PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Adults
WORKSHOP 8: COLLABORATION
BY MELANIE J. DAVIS STEPHANIE HAYMAKER, PH.D. CRAIG HIRSHBERG, M.DIV. RICHARD BELLINGHAM, ED.D.
© Copyright 2008 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/29/2014 9:04:51 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.
— Antoine de Saint Exupery, twentieth-century French writer and aviator
Collaboration within a relationship involves each partner actively seeking ways to help the other partner feel fulfilled. Each supports the other's dreams, and both partners work together to help each other grow. Collaboration may enhance problem-solving skills, which can strengthen a couple's relationship. When people collaborate, they strive to achieve a shared vision or goal by working together in an atmosphere of trust, respect, and flexibility.
Guiding Unitarian Universalist Principle
Second Principle: Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations
Although we aspire to the ideal of right relationship, the reality is that as imperfect human beings we struggle with our own not-always-selfless natures. The ability to create just, equal, and compassionate relationships is one of the most important and difficult challenges we face. Conflict, jealousies, and external problems may seem to conspire to undermine our loving relationships. By engaging in respectful interaction, managing conflicts productively, and facing challenges collaboratively, we are better able to sustain mutually loving and beneficial relationships.
Considerations for Adaptation
If you are leading Activity 3, Engaging Conflict Collaboratively, in a retreat setting, you may wish to allow couples time to discuss their responses to Handout 1, Styles of Conflict Engagement. Some couples might have a difficult time with this exercise, especially if their styles are at odds with one another. Be prepared to provide support, encouragement, and referrals.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Welcoming and Entering | |
Opening | 10 |
Activity 1: Check-in | 10 |
Activity 2: Collaborating to Enhance Your Relationship | 30 |
Activity 3: Engaging Conflict Collaboratively | 25 |
Activity 4: Interest-Based Problem Solving | 35 |
Closing | 10 |
Alternate Activity 1: Faith in Action — Collaborating for Change | 20 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Consider the guiding Principle for this session, "Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations." Reflect on your most recent successful collaboration with one or more people. You may have collaborated on a project, a trip, a decision — you can even reflect on the collaboration involved in leading Principled Commitment. What made this collaboration successful? Was it playful or serious? How did justice, equity, or compassion play into the collaboration?
Consider the three essential collaboration skills outlined in the workshop: the ability to engage in healthy conflict, the ability to juggle divided loyalties, and the ability to solve problems. How do you think you do in each of these skills? Which is the most difficult for you? Why? How might you work on that skill in your personal relationships?
WORKSHOP PLAN
WELCOMING AND ENTERING
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
As participants enter, invite them to sign in, create name tags, and pick up a schedule for the workshop series if they have not already done so. Direct their attention to the agenda for this workshop.
OPENING (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Refer to Leader Resource 1, Order of Service — Collaboration, to conduct the opening. You may adapt the service to fit with your group's interest as well as your congregation's identity and customs. The Order of Service is provided as a starting point.
Including All Participants
Pay attention to the modulation of your voice throughout the opening, and particularly during the meditation. Make sure that your tone is gentle and meditative, but keep your volume high enough to be heard throughout the room. Note that some participants may need to keep their eyes open during the meditation in order to understand your words.
ACTIVITY 1: CHECK-IN (10 MINUTES)
Description of Activity
Invite participants to take turns briefly sharing insights they have had since the previous workshop on play. Ask whether couples have found ways to increase playfulness in their relationship.
If desired, you can move this activity along briskly by asking participants to limit themselves to a one-sentence comment.
Once you feel participants know each other well enough, you may wish to offer an alternative check-in that is more meaningful to the group.
ACTIVITY 2: COLLABORATING TO ENHANCE YOUR RELATIONSHIP (30 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Write the following on a sheet of newsprint, leaving room to add to the list:
Essential Collaboration Skills
Description of Activity
Ask participants to recall the collaborative experience they thought of during the opening guided meditation. Invite volunteers to call out one word or phrase that describes how that experience made them feel. Quickly list the responses on a blank sheet of newsprint. No discussion is necessary. When a variety of words and phrases have been listed, post the sheet on the wall.
