Working Together

In Two (or More) Heads from Sioux's Page, Sioux asks,

"When was a time recently when you collaborated with someone to complete a task? Was it easier, or would you preferred to have worked alone?"

Over the past 20 years, we have had a lawn man mow our lawn and edge the yard. But recently he had to move away and we had to buy a lawn mower and grass trimmer. Now my husband has returned to caring for our yard like he used to do before moving to this house.

When we moved to this house, I decided to take on gardening as a hobby and enjoyed creating new flowerbeds and planting flowers. I trimmed the bushes as best as I could but couldn’t reach many of the tree branches that needed to be trimmed. During these few years of gardening my husband didn’t really spend any time in our yard and I let some things get overgrown.

My lawn man was wonderful but didn’t do all the little things that I would have liked. Of course, if I had been here instead of traveling so much, I could have followed him around to get him to do those things. I could have paid him extra to trim tree branches too but I didn’t.

The past couple of months my husband and I have worked together in the yard getting it in the shape we wanted it to be in. It has been exciting to see the yard get back in shape little by little. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed working side by side with my husband and feeling proud that we had done the work ourselves. It has made gardening even more enjoyable.

I like collaborating with someone when I know we have the same goal, work habits, and values. It is easy to work with someone like this because I feel like we both give 110% and can share ideas without worrying about egos. It seems like we achieve the goal even faster than expected.

But it is really hard to collaborate with someone who doesn’t have the same work habits or values as I do. At times it feels like we are at cross-purposes even though we are working towards the same goal. These are the times that egos get in the way and I feel like I am spinning wheels instead of achieving anything. It seems to take twice as long to reach the goal when this happens. Would it be better to talk about our differences and admit that we should work alone rather than together?

So, the bottom line is that it depends on whom I have to work with.  Communication and honesty is the best policy.

How do you feel about collaborating with others? Please share.