How We Work Together: A Simple Practice for Better Collaboration

Are you really collaborating - or just coordinating? 

This episode offers a short reflection to help you notice where you are on the spectrum and make one small shift toward true collaboration.

In this episode of Practicing Connection, Erin and Jessica use “blue box thinking” as a backdrop to explore the spectrum of ways we work together - competition, cooperation, coordination, and collaboration - and introduce a simple practice called “Shift the Box.” 

You’ll learn how to quickly name where you are on that spectrum in any situation, notice when you’re stuck in status and control, and choose one small action that moves you closer to genuine collaboration and shared power.

LinkedIn Practice:

This week, pick one real situation where you’re working with others—a meeting, project, or community effort.

1. Name where you are on the spectrum: competition, cooperation, coordination, or collaboration.
2. Notice any “blue box” thoughts (Who’s in charge? Should I be?).
3. Choose one small action that could move the situation one step closer to collaboration—sharing information, inviting someone into planning, or asking, “What could we create together that none of us could create alone?”

Share your reflection in the comments:

• Which “C” did you notice you were in?
• What small shift did you try, or do you plan to try?

Links and resources from this episode:

• Join our LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12879756/ 
• Send us a message: practicingconnection@oneop.org 
• See Dr. Robyn Keast talk about “Blue Box Thinking”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84YvXtc_VPg 

Transcript

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: [00:00:00] Hi, thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I'm Erin. Today we're going to talk about how our assumptions about roles and power can get in the way of collaboration, and how a simple reflection practice can help us shift into a more collaborative way of working together. 

Hi Jessica. How are you doing today?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I'm doing pretty good. It's toward the end of the day and I’m kind of gearing up to get ready for my new volunteer gig. My first time helping out in community theater. So that's been kind of a fun experience. I've only been to one rehearsal so far. Today's the second one.

I'm not in, I wanna be clear, I'm not acting. But I'm helping out and it's been kind of fun to be like a point person to help out. I kind of like being in the middle of all that action.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: That sounds so exciting.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I know you have a background in theater a little bit.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: That I think sounds a [00:01:00] little bit more than what I actually did. I did a lot of children's theater as a kid and through high school. But background in theater makes it sound a little bit more glamorous than it was.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Okay, I get it.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: But I understand there's a certain kind of synergy and energy of doing a show. Even if you're just on the tech - just on the tech; the tech are awesome. If you're on tech, even if you're not in the show, there's still this exciting energy because it's this really cool space of collaboration that you almost don't get anywhere else. So I'm excited for you. I can't wait to hear all about it.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, I will tell you more as the days unfold, as you probably know, it's a chaotic time right now.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Of course. All right, so today we're focusing on collaboration, and the ways we move, sometimes without even noticing, from competition, to cooperation, to coordination, to true collaboration. And then you're going to guide us through a practice. Can you share a little bit more about the practice and why you chose it?[00:02:00]

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, absolutely. I wanna start though with a little bit of background on this thing I'm going to be talking about today called Blue Box Thinking. We've talked about it on the podcast before, and it comes from a model of inter-organizational relationships that shows different ways groups work together: competition, cooperation, coordination, collaboration and then finally conglomeration, where everything kind of really comes together and ends up consolidating. 

As originally presented by Dr. Robin Keast from Southern Cross University, the diagram she was using as she was going around presenting about this had randomly colored boxes to represent different organizations and how they're connected.

But what she was finding while presenting about the model was that what people often do is fixate on the one box that appears to be on top. And in this case it just happened to be always blue, right? The blue box was always showing up on top on these slides, on her slide deck. [00:03:00] 

And so people kept asking her, wait, is my organization the blue box? Am I the blue box? Should I be the blue box?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Mm-hmm.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And so that pull toward wanting to be the box in charge or you know, with quotes “in charge,” is what we're calling ‘blue box thinking.’ And it keeps our attention on status and position instead of on the processes and relationships that actually make collaboration work.

And so the practice I'm sharing today is called ‘Shift the Box.’ It's just a name that was made up for this. I chose it because blue box thinking tends to pull our attention toward position. Like, who's in charge, who has the power? When collaboration really depends on process and relationships, right?

Like what can we create together that we maybe couldn't have created if we weren't together? And so this practice helps us gently move our focus from, where am I on the chart, [00:04:00] to, how can we share power and create something together?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay. Well that's exciting, I love that it doesn't ask people to jump straight into having perfect collaboration. It just invites one small shift to how we're relating to each other. I think that's really exciting. All right. Let's get into it. Tell us about this practice.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Alright, so first, you're going to want to start of course by thinking of a real situation where you're working with others. So maybe it's your team, maybe it's you're just thinking of your team meeting, you know, the situation of your team meeting. 

Maybe it's a community collaborative effort, or any situation where you're working with others, right? Hold that situation in your mind and ask yourself who's involved and what are we trying to do together? 

Then I want you to think about which of those Cs is your group currently in? The C’s we mentioned were competition, cooperation, [00:05:00] coordination, collaboration, which I'll go into in a second. 

I want you to ask yourself, which of these best describes how we're working together right now?