Offer these or similar words to focus the activity:
Collaboration within a relationship involves partners actively seeking ways to help each other feel fulfilled. Each supports the other's dreams and works to help the other reach and grow. They pool their resources of knowledge, experience, and skills to more creatively and effectively solve problems. Partners can collaborate most effectively and compassionately when they work together in an atmosphere of trust, respect, and flexibility.
Explain that the activities in this workshop will help couples build collaboration skills in three areas. Post the list of essential collaboration skills that you prepared in advance. Invite participants to name other skills they think facilitate collaboration. Add these skills to the list.
Once participants have generated a list of skills, ask:
Explain that working well collaboratively can generate excitement as partners work toward a shared vision or goal. It can give both individuals an increased sense of empowerment, because they feel confident in the support and encouragement of their partner. At the same time, collaboration can create a more interdependent relationship. With collaboration, both partners have the freedom and ability to solve complex problems, to explore possibilities, and to grow.
ACTIVITY 3: ENGAGING CONFLICT COLLABORATIVELY (25 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Share these or similar words of focus for the activity:
Collaboration is seldom conflict-free. In fact, collaboration often depends on conflict, as the collaborators start out with different needs, concerns, and ideas.
In any conflict, both parties make choices about which is more important: the desired outcome of the conflict — in other words, getting what they want — or building the relationship. How they rank these goals guides how they deal with conflict.
Distribute Handout 1, Styles of Conflict Engagement. Explain that along the left side of the grid, the importance of the relationship can be ranked low, medium, or high. Across the top of the grid, the importance of the outcome can be ranked low, medium, or high. By looking at where these rankings intersect, we can see how a person might tend to react to conflict. You may wish to review the handout's examples with participants.
Ask for questions and comments about the grid. Point out that sometimes, our approach to conflict doesn't reflect our values. We may not actually believe that the outcome is more important than the relationship, yet behave as if it were. In seeking the outcome we want, we might act in ways that hurt the relationship.
Distribute writing paper and pens or pencils. Invite participants to spend ten minutes reflecting individually about a recent conflict with their partner or someone else whose relationship is important to them. Ask them to consider the questions listed on the handout, writing their responses on separate paper.
After ten minutes, re-gather the large group. Invite comments and questions. Encourage partners to talk with one another at home about what they learned from reflecting on their style of conflict engagement.
ACTIVITY 4: INTEREST-BASED PROBLEM SOLVING (35 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Use these or similar words to introduce the concept of collaborative problem solving:
Collaborative problem solving is a process of working together to understand the values and interests involved in a problem and weigh various alternatives accordingly. Instead of starting by debating options, couples start by identifying interests.
For example, if one partner wants to send their child Chris to day camp, and the other partner wants Chris to stay at home, the partners would first write down their interests. These might include "saving money," "spending time with Chris," and "developing Chris's social skills." They would then evaluate each option based on those interests and look for creative ways to satisfy the most interests.
Collaborative problem solving depends on effective communication and cooperation. It engages creativity and can help partners break through disagreements when they feel "stuck."
Distribute and review Handout 2, Problem-Solving Chart for Couples. Explain that it provides an example of how a couple might engage in collaborative problem solving. The couple in the example is trying to figure out what to do with a week off. Emphasize that both partners have unique sets of priorities that may involve friends, parents, children, organizations, work, physical needs, hobbies, or other interests.
Explain that collaborative problem solving involves reaching agreement on the interests involved, expanding the options, and then finding creative ways to satisfy as many interests for each person as possible.
Ask participants to pair up with their partners. Offer the following instructions:
You are invited now to think of a choice or dilemma you're facing as a couple. It doesn't have to be something profound. In fact, it's better for the purpose of this exercise if you choose a simple situation around which you don't have a lot of passion or conflict.
