When am I Cooperative Enough?

This past week I was in Durham NC doing a bunch of teaching, when a curious student posed a question I'd never fielded before.

I had just finished making the case for why people who want to create and sustain cooperative culture need to do personal work to unlearn competitive conditioning if they want to avoid being drained by an endless swirl of combative dynamics when people disagree. Persuaded by my thinking, this woman was (reasonably) wondering how much work did she need to do before putting her oar in the water.

What a good question! In some ways it's just another version of an age-old dilemma about when do you have enough information to take action. After all, you never know everything. When does the value of waiting to gather additional data drop below the cost of delaying a response? Sometimes this is clear cut; other times it can be excruciatingly obscure.

Still, on the question of being "cooperative enough," I think it's useful to identify some markers. Here are some things to think about. Progress against these markers are positive signs. To the extent you struggle with these skills, it means you have more work to do.

•  In cooperative culture, how things are done matters as much as what gets done. Thus, being cooperatively sensitive implies a consciousness and facility with process. You should know that this matters and have a pretty clear sense of how to do things well.

•  The ability to consistently think in terms of what's best for the group, distinguishing that from personal preference.
•  The ability to see an issue through another's eyes (rather than only through your own).

•  A solid understanding of what it means to be a productive, disciplined, and courageous meeting participant (I'll give you a hint: meetings are not open mic). This means a lot of things, including, knowing what the topic is at any given moment, having done your homework on the topic, knowing what kind of contribution is called for at any given moment, supporting the facilitator if some participants are misbehaving, looking for ways to bridge between people who are struggling to hear each other, owning your stuff if you've having a reaction, reining in any impulse to be aggressive and attacking, and speaking your truth—even when you doubt it will be a viewpoint that will be popular.

•  Developing emotional literacy—the ability to articulate clearly what you're feeling and to hear accurately what other's are reporting about their feelings. A deeper nuance here is the ability to function well in the presence of another's distress.

•  Being open to hearing critical feedback about your statements and actions as a member of the group. Can you do this with minimal armoring or defensiveness?

•  How open are you to the perception that you are oblivious to your privilege?