Thursday, February 21, 2019

Blog #4 - Building a Collaborative Culture

Chapter 4 of The Connected Educator focuses primarily on building a collaborative culture within a given work space. Putting relationships first is of the upmost importance. "Fostering, nurturing, and maintaining positive, congenial relationships is the first step toward building collaborative cultures..." (pg 59). Creating and evolving these relationships within the work space creates a more open and diverse atmosphere among co-workers. These relationships are broken down into congenial, a more private and personal relationship that is open and conversational verses collegiality " a shared belief that none of us is as good (or smart) as all of us.." (pg. 59). While it is important to create open and honest relationships with a team, it is also important to share information, improve on an idea and expand each and every team members knowledge of each task at hand. The chapter continues this central idea by explaining the four stages of collaboration as seen on page 67.
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                  In my future career as a social worker, I plan to work with several teams when managing different cases. I also plan to work one on one with clients and I strongly believe that the four stages of collaboration will benefit my work with my team and/or client. As a leader I plan to let my team learn about one another, find our weaknesses and strengths to help us create new ideas and plans. This will lead the team to understand how we work together as whole and perform as one group, not a number of individuals.

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Going beyond these four stages, I expect myself as well as my team to grow and expand our limits. Establishing trust, will open doors with both my clients and team. With trust we can explore new ideas, make a plan and create a open and safe environment to improve our overall responsibility of our cases. Keeping an eye out for what we post and who our connections are online will help us form a stronger bond within our team as well as our clients. I plan to lead my team willingly by fostering collegiality. This means applying new ideas, allowing change and finding solutions. To have a strong team, one needs a strong leader. I hope to use a sense of change, trust and collaboration with any and all of my clients and my team to be successful within my career.

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                                                                         References:
Nussbaum-Beach, S., Ritter Hall, L. (2012). The Connected Educator. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press

3 comments:

  1. Nice work! When I was reading the chapter, I focused more on building stronger relationships with my colleagues, but forget about my clients. You are true that it is important to establish trust with clients too. This helps to create the customized plan for each client. It also shows the profession and carefulness that the team is trying the best to help the clients with their most satisfaction. However, I think it is hard to establish with clients because clients usually judge with their first impression to see if they feel good working with your team. You always have more time getting along with your teammates than the clients. What will you do to make some change in this situation?

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  2. Nice chapter! Social workers always have to work with other physical therapists when helping patients get access to different programs and opportunities!! Being a trusted leader and creating a relationship is important on fostering a collaborative community. Have you ever tried this technique before in a school setting?

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  3. Hi,
    I really like how you talked about how you would use the information in chapter 4 in your career. I liked how you talked about how you would use it personally but also how you would use it within your group of colleagues. Do you think that the 4 stages of collaboration are true to real life situations that you could face in the social work field?

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