Collaboration - Its a dance thing

Hello blogthers,

It was interesting for me when thinking of an event that required a lot of collaboration. Many events came to mind, some were of a time when I had to lead a group and others were when I was being led. But before I get into the actual event I would like to discuss some ideas about collaboration I had the other night.

First, collaboration isn't about being the "perfect" group. A lot of people have this general preconception that collaboration entails a group that agrees on every topic brought up; a group that has no quarrels or conflicts; a group that is bound to "group think." I believe that in true collaborations it is quite the opposite. In order for an idea to reach its full potential, there have to be disagreements and struggles for these positively affect the decision process. How can you make an informed decision with only one side of an issue? I believe it should be and is impossible to do so with only one side.

This leads me to my next point of diversity. A diverse group had much more potential than a group that is similar. This should be pretty self explanatory, but I'll dive into this a little further. (Just realized this blog is reading more as a paper than a blog... my apologies ha but I guess that's cause I'm on a little rant.) Now I'm not talking about diversity in terms of ethnic groups, but diversity in terms of different backgrounds and thought processes (so yes diverse ethnicities would most likely fulfill this definition.)

Anyways, now that I explained my two little thoughts I can go into my collaboration.

Dance team baby. Fiji dance team. One of my favorite experiences of college and presumably my most challenging. Now for a little background. Last year Fiji decided to enter the Greek Week Variety Show for the first time. This show involves fraternities and sororities who compete in a dance off. Fraternities against fraternities and sororities against sororities. So when Fiji decided we were going to enter we decided we wanted to go for it all.

Ron Holgado ( presumably the best dancer in Fiji other than perhaps thee Ray Sharp ) decided he was going to assemble a group of dance leaders. The leaders he chose were himself ( of course ), Tony Gallenstein, Ray Sharp, and I. For the record I suck at dancing haha. Together we decided we would go with a Michael Jackson tribute for our dance theme. Ron and Ray handled the "bad" group, and Tony and I handle the "good" group. Our dance leaders all had very different intentions about what our final dance was going to look like. But, I believe that all of these diverse ideas ended up benefiting our dance as a whole. We incorporated bits and pieces from everyone's ideas and then passed it down to any Fiji who volunteered to perform in the show. Now collaboration was required by the dance leaders. Even more collaboration was required in teaching and syncing everyone's movements. I have no idea if this is true, but I would assume part of the definition of dance is a group collaboration. Anyways, all of the trials and errors ended up making our dance the best and how do I know this? Because we won first place!!!!

I learned a lot about dealing with others through this collaboration. How to motivate others to share your enthusiasm, working with people from all different skill levels to form a succinct coercive outcome, and how to manage a group of individuals towards a greater good (us winning of course ha.)

Here the amazing results,

Anyways hope you enjoyed that little shpeal.

Signing out,
Oz