This one kinda hurts to relive, just a little.
One of the happiest moments from my synchro years - an example of collaborative teamwork.
One quote resonated with me from the reading on collaboration in the creative process, what Andy Smallman of the Puget Sound Community School stated on page 32: The imperative of a collaborative educational culture is that if you do not have a space for which people feel safe, secure, and supported then students will no be enabled to collaborate.
I have been in positions where group work was comprised of a self appointed leader, leaving the rest of us out of the decision making process. For this example, I will reflect on the years I was a member of a masters level synchronized skating team. D appointed herself our team manager, assuming leadership apart from our skating coach. While H picked our music and created the choreography, D alone made decisions on dresses, team uniform, competitions, and makeup, right down to the shade of eyeshadow and lipstick. More than half the team went along with D, happy to have her make the decisions. The other half the team wanted more input: styles chosen for others on the team were not flattering for others; other family and work commitments that conflicted with competitions; and more control of how we operated as a team. At that time, I was struggling with my weight, and was often the target of mean comments and blamed for mistakes the team made.
Things came to a head competing at the ISI Adult Championships in 2004. Several of our friends, who were freestyle skaters there for the competition, joined the team so we would have the required number of skaters for the team to compete. It was supposed to be fun. Instead, D berated several of these new team members for small mistakes, especially A, who was a left-handed skater who struggled with the choreography that came natural to right handed skaters. A continued to train; the others continued to drink wine. She won her event, so did I. When it came time to compete, we won the gold medal! But at what price? Several held their medals instead of wearing them proudly, shrugging off our hard-won victory. A week later, at the victory picnic, D and half the team quit unceremoniously, blaming others for ruining their fun.
Kelly says on page 33, "In supportive, collaborative environments, this capacity can be grown to enable engagement in more complex and sustained creative initiatives." What we had then, was half a team. But then more skaters joined us BECAUSE D was no longer bossing the team around; suddenly, we had a culture of collaborative creativity, where all members were valued, validated, accepted. We felt we had more infinite potential because instead of one leading, there were now ten of us able to collaborate. As a skating team, we definitely exhibited the power of interrelatedness, as we had an impact on one another within the program. And because of this, we were able to adapt and thrive in a environment of perpetual change: we didn't want to buy new dresses, so someone bought a bolt of hot pink chiffon and made over a dress from two years prior; someone couldn't take time off from work, so we did a competition closer to home; we voted on and chosen our new music. It was the best season of the four I skated with the team, and we were undefeated for the year, claiming gold medals at four competitions.
People need to feel their contributions are valued, their efforts supported, and their membership into a collaborative space is safe. A team must indeed be a team.
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