Practice using this chart, first by brainstorming interests, then by listing up to four options. When you've listed your options and interests, together you will evaluate how well each option satisfies each interest. For the ratings, you can use high/medium/low, plus/minus/neutral, a scale of 1 to 10, or any rating that makes sense to you. If you want to create totals for the various columns, you can, but it's not necessary.
Allow 15 minutes for partners to collaborate on the chart. Then draw the large group back together for discussion. Ask:
CLOSING (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Summarize the workshop and its focus on collaboration. Ask participants whether they have any questions about the ideas or skills discussed in this workshop.
Distribute the Taking It Home handout you have prepared.
Gather participants around the chalice. Invite each person to offer one thought or insight about collaboration or this workshop.
As you extinguish the chalice, read the following closing words:
May our efforts here fuel the fires of connection in this world. May our individual efforts take us one step closer to creating a world of inherent worth and dignity for every person, beginning right here with our partners. Blessed be; may it be so; amen.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
With your co-leader, take some time after the workshop to evaluate the session and plan for future sessions. Consider these questions:
Review and assign tasks for the next workshop, such as gathering materials and printing or photocopying handouts. Decide who will lead each section of the next workshop.
TAKING IT HOME
Affection Connection — Collaboration
Extend your exploration of collaboration by trying one or more of these activities on your own.
For Couples: Conflict Engagement Styles
Take home Handout 1, Styles of Conflict Engagement, which you worked on individually in the workshop. Discuss it together, sharing what you learned by reflecting on a recent conflict. Identify ideas for resolving conflict in a manner that's consistent with your value of the relationship and the outcome.
For Couples: Solving Problems Collaboratively
Take home Handout 2, Problem-Solving Chart for Couples. Try using the chart to tackle another problem, perhaps one more significant than the one you explored together during the workshop. Discuss whether you would like to use charts like this in the future to help you work through problems collaboratively.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: FAITH IN ACTION — COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Introduce the activity with these or similar words:
Many Unitarian Universalists find great spiritual and emotional satisfaction in using their individual strengths to help solve problems and respond to needs outside of their personal relationships. They may get involved in social justice work, donate time or funds to charitable organizations, become active in politics — the options are nearly endless.
Invite couples to join in a small group with another couple or two. Distribute writing paper and pens or pencils. Ask groups to create a list of current ways that people in the group work individually for social change.
After 5 minutes, ask the same groups to spend 5 minutes generating a list of how they work for social change as couples.
Some groups will have many examples and others will have few. Clarify that this is okay — some people have more time and resources for social action, and some people are activists by identity. Many people don't have such resources or such an identity, but do have an interest in doing whatever small things they can to create a better world.
When they have completed their lists, ask groups to discuss the impact of working collaboratively "for the cause" and for the relationship. Allow 3 to 5 minutes.
In the time remaining, invite participants to pair up with their partners and discuss which causes might benefit most from their combined interests and skills. Ask them to take some time during the coming week to consider which cause they would most like to work on together and what changes they might need to make in their own lifestyle or schedules to make this happen.
PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT: WORKSHOP 8:
HANDOUT 1: STYLES OF CONFLICT ENGAGEMENT
| Importance of Outcome | ||
Importance of Relationship | High | Med. | Low |
High
|
Collaborate |
|
Accommodate |
Med.
|
|
Compromise |
|
Low
|
Compete |
|
Avoid |
The grid above displays five styles of conflict engagement. Each style’s placement reflects its emphasis on relationship and outcome. Along the left side of the grid, the importance of the relationship between the conflicting parties can be ranked low, medium, or high. Across the top of the grid, the importance of the conflict’s outcome can be ranked low, medium, or high. Each combination of the two rankings represents a different style of conflict engagement. For example:
· Someone who feels that building the relationship is of high importance, and that getting the desired outcome of the conflict is of low importance, may be more likely to accommodate a partner’s wishes.
· Someone who feels that the outcome is of high importance and the relationship is of low importance may compete by demanding that things be done his/her way.
