Relationships and collaboration are crucial to innovation, but what about working in isolation? Where does that come into play? #IMMOOC

“We must create interdependent relationships to be considered a team.” ~ Rick DuFour

Relationships is the oil that turns the gears of collaboration.  In does not matter if the collaboration taking effect is between a married couple, a family, a corporation, a military unit, a group of educators or a group of students.  The stronger the relationship, the more effective the collaboration.  Unfortunately, many organizations (and Schools are no exception) spend very little time on relationship building (also known as "team building").   They feel that "people will naturally click" because they are supposedly working towards the same goal.  

If a relationship is not strong; people will not trust each other.  When people trust each other a strong relationship is built.  People who trust each other allow themselves to be vulnerable to one another.  They let their guard down and share things with others in their group.  This breeds innovation because alternative viewpoints would start to be shared and eventually a consensus would be achieved with innovation being the  end result.  It's a simple formula; trust leads to strong relationships, strong relationships lead to effective collaboration, effective collaboration leads to a consensus and a consensus leads to innovation.  

...but what about the value of isolation?  How does working in isolation achieve innovation?

There is an interesting passage of scripture in the Bible that seems to contradict itself but in reality addresses the importance of isolation towards group innovation:

"take on yourselves one another's troubles...But let every person make test of their work, and then will their cause for glory be in themselves only, and not in their neighbor. Because every individual is responsible for their part of the work." Gal. 6:2, 4-5 BBE

Before group contribution is given, a person must spend time formulating his or her own worldview. Then they will have an opportunity to take their own alternative viewpoint and share it with the group they are collaborating with. As worldviews are shared, different perspectives are realized that were not realized before and new ideas come forth. By the way, this is the beauty of diversity; the more diverse a group is, the more diverse the worldviews and truly created ideas come forth from such diverse collaborations.