic, and successful conflict management.