· Someone who feels that both the relationship and the outcome are of low importance may simply avoid trying to resolve the conflict.
· When someone feels that the outcome and the relationship are equally important, the best options are to compromise or to work collaboratively to achieve a result both partners find satisfying.
Think of a recent conflict you had with your partner, a child, or someone else with whom you have a relationship that is important to you. Looking back on the situation, consider the following questions:
· Would you say that your primary approach was accommodation, avoidance, compromise, collaboration, or competition?
· Did this approach reflect the value you would assign to the importance of the outcome and the importance of the relationship? If so, how? If not, why not?
· What might you have done differently to resolve the conflict while supporting your partner or enhancing your relationship?
· What have you found to be the most effective way to handle conflict with your partner?
PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT: WORKSHOP 8:
HANDOUT 2: PROBLEM-SOLVING CHART FOR COUPLES
Below is a sample problem-solving chart. A couple used this chart to help solve their problem of what to do during an upcoming week off. First they came up with a list of interests that each of them would like to see reflected in their time off. They listed these interests down the left side of the chart. Then they identified three options and listed them across the top. Finally, they filled in the chart to evaluate how well each option would satisfy each interest.
Options | |||
Interests | Work on home repair & garden | Go to country inn together | Go on canoe trip with kids & Lee family |
Fun | Low | Medium | High |
Intimacy | Low | High | Medium |
Saving money | High | Low | Medium |
Time with friends | Low | Low | High |
Time with family | Medium | Low | High |
Romance | Low | High | Low |
Relaxation | Low | High | Medium |
Charts can also include indications of how much each interest matters to each partner. For example, "time with friends" might be something that one partner wants while the other doesn't.
Here you can create your own chart.
Problem to be solved: ________________________________________
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PRINCIPLED COMMITMENT: WORKSHOP 8:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: ORDER OF SERVICE — COLLABORATION
Follow this Order of Service as you lead the opening of Workshop 8, Collaboration.
Welcome
Chalice Lighting
Principle
Guided Meditation
Reading
Welcome
Welcome participants. Explain that this workshop is devoted to the concept of collaboration. Participants will explore collaboration as a process of actively seeking ways to help each other live life to its fullest by solving problems together and supporting each other's dreams.
Chalice Lighting
Light the chalice while reading the following words:
We light this chalice as a symbol of our faith: to seek truth and honesty, to build respect, and to foster greater connection among all people, beginning with ourselves. May we dedicate our time together to these purposes.
Principle
Introduce the guiding Unitarian Universalist Principle for this workshop:
We covenant to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.
As imperfect human beings, we struggle with our own not-always-selfless natures. The ability to create just, equitable, and compassionate relationships is one of the most important and difficult challenges we face. Collaboration is a skill — an art — that is essential to just and equitable relationships. When we collaborate, we can best address the conflict, insecurities, and challenges that all loving relationships face. We are thus better able to sustain mutually loving and beneficial relationships.
Guided Meditation
Lead participants through the following guided meditation to center them for the rest of the workshop. Read the words slowly, pausing between phrases.
I invite you into a time of silence. Try to sit with your spine straight, with your feet flat on the floor. Perhaps close your eyes. Take a deep breath, inhale . . . and exhale. Take another deep breath . . . and exhale. Again; this time, as you exhale, let go of all the pressures of the day. Let go of the "to dos," the "should haves" . . . just let them float out of the room. You can return to them later. Take another deep breath. As you inhale, take in the energy of this place. As you exhale, let go of any tension or stress you might be feeling.
[Long pause]
Come into this place of connection. Envision yourself collaborating with your partner. It is a gift you are giving each other. What does it feel like? What does it look like?
[Sit in silence for two to three minutes.]
Please maintain this spirit during the reading.
Reading
Read "If Language Makes Us Human" by Jacob Trapp, 482 in Singing the Living Tradition.
Sit in silence for a few moments before saying:
When you are ready, please bring your focus back into this room and join our check-in.