A Practical Guide for Developing Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration Skills

Solutions to societal and organizational problems require people from diverse fields of expertise to effectively work in team-based, collaborative environments. To create these environments, we need to address a myth in modern culture that people have natural abilities to collaborate and work together. Collaboration and teamwork are skills. As such, these skills need to be learned and practiced. Commonly, collaboration is learned through trial and error. Team members have little or no training in how to effectively and efficiently harness the diversity of strengths among team members and maximize their contributions to the team. The purpose of this book is to provide a practical, process-oriented guide that, at its most fundamental level, is about building relationships and promoting communication and learning among diverse groups of individuals that results in creative, collaborative, and inclusive problem-solving environments. This volume provides explicit approaches and processes that will help team members more effectively and efficiently create new knowledge and solutions for societal and organizational problems through collective action.