At the beginning of his popular book on collaboration, Adam Kahane repeats a joke he heard on his first trip to Cape Town. He writes that when faced with overwhelming problems, “we have two options: a practical option and a miraculous option. The practical option is for all of us to get down on our knees and pray for a band of angels to come down from heaven and solve our problems for us. The miraculous option is that we work things through together.”
While this joke has a humorous truth to it, it actually doesn’t require a miracle to work things through in business. Evidence shows that you can’t successfully solve problems through collaboration unless you have first prepared an ecology of mutual respect. Right now, summer gardens are bursting into color – but we must not forget that this growth is the result of nourishment and care. Successful collaboration in organizations may feel miraculous, but it comes out of a carefully-crafted environment that nurtures creative problem-solving. So how do we create that environment?
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We all know the story. It was 1980 at the height of the Cold War. The United States hockey team, in an incredible feat known as the Miracle on Ice, beat the Soviet Union to claim the Olympic gold. For most, the fairytale ends there, the American team victorious.
But on the Soviet team’s flight back to Moscow, another story unfolded. The coach began to insult individual players and dole out unfair blame. A defenseman named Valeri Vasiliev furiously interrupted and, in a brave moment of protest, reprimanded the coach and demanded he take back his comments. The Soviet team went on to become the pre-eminent power in world hockey, virtually unbeatable for the next four years.
So what does this have to do with Books@Work?
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Many of us have experienced a workplace happy hour. Maybe it’s a weekly thing: HR plans the outing, picks the bar, and you and your colleagues leave a few minutes early each Friday to grab drinks together. It’s a wonderful way to shrug off the workday worries and share laughs with colleagues outside the context of work. But how much do you bond with people at happy hour? Do you get to know the colleagues who work in a different department or on the opposite side of the building – or do you talk to the people you already know?
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I recently had the chance to speak with Professor Sabine Ferran Gerhardt about her experience leading several programs with Books@Work. Sabine is an Associate Professor at the University of Akron, where she specializes in Criminology and Justice Studies, with an emphasis on the children of incarcerated parents and school shooter prevention. Sabine found that reading and discussing texts in the workplace – even texts we don’t like – can be a transformative experience. How can a book we’re not sure about bring us closer to our colleagues?
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I recently spoke with Professor Homero Galicia about his experience leading the first bilingual Books@Work program in a Texas manufacturing plant – he and the participants read and discussed literature in both Spanish and English. A native of Texas and a graduate of Stanford University, Homero has worked to promote dialogue in a number of settings – and he found that using literature as a platform for a bilingual discussion provided a unique experience. How can a bilingual Books@Work program help colleagues share their personal experiences and ideas?
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I recently had the opportunity to talk with Lela Hilton, Program Director of the Clemente Course in the Humanities, Inc., about the element of surprise in our respective programs. Founded by the late Earl Shorris, Clemente brings free humanities education to people living in economic distress. The foundational ideas for Clemente may be found in Shorris’ powerful 1997 article in Harper’s Magazine entitled “As A Weapon in the Hands of the Restless Poor (On the Uses of a Liberal Education).” I was fortunate to speak to Earl Shorris before he died about Books@Work. He inspired me deeply and supported my then-fledgling idea of partnering with employers to reach working adults. When Clemente and Books@Work became co-grantees in the Teagle Foundation’s special initiative, Liberal Arts Beyond the Academy, Lela and I were introduced. What follows is a snippet of our ongoing dialogue.
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How do we reenergize at work? And what does that energy do for us, as employees and colleagues? Researchers from Brigham Young University, California State University and the University of Michigan took on these questions in a recent article for the Journal of Applied Psychology. Their research shows that relational energy – the psychological resources we gain from our interactions with others – has the capacity to make us simultaneously more effective and satisfied in the workplace.
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Recently, I spoke with Gail Monahan, a Books@Work participant, about her experience in our programs. Gail is a Senior Applications Engineer at Fairbanks Morse Engine, an Enpro Industries company. Fairbanks Morse Engine has been a valued Books@Work partner since we first began offering seminars in their Beloit, Wisconsin facility in late 2013. In our discussion, Gail emphasized that Books@Work provides a valuable opportunity explore new subjects and cultures, to get to know your colleagues on a different level and to see things from their perspectives.
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Working in – or managing – a municipality has its own set of challenges. Local governments are made up of people from a variety of professions and backgrounds working together to maintain order and quality of life for the citizens of their city. They do so while working in separate departments at different locations, and with rarely any opportunity to meet face to face, much less hold an extended conversation.
For one municipality, Books@Work effectively helped city employees come together, providing opportunities to share perspectives and deeper communication – including listening.
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