So just to give you a few ideas of what each of these looks like: Competition. So your group might be in competition mode if you or other group members are mostly protecting their own interests or ideas, right? You're not sharing anything, everyone's trying to be on top. 

Cooperation. You might be in cooperation mode if members are just sharing information, right? Just strict information sharing or helping each other briefly on occasion. 

You might be in coordination if the group is working toward a shared goal, but mostly staying in your own lanes, right? ‘My organization only does these things, your organization only does those things. I'm only going to agree to do things that my organization does.’ Rather than kind of mixing up the ideas a little bit

And in [00:06:00] collaboration, you might be in collaboration if you're sharing power, resources, and ideas to co-create something that you wouldn't create alone. That each of your organizations are not likely to create alone. 

So there are no wrong answers. Just notice where you are without judgment.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay. I like that. The expectation is not that you should always be collaborating.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. Right.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: You know, I think about in school where it's like, ‘you always have to share, you always have to get along,’ and sometimes it's not helpful. And I love that competition or coordination might be exactly the right option, and that you're stopping to name that. That's great.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm. Sometimes you just need an information exchange. That's all you need, and that's okay. The point really is awareness, so not grading ourselves or judging where the group is at. 

So step three then is to notice your own personal blue box thinking [00:07:00] impulses. So maybe that's, ‘I wish I were the one making the decision,’ or maybe it's, ‘They should really put me in charge of this.’

Or maybe it's, ‘Why is that person in charge or taking charge of this?’ And then finally, maybe it's, ‘We just need someone at the top to decide.’

Or interestingly, it could be the opposite, right? This could be where you might suppress your own voice by thinking, ‘Oh, someone else is in charge. It's not my place to speak up,’ right? And that's not healthy either. 

So just notice where you might be focusing on position or status, instead of process and relationship again. No judgment. You are just observing and learning right now.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, this feels powerful because it normalizes a lot of those thoughts. Many of us, well, okay, many of us were trained to look at there's just one person who's in charge, and that's [00:08:00] it. So it makes sense that we would automatically just think, ‘Well, someone needs to just make this decision.’ 

And I don't know, I think if you spend a lot of time in any job as a grownup, most of them have, you know, hierarchies and decision makers and leadership teams. And so it can get really easy to think, ‘Well, someone else should be making this choice,’ and then not sharing what you're thinking.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: You know, I've been in coalition meetings before where I've seen a question get asked of the group, right? So someone was asking, maybe it was a contractor came in to share some updates, and they ask everyone a question. And I've seen literally everyone look toward the person in the room that had that positional or financial power, even though that person was just a member of the coalition, they weren't the person in charge, right? 

And so things like that matter too, we're doing this naturally. But I think being more aware of when that's happening can be really helpful [00:09:00] in moving from a place where maybe you're just coordinating, but you feel like the group could be doing more.

So just being aware of where you're at will help you with the next step here. So the last step then is to ask yourself, ‘What is one small shift I can make to move this situation closer to collaboration?’ 

So depending on where you're at, of course, I mean, if you feel like the group is where it needs to be right now, then leave it be. But if the group needs to shift, then that might look like moving from competition to cooperation. Maybe the action you could take is sharing a piece of information or a perspective that you've been holding back.

If it's moving from cooperation to coordination, maybe that's offering to align your efforts toward a shared goal instead of working in parallel with each other. And when moving from coordination to collaboration, maybe that's inviting others into planning or decision making, or asking what could we create together that none of us could [00:10:00] create alone.

And I just want to add a bonus here, because another step you could take that would still make a small shift is choosing a relationship to strengthen within the group. So maybe choosing to listen more deeply to another person, or maybe expressing appreciation for their contribution, publicly or privately, or checking in with them outside your meetings, right?

Even just choosing to strengthen a relationship with one of the people in the group will help with some of these shifts as well. So just choose one concrete action that you could take in this situation, something small enough that you could try it in the next week.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, I love that. I think often when you're caught in these tense spaces where all of the coalition people haven't quite landed on how we're going to work together, it can really feel like you need to redesign the whole coalition, the whole organization, the whole structure.

It feels like, [00:11:00] ‘Oh, we gotta tear it all down and build over. It's not working.” But actually it might just take all of us taking a bunch of tiny steps. And I love that you gave some really concrete actionable ones.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. I mean, we don't have to be taking big leaps here. We can grow collaborative efforts in really small shifts. We can grow it one relationship at a time, one conversation at a time. We can share one piece of information at a time, right? All these little things that we can do to improve our collaboration. 

So that's the practice. I mean, this is something you can do in a few minutes, and you can use it as a check-in at any point in your project. And over time, you should be able to notice when you're stuck in that blue box thinking and move toward more shared power, stronger relationships, and authentic collaboration.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Thanks so much for sharing that Jessica.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Very happy to. I have been a big fan of Robin Keith for a long time, so I love sharing about Blue Box thinking.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: That's it for this episode. Thank you for [00:12:00] joining us. If this conversation resonated with you, click the share button in your podcast app. 

We'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, keep practicing.

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.