Collaboration Is More Powerful Than Cooperation
When I broke my left arm, I was amazed by the number of devices that were designed to be useable with only a single hand. These include most pill bottles, where you spin the lid around until the arrow lines up and then push with your thumb to open the lid. It also includes my laptop keyboard.
Ctrl-Alt-Del. I used to use two hands to do this: my left hand used two fingers for Ctrl-Alt; my right hand reached up for the Del key. Now my left arm was in a sling and I was typing one-handed. I was flooded with gratitude for whatever thoughtful person designed my laptop keyboard. On the right side of the keyboard, the Ctrl and Alt keys were right next to each other: I could press them both with my thumb. The Del key was on the top left of the keyboard, still within reach.
Ctrl-Alt-Del taught me the difference between cooperation and collaboration. Cooperation was when my left hand typed some of the keys (such as asdf) and my right hand typed the others. For a few days after I broke my left arm, my right hand hovered over its usual home keys, making tentative forays into the foreign territory of the left-side of the keyboard. Soon, though, my right hand hovered centrally, picking out keys with whatever finger was in the vicinity. Certainly, it was more convenient to have both hands available to type the keys, but it wasn’t disastrous when I had to use my right hand for all of them. The two hands had just been dividing up the work: cooperation. Collaboration was when my two hands worked together, for example, to capitalize a letter or to type Ctrl-Alt-Del. I could do these things with just one hand, but collaboration was still required: My right-hand fingers had to collaborate with each other. Without collaboration, the tasks couldn’t be done.
When doing research, the same distinction applies. Cooperation is when students divide a research paper into parts: Each student writes one part and then they put the parts together into the final paper. Dividing up the paper this way is efficient, because no student has to read all the source papers. However, this is not a good way to write a paper because, in the end, each student learns less and the paper will not have an integrated argument. Collaboration is when students work together on every part of the paper, feeding off each others’ ideas to create a coherent whole that neither could have created on their own. It’s more work, but it leads to more learning and to a much stronger paper.
When I am collaborating with someone, I don’t know where we are going to end up. I will tell them the insights that I have had on the topic and they will build on those insights in ways I could not have anticipated, because they have different backgrounds and experiences than me. This will bring us to ideas that I couldn’t have got to on my own. It’s like going for a walk with a friend. My friend says, “Let’s walk to the top of the hill.” When we get there, I say, “What a view!” My friend says, “Look at that beautiful spruce tree.” I say, “Do you see the hawk?” When my friend suggested we walk up the hill, he had no idea that I would draw his attention to a hawk. When we collaborate, we have ideas that we couldn’t have had on our own and create intellectual products we couldn’t have created on our own.
Collaboration is much more powerful than cooperation. When you are working with others, look for ways to collaborate, to build upon each others’ unique perspectives. You’ll learn and accomplish more.
Kimberly A. Barchard is the Director of the Interactive Measurement Group. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at UNLV. She joined UNLV in 2001 after obtaining her MA and PhD in Psychometrics. She works to empower students and colleagues to accomplish their personal and professional goals, particularly through the development of leadership, communication, and research skills.