1. Encouraging Collaboration
Welcome participants to the session.
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

2. MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training
Activity
INTRODUCTION (8:00)
Refer participants to page 1 of their Participant Manual.
Activity (6:00):
Before we get started, let’s complete a short activity.
Directions:
Work individually to answer the question on page 1 of your Participation Manual – What are some ways in which you can promote the Centennial? You have 2 minutes to list ideas individually.
Next, work in a group of 2-3 to answer the same question for 2 minutes.
3. After 2 minutes ask: How many answers did you get working together? How did your results compare as a group to working as individuals?
Ask: What have you discovered about working together?
Allow 2-3 participants to respond. Responses should include:
They were able to come up with more ideas working together than when they worked independently
Others came up with ideas that individuals had not considered
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

3. MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training
Session Objectives
Define collaboration
Recognize characteristics
List the qualities of successful collaborators
Identify ways to encourage collaboration within the Centennial team
Your role as a MD/SD centennial coordinator is vital to the success of our Centennial Celebration. You are responsible for supporting the planning and completion of Centennial activities in your MD/SD through June 2018.
As we have just demonstrated in our activity, working with others prevails over working independently. Much of your time will be spent working with and supporting your district centennial coordinators. You should also collaborate with the other leaders in your MD/SD, including the council chairperson and GMT/GLT MD coordinators, to ensure cohesive support of Centennial goals and initiatives. Leveraging the experience and expertise of everyone involved will increase our collective success.
This session will focus on how you can encourage collaboration within the Centennial team, particularly your district centennial coordinators. These skills, however, can also be used to collaborate with leaders in your MD/SD, as well as those at the district and club levels, which is an important component of your position.
By the end of the session you will be able to:
Define collaboration
Recognize characteristics of working collaboratively
List the qualities of successful collaborators
Identify ways to encourage collaboration within the Centennial team
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

4. MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training
Collaboration:
To work with another person or group in order to achieve or do something
MODULE 1: What is Collaboration? (15:00)
Refer participants to page 2 of their Participant Manual.
Defined simply, collaboration means to work with another person or group in order to achieve or do something.
Ask: What is the Centennial team trying to achieve or do by June 2018?
Allow 2-3 participants to respond. Responses should indicate support of three key points discussed earlier: Lead through Service (Centennial Service Challenge), Invite for Impact (Centennial Membership Awards), and Connect to Community (Legacy Projects).
Good! As discussed earlier today, there are many goals you are asked to support in order to make the Centennial Celebration a success. This includes collectively serving 100+ million people through the Centennial Service Challenge, challenging clubs to induct at least three new members and districts to sponsor a new club each year of the Centennial, and encouraging clubs to strengthen their community bonds by implementing a Community Legacy Project, to name just a few.
These goals are lofty, but can more easily be achieved if you work in collaboration with one another.
Another way think about collaboration:
Collaboration is the act of coming together and working with another, or others, to create something that goes beyond the ability of any one person to produce on his or her own.
Ask: What does it mean to work collaboratively? (What do people do who work collaboratively?)
Allow 2-4 participants to respond. Examples are highlighted on the next slide.
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

5. Working Collaboratively
Share ideas
Give feedback and support
Solve problems together
Share decision making responsibility
As you indicated, working collaboratively means that team members share ideas, give each other feedback and support, solve problems together and share the decision making responsibility. It also means that each individual team member is aware of the ways in which his or her own work relies on and contributes to the work of others in the team.
Ask: What would happen if a team was working towards a goal, but did not work collaboratively?
Allow 1-2 participants to respond. Possible responses: there would be confusion, inability to meet deadlines, miscommunication, etc.
It would be very challenging to achieve your goals if everyone did not work together!
There are some things to keep in mind about collaboration.
Remember…
Collaboration requires a shared goal. It is based on a strong sense of purpose. Team members collaborate only when they share a goal.
Collaboration is voluntary. It requires that all team members want to work together towards a common goal; they cannot be required to collaborate. They must make a personal choice to work collaboratively.
Collaboration is based on equality. It is based on a sense that all team members are valued equally. Each person participating in a collaborative effort contributes some type of knowledge, skill or resource.
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

