By Kristy L. Daniel
“When one of us shines, all of us shine.” – Schitt’s Creek
Like many others in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself picking up new hobbies. I gravitated towards jigsaw puzzles. It was satisfying to me to sort through the pieces and see how the shapes interlock to create a final image. I realized while building these puzzles, that my journey of building research collaborations was a very similar process.
When I started my research program as an Assistant Professor, I did not fully understand the importance of creating and working with a research team that meshed with my puzzle-solving approach. I already knew that most research, especially interdisciplinary work, could not be done in isolation. But, I quickly learned that the composition of a research team could make or break a project, we were either going to solve our puzzle or be left frustrated with a bunch of random pieces that didn’t quite fit together. I am not referring to academic capabilities, but compatibility. We are all surrounded by amazing researchers, but I learned that if a team cannot find ways to overcome the challenges that inevitably come with interpersonal team dynamics, project success is difficult to obtain.
Collaborations can be finicky when first developing. Through my experiences, I have discovered that not all collaborations are meant to be. Some teams dissolve before making any headway. I consider these experiences some of the better “failures” I have encountered. I might join in on an initial brainstorming session with a group of potential collaborators and find we cannot even decide upon what puzzle we are interested in solving together from the start, so we part ways to expend energy on more fruitful projects. But once a team is created and we begin making headway to solve our shared puzzle things can be good, bad, or awesome.
The Good.
One of the first collaborative teams I worked with, involved biologists, general science educators, discipline-based science educators (DBER), and learning scientists (LS) to explore the role of technology while teaching and learning in informal outdoor environments. We relied on each other to accomplish our shared goals, had fun, were supportive of each other, and published and obtained grants as a team. I remember dancing with excitement together in the hallway when we received our first Nation Science Foundation award. We did not even care that we had to rework our budget to under 10% of what we had originally requested. There was no blame and no resentment for the drastic changes we were going to have to make, only optimism, resilience, and willing compromise to make things work. Our team celebrations continued with every accepted presentation and publication we earned, no matter who took the lead on each part. We began putting pieces together to start making sense of our puzzle.
I also learned a great deal about compassion, for myself, and for others. I struggle with anxiety, depression, and migraines. It can be difficult to get out of bed some days, much less find the mental capacity to create research ideas, analyze data, or function as a living human being. My colleagues have helped me become more open about my struggles and recognize that I am not alone in needing time for self-care. My team has helped me realize that I do not have to solve an entire puzzle in one day. Sometimes, it’s good to just put in one piece or take a break from it altogether. There are weeks when I have met with my team and no one has made any progress. But, you know what, sometimes that is just going to happen. Let’s face it, we are all busy. I teach an overload of classes every semester, I chair university-level, departmental, and national professional committees, I run a busy research group that had 12 students with 12 different projects at one point, and I bet I am not even as busy as some of the rest of you! Even trying to schedule team meetings at a time when everyone can meet can cause headaches. It might be easier to solve a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle that is missing a handful of pieces. Still, collaboration is still worth it. Finding a time to meet as a team affords a chance to interact in ways that email cannot accomplish. Live discussions can inspire ideas by building from one another, prompt new trains of thought, and reinvigorate motivation.
The Bad.
When working with my first interdisciplinary collaborative team, I quickly found myself surrounded by communication challenges. I noticed a reoccurring scenario: each team member would have their own incompatible language from the rest of the team. This happened when a member would speak using terminology that was unknown to others or by members using the same term but assuming a unique meaning that was not shared by the rest of the team. For example, I never realized that there were so many interpretations of the term ‘model’ and that various disciplines hold a differing understanding of what arrows represented in data visualizations. Communication challenges require teams to reassess approaches and focus on developing a shared background before moving forward on a project. When team members are not willing to adapt language or take time to define jargon, collaboration ability degrades. If you can believe it, at one point I spent three years invested in a project that I still do not fully understand I was supposed to have been doing. This was not for a lack of effort nor a lack of asking about my role and clarification of project goals. At one point, I remember asking the project leader to explain the project to me in layman’s terms, but they were unable to recognize that what they found as foundational was complete jargon to me. In hindsight, I should have recommended using a program such as the de-jargonizer to help identify potential language areas that were causing confusion. I was simply never able to understand the vision of the project lead because the language barrier was too great. This was an incredibly frustrating position that created friction across the team and ultimately ended the collaboration.
Interdisciplinary collaborations are unique in that they can bring together researchers from varying backgrounds drawing upon varying frameworks that can create synergy. However, when these collaborations form without a clear leader or if the teams have too strong of clashing philosophies or mismatched priorities, the partnerships may not be fruitful. While flexibility is a positive attribute, it is also important to set boundaries to maintain personal and academic integrity to research program goals. These situations can be akin to trying to create a cohesive image using pieces from completely different puzzles, too much compromise just won’t work.
The Awesome.
Based on past lessons learned, I am now fortunate to work with a strong interdisciplinary team of DBER and LS. What makes this team special is that we introduce new perspectives by lifting each other up to our level using shared language and patience in our descriptions of theory and method. We focus on constructive feedback with the intent to educate and build knowledge of the field rather than criticize as we work on project deliverables. With this team, it is critical not to dwell on rejections or failures, but rather work together to build from lessons learned and emerge stronger. For example, recently, we found out that we did not receive a grant that as hoped, but instead of stewing over the rejection the revision was immediately put onto the agenda for the next competition round and even created a project website in the interim. The team leverages team members’ strengths when developing new projects and research objectives. We challenge the way we think about the big picture we are trying to create. Meetings are filled with encouragement to take risks, to apply for grant opportunities even if they are unrelated to the team objectives but will support individual career goals, sharing job advertisements, and helping build each other’s professional network connections. I am even joining one of my team member’s labs next year during my sabbatical to further our collaboration on a tangential project about representational competence. With this team, I feel like I am not alone while working on my puzzle. I don’t have to be perfect. I can be a human and am still accepted. Everyone is helping find pieces together, we are making huge strides in our efforts, and the pieces easily fit making the big picture snap into focus.
About the Author
Dr. Kristy L. Daniel is an Associate Professor of Biology at Texas State University. She is a discipline-based educational researcher who studies how people make sense of and communicate understandings of biology, especially when using visualizations. You can find her by email at (kristydaniel@txstate.edu) on Social Media (TXSciencePEERS) or on her website.