What I’ve Learned About Building Collaboration Muscles

It’s now been seven years since I first started exploring a simple hypothesis:

• Collaboration is a muscle (or, rather, a set of muscles)
• You strengthen these muscles by exercising them repeatedly (i.e. practice)

Our current orientation toward collaboration is knowledge-centric, not practice-centric. No one expects anyone to get good at playing the guitar by handing them a book or sending them to a week-long “training,” yet somehow, this is exactly how we try to help folks get better at communicating or navigating hairy group dynamics.

I’ve spent the past seven years trying to change this. I’m currently on the fifth iteration of my experiments, which I’m currently calling Collaboration Gym. The other iterations (slightly out of order) were:

1. Changemaker Bootcamp (2013)
2. Collaboration Muscles & Mindsets (2014-2015)
3. Habits of High-Performing Groups (2018-present)
4. “Personal” Training for Organizations (2016-present)
5. Collaboration Gym (2020-present)

I’ve failed a lot and learned a ton with each iteration, and I thought it would be fun to summarize what I’ve been learning here. I’ve also been having provocative conversations with Sarna Salzman and Freya Bradford about what a Collaboration Gym (or, in their case, a “Systems Change Dojo”) might look like in their community of Traverse City, Michigan. We’ve stayed mostly big picture so far, but recently decided that it was time to get real and specific. With their permission, I’ve decided to do my thinking out loud so as to force me to write down these scattered thoughts and also get some early feedback from a broader set of folks. That means you, dear reader! Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Changemaker Bootcamp (2013)

The first iteration of this experiment was Changemaker Bootcamp, a face-to-face workout program that met for two hours every week for six weeks. I designed a series of exercises focused on developing muscles I considered to be critical for effective collaboration, such as listening actively, asking generative questions, navigating power, and having challenging conversations.

My participants — all of whom enrolled individually — generally found the exercises valuable and appreciated the practice-orientation. They also got along well with each other and valued the peer feedback. I designed the workouts to feel like physical workouts, only without the sweating and exhaustion. They consisted of warmups followed by intense exercises, with “just enough” explanations for why we were doing what we were doing. Most found the experiential emphasis refreshing. A few found it slightly dissatisfying. Even though they trusted me, they still wanted me to explain the why of each workout in greater detail.

These initial pilots helped me test and refine my initial set of workouts, and they also helped build my confidence. However, there were three key flaws.

1. We weren’t repeating any of the exercises. In order to do this, I needed more of my participants’ time and I needed to focus my workouts on just a few core muscles.
2. I needed an assessment. This would help me figure out the muscles on which to focus, and it would also help participants sense their progress.
3. I was having trouble explaining the specific value and impact of this kind of training to people who didn’t already know and trust me.

Col