What the hell does collaboration really mean? The Core Value To Healthy Relationships & Thriving Workplace Culture, With Dr. Deb Mashek

What does collaboration really mean to you? At a certain time, either in your couple's relationship or in your interaction with your colleagues at work, you surely found yourself in need to adjust your behaviour towards them and find common ground and shared goals in order to effectively solve the issues you were facing and create value together. As a full professor of social psychology- turned CEO of a national non-profit-  turned business owner, Deb Mashek uses relationship science to help business leaders create productive and less painful workplace relations with their teams.She reveals all her research discoveries in her book- “Collabor(h)ate- How to build incredible collaborative relationships at work (even if you’d rather work alone)”. In today’s episode of the Jake Dunlap show, Deb shares the real meaning behind “collaboration”, and how, if used effectively and in accordance with the situation you’re in, it can solve many of the problems created by ineffective communication and build a culture in which anyone can thrive. She talks about growing up in a trailer park in Nebraska and dealing with her parent's struggle with alcoholism, how she discovered her passion for social psychology, and the study of close relationships, and what determined her to branch out into the world of business and non-profits after a successful career in higher education administration. Time stamps: (00:50) Meet Dr. Deb Mashek, an experienced business advisor, professor, higher education administrator, and national non-profit executive;(02:02) Growing up in a trailer park and witnessing her parents struggle with their alcohol addiction;(06:42) Why social psychology? Falling in love with this domain after taking a course on “Psychology of close relationships” in her first semester at the University of Nebraska.(08:52) Moving to Stony Brooke and facing the real world and people with a completely different mindset than the one she was used to while growing up in the Midwest;(12:00) The 2016 elections- the incentive she needed to branch out into the non-profit organizations' world after a successful career in higher education administration;(15:26) The real meaning behind collaboration and how Deb’s book came to life- “Collabor(h)ate- How to build incredible collaborative relationships at work (even if you’d rather work alone)”(20:17) Working together for a positive result- challenge and empower each other to find that common ground;(26:00) Effective mechanisms to help people collaborate efficiently;(33:01) Working with constructive tension to increase the quality of collaboration- the difference between teams that accomplish things at the highest levels and teams that struggle to get there.  Quotes “The trailer park, my parent's alcoholism, and my Ph.D. These are the three great teachers of collaboration for me.” “I learned really early on that to get some of my very basic needs met, whether it’s baby food one day or transportation to school another day, we relied on me understanding how to connect with the other adults in the world.” “That very first semester I took this “Psychology of close relationship” course and absolutely fell in love with it. I was the dork in the class who read every single page of every single assignment (…) I just couldn’t get enough of this content and decided that semester that this is what I really wanted to study.” “Collaboration can also be trying to adjust our activities in a way to meet some sort of shared goal or (...)sharing resources. And those resources could be the talent or (...) spaces in the classroom or it could be I’ve got this really expensive piece of machinery sitting over in this chemistry lab (...) What it actually means is that we’re doing all these things and we’re learning from each other to be better at our work.” “We’re all playing different positions on the same teams and you don’t want two pitchers on the same mound at the same time, you want to trust that the person whose there knows their stuff and is going to be responsive to your needs, that we care about each other and we lift each other up.” “We should not be collaborating because it’s the right thing to do or because it feels good. We do it because the end result serves the interests of the participating parties.” “If you’ve got a team of four and everybody has a different assumption about how we should be working together, it’s a land mine. Of course, you’re going to be upsetting everybody! There’s a really basic functional conversation that we can have at the top of the collaboration to help get smoother behavior together.” ______________________________ Get in contact with Deb: Website- https://www.debmashek.com/Linkedin- https://www.linkedin.com/in/debra-mashek/Twitter- https://twitter.com/debmashekInstagram - https://rb.gy/ed96scFacebook- https://www.facebook.com/groups/551201039300719Tik Tok- https://www.tiktok.com/@debmashek  Deb Mashek’s book: Collabor(h)ate- How to build incredible collaborative relationships at work(even if you’d rather work alone)______________________________  Follow Jake: Website- https://www.jakedunlap.com/Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/jake_dunlap_/Linkedin- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakedunlapTwitter- https://twitter.com/jaketdunlap