Explaining Collaboration and Freedom

Collaboration works well when it is understood.

Proper collaboration needs to be modelled and explained and the loosening policies and procedures can result in a number of problems without the same.

As more people begin asking Christians for their perspective on modern problems, one issue that Christians will want to emphasize is the problem that arises in different areas of public life where upfront rules are loosened without preparing people for how to regulate their own behavior. This is a gap that can be found in spheres of life such as modern school systems. Students are given more freedom to say and do what they want without enough of a focus on how to use that freedom, which can often result in them feeling freer to mistreat each other and their teachers in a capricious manner. They are also encouraged to work more freely in groups without much preparation for how to collaborate as a group, which can result in a lot of misspent time.

In an area of life such as work, hierarchical structures with upfront rules are being abandoned in certain kinds of work in favor of more collaborative environments while leaving a gap between these freer environments and an understanding of how to navigate them. Because proper collaborative skills come naturally to some people and collaboration is widely recognized to be a positive idea, little attention is given to helping people understand how to collaborate. Removing a hierarchy of leadership and ushering people into collaborative environments without training can result in people acting on natural tendencies that involve more willful, unprepared group members pushing their ideas ahead of the better ones and ignoring the more quiet but thoughtful voices.

Across spheres of society, collaborative and “less restrictive” structures are pushed with little training in how to navigate those structures in an unselfish way. It is wrongly assumed that people will just know how to behave in these environments without taking advantage of others and acting on wayward tendencies that can be unfriendly and hurtful. Proper collaboration needs to be modelled and explained and the loosening policies and procedures can result in a number of problems without the same.