Learning from Google about inter- and transdisciplinary leadership

June 6, 2017June 15, 2017 Community Member Processes Advocacy, Author - Janet Hering, Facilitation, Integration, Interdisciplinarity, Knowledge synthesis, Leadership, Time, Transdisciplinarity

Community member post by Janet G. Hering

Like most engineers, the Google leadership had assumed that the leader of an engineering team must be at least as competent technically as the members of the team. As Laszlo Bock described in his 2015 book Work Rules!, however, a data-driven assessment disproved this assumption. The counter-intuitive result of “Project Oxygen” was that having “important technical skills that help advise the team” only ranked number eight in the list of key attributes differentiating the most from the least effective managers.

This is very good news for leaders of inter- and transdisciplinary synthesis projects since it’s highly unlikely that these leaders could have all the subject expertise relevant to their projects. If subject expertise is not the most important characteristic of leadership, then what kind of expertise should leaders have and what kind of roles do they play? How important are leaders and leadership in such synthesis projects? Continue reading →

Transkillery! What skills are needed to be a boundary crosser?

March 14, 2017May 31, 2017 Community Member Concepts Author - Dana Cordell, Author - Dena Fam, Author - Tanzi Smith, Boundaries, Communication, Creativity, Dispositions, Facilitation, Higher education, Reflexivity, Skills, Synthesis, Transdisciplinarity, Trust, Uncertainty

Community member post by Dena Fam, Tanzi Smith and Dana Cordell

What skills and dispositions are required by researchers and practitioners in transdisciplinary research and practice in crossing boundaries, sectors and paradigms?

The insights here come from interviews with 14 internationally recognized transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners, chosen from a diverse range of research and practice-based perspectives.

Here we focus on:

1) skills for specific tasks such as facilitation of a meeting, crafting a well-written report, and communicating effectively across disciplines; and,

2) dispositions, attitudes, orientations and temperaments of an effective researcher/practitioner, i.e., as a way of being.

Six categories of skills and dispositions

The core skills and dispositions of an exceptional transdisciplinary researcher/practitioner can be grouped into six categories, illustrated in the figure below. Continue reading →

Research team performance

January 17, 2017January 24, 2017 Community Member Concepts Author - Hannah Love, Author - Jennifer Cross, Collaboration, Dialogue, Diversity, Facilitation, Interdisciplinarity, Science of team science, Social processes, Teams

Community member post by Jennifer E. Cross and Hannah Love

How can we improve the creativity and performance of research teams?

Recent studies on team performance have pointed out that the performance and creativity of teams has more to do with the social processes of interaction on teams, than on individual personality traits. Research on creativity and innovation in teams has found that there are three key predictors of team success:

group membership,
rules of engagement, and
patterns of interaction.

Each of these three predictors can be influenced in order to improve the performance of teams, as the following examples show. Continue reading →

What makes a translational ecologist? Part 2: Skills

June 28, 2016March 23, 2017 Community Member Concepts Author - Translational Ecology Group, Collaboration, Communication, Evaluation, Facilitation, Higher education, Modelling, Scoping, Stakeholders, Translational ecology, Unknowns

Community member post by the Translational Ecology Group

This is the second blog post considering competencies that underpin a new discipline of translational ecology, and which make ecologists more effective in informing and supporting policy and practice change (see the right sidebar for links to all four related blog posts on translational ecology). In each blog post we examine three major areas:

Socio-ecological systems
Communication across boundaries, with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists
Engagement with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists.

Here we engage with these three areas to examine the skills required for translational ecologists.

Skills needed to deal with socio-ecological systems

Translational ecologists need to be able to: Continue reading →

Eight institutional practices to support interdisciplinary research

May 31, 2016June 7, 2016 Community Member Institutionalisation Author - David Hawthorne, Author - James Boyd, Author - Jonathan Kramer, Author - Margaret Palmer, Facilitation, Interdisciplinarity, Teams

Community member post by Margaret Palmer, Jonathan Kramer, James Boyd, and David Hawthorne

How can institutions help enhance interdisciplinary team success? We share eight practices we have developed at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) which was launched in 2011 with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

jonathan-kramer — Jonathan Kramer (biography)

The center supports newly formed research teams from anywhere in the world to work collaboratively at its facility. The teams synthesize existing theories and data to advance understanding of socio-environmental systems and the ability to solve environmental problems. Continue reading →

Five steps for managing diversity to create synergy

May 19, 2016June 2, 2016 Community Member Methods Author - Doug Easterling, Best practice, Co-construction, Co-creation, Co-design, Co-production, Collaboration, Diversity, Facilitation, Power, Stakeholders, Synergy

Community member post by Doug Easterling

How can we address social, environmental, political and health problems that are too big and too complex for any single person, organization or institution to solve, or even to budge? How can we pool our wisdom and work collaboratively toward purposes that are larger than ourselves?

In theory at least, co-creation generates innovative solutions that transcend what would otherwise be produced by the participants acting on their own. In other words, co-creation can foster synergy.

To maximize synergy, a co-creative group should include participants who understand the problem from all the relevant perspectives. The more complex the problem, the greater the number and diversity of stakeholders who should be included in the process. A broader range of perspectives and ways of thinking allows for a richer and more comprehensive analysis of the problem, as well as more innovative solutions that address more of the underlying factors. Continue reading →

Integration and Implementation Insights

Research resources for understanding and acting on complex real-world problems

Facilitation

Learning from Google about inter- and transdisciplinary leadership

Transkillery! What skills are needed to be a boundary crosser?

What makes a translational ecologist? Part 2: Skills

Eight institutional practices to support interdisciplinary research

Five steps for managing diversity to create synergy

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