Chapter 4: Building a Collaborative Culture

Chapter 4 of the book "The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in the Digital Age" has done a very good job of illustrating the main point of the chapter. "Chapter 4: Building a Collaborative Culture" went into depth to clarify how important the partnership is and how important it is.  There are two different types of relationships that are congenial and collegial. Collegiality is simply a shared belief that none of us is as good or as smart as all of us. For this reason, we can all contribute to the improvement of individual practices. Conversely, congenially, basically, it refers to the polite, friendly relationship that we have with each other. Some examples of congeniality refer to being polite and friendly and maintaining a friendly relationship with one another. For starters, we can share our resources with our friends, we can interact about what's going on in our lives, or even what we're doing right now. Several examples may include being more interested in doing things with your peers or even being there for your peers. You can do this by attending their special events or gatherings to show appreciation to the individual, and all of these would be in the category of congeniality.

Another important part of building a relationship is the need to trust each other.  This is very important because, without trust, it will be very difficult to work with each other, especially in a busy environment. For example, in some businesses, managers can't do all the work, so they're depending on their assistants or associates to find out and do the work of them. That's why the managers are already occupied. They don't have time to double-check what the person has done, so it's important for the manager to trust the person to do the job correctly, or even to trust the person to figure out the problem.  In this regard, respect is another important factor.  It is very important to respect one another in a professional environment. It doesn't matter whether or not you like an individual, but having respect makes peer-to-peer relationships easier and the world better. This is one thing that I genuinely respect and see that companies’ value this as well.  The last thing you want is to have a toxic environment where no one is happy, and no progress is being made. This applies to all fields, I first assumed professionals in my field are okay with collaboration and would not criticize each other work; rather give each other feedback. But I have noticed this isn't really true, it still happens in some teams. This chapter has taught a lot about how to treat your peers.  My question to my classmates is, do you prefer to be more trusted or respected?

Reference 

Nussbaum- Beach, Sheryl. And Lani Ritter Hall. The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age. Indiana. Solution Tree Press, 2012.