Case Example

How understanding an individual’s viewpoint provides a foundation for successful collaboration.

Requiem of a collaboration
Requiem of a collaboration was discussed with a public health nurse and a primary care social worker. Here, two collaborators discuss how their successful collaboration almost failed and reflect on where things went wrong.

Stephanie: “Clearly one of our collaboration’s staff members was not interested in collaborating. I think she actually engineered the collaboration’s failure. Why do you think this happened?”

Paul: “Well I think Rosa was never willing to collaborate. She valued her views and opinions on processes over anyone else’s. She never seemed to value our team approach or cares to support the collaboration. In the end, it came down to just this one person’s personal beliefs and attitudes that placed an insurmountable hurdle in our collaboration!”

Stephanie: “Boy, I guess we’ve learned that people’s attitudes really matter in a collaboration. So engaging individuals who will support a concept and are experienced and competent in working as a team player seems to make a big difference in collaboration.”

Paul: “We can’t always select who will work on a project, but we could attempt, as much as possible, to carefully build a winning team by including those who have positive attitudes!”