Let me start off with a little story about when I used to teach.
I used to teach tech writing at the local university. It was a night class, so I got a mix of traditional undergrads and working adults. The differences between the two tended to be pretty jarring.
The traditional students were generally okay, but I found a lot of them tended to zone out. (I also got some who never came to class and then were shocked that I gave them an F on their mid-term grade!) The adults, though, were pretty much thoroughly engaged the whole time – asking questions, answering questions, sharing their own experiences, never missing class, coming on time …
What’s this got to do with anything? Well, I also used to give group projects, making sure I got a good mix on each team. Can you guess what happened? It wasn’t always the case, but I did find that the adults were likely to do all the heavy lifting, while the undergrads tended to sit back and let them do just that.
After a semester or two of frustration, I finally instituted a new scheme where members got to grade their peers, and individual grades on the project were a combo of the group grade plus the grade from your peers. It definitely improved the situation (though there were also some students who were in for a little life lesson as well).
Of course, in the real world, that kind of thing tends to weed itself out pretty quickly. Adults tend not to change jobs in the way that students might change classes, and that kind of behavior can catch up with you pretty quick.
In fact, I’ve tended to see just the opposite. Indeed, there are plenty of successful careers out there of people who were definitely part of the mix, but who also simply took undue credit along the way. And as one of those hard-working adult types, I always kind of resented that.
These days, though, I’m much more apt to let it slide. Maybe it’s just being happy seeing something work for a change. Maybe it’s being more forgiving of human foible. Maybe it’s just the wisdom of age. Maybe it’s just not giving a flying … you know what.
Why is this worth a blog post though? Well, collaboration certainly is all the rage these days. Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever had someone interviewing for a position who, when asked what kind of culture they preferred, didn't say "collaborative." I think it just goes to you show you, though, how something as mom and apple pie as "collaboration" may have more to it than appears on the surface.
President Truman (and aide) doing some early
in-home usability testing with consumer hardware
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