6. Successful Collaborators:
Engage in conversation
Elicit creativity
Seek self-knowledge
MODULE 2: Your Role as MD/SD Coordinator (35:00)
Refer participants to page 3 in their Participant Manuals.
Now that you have an idea what collaboration is and some common characteristics of working collaboratively, you can start to focus on how you can encourage your Centennial team to collaborate.
As MD/SD centennial coordinator you can have a great impact on how the Centennial team works together. In order to make collaboration work within your MD/SD, it is important you first understand the qualities of a successful collaborator. Knowing this allows you and those on your team to better understand what they can do to make collaboration more effective.
Those who successfully collaborate…
*Engage in, and value, conversation
They take an interest in others. In fact, they use conversation as a simple yet very
effective way to learn about others and the potential they may have
for working well together in collaborative efforts.
*Find ways to elicit creativity in themselves and others
They may use a variety of brainstorming techniques.  No idea is discounted or
censored, just played with until it either becomes something bigger, or
fizzles out.
*Actively seek self-knowledge and learning
Those who know what they’re good at and enjoy, also know how they can make
their best contribution to the collaborative effort.  They use their
curiosity as a tool to explore and discover new possibilities.
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

7. Successful Collaborators:
Invite contribution
Make others look good
Manage disagreement well
*Invite contribution and accept what is offered without judgment
Often it is the case that someone will offer an opinion and our first instinct is to look
for flaws.  Those who collaborate productively resist the temptation
to do this, choosing to build on what is offered instead through questions and
discussion.
*Make others look good
They focus on the work and the contributions others make before seeking personal
recognition.
*Manage disagreement well
While we might like to think that effective collaboration does not include
disagreement, it does.  Those who are skilled collaborators see the value in the
tension that disagreement can produce and use it as a bridge to get to something
different, or something better.
Collaboration can be challenging. It’s success depends on making the work more important than any one individual.  It asks us to lessen our desire to compete with others and instead find personal satisfaction in the joint effort.  However, done well, collaborative efforts produce some pretty amazing, and very successful results.
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

8. The Centennial Team Centennial Action Committee
On whom should you focus when encouraging collaboration?
As you have learned, the Centennial team consists of the Centennial Action Committee, the MD/SD centennial coordinators, the district centennial coordinators and the club centennial chairpersons. It would be advantageous for all of these groups to work collaboratively, and you can encourage them to do so; however, as a MD/SD centennial coordinator, your main focus will be to encourage collaboration among your district centennial coordinators.
Take a moment to consider why it would be advantageous for you to encourage collaboration with your district centennial coordinators. Think back to the activity we did at the beginning of this session. What are some positive outcomes they might gain by working collaboratively?
Allow 2-4 participants to respond. Examples are highlighted on the next slide.
MD/SD Centennial Coordinators
District Centennial Coordinators
Clubs
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

9. Advantages of Collaboration
Increased creativity/ideas
Improved communication
Smarter use of resources
Improved problem solving
Greater support
Better results!
Refer participants to page 4 of their Participant Manual.
As you mentioned, there are definitely advantages of working collaboratively.
Review points on slide.
By encouraging collaboration among your district centennial coordinators, ideally they will then encourage collaboration among their district team and club centennial chairpersons.
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

10. Group Activity: Ways to Encourage Collaboration
In order to be successful at encouraging the Centennial team, particularly your district centennial coordinators, to collaborate, you need to know effective ways to encourage collaboration. How do you encourage people to do something they may not otherwise do on their own?
The following group activity will allow you to brainstorm ways to encourage your district centennial coordinators to work collaboratively.
Activity (15:00):
Refer participants to page 5 of the Participant Manual.
Form groups of 2-3 people.
Give 5 minutes for participants to brainstorm ways in which they can encourage collaboration with their district centennial coordinators.
Call time after 5 minutes.
Have each group share their ideas for encouraging collaboration. Examples are highlighted on the next slide.
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

11. MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training
Ways to Encourage
Share benefits and advantages
Establish relationships
Set the groundwork
Decide on communication tools
Model collaboration
From what we gathered from our brainstorming activity, we can see there are several ways we can encourage collaboration. Not one way, however, involves just telling our team to collaborate. That is because you cannot force people to collaborate. Collaboration is voluntary; people must want to collaborate towards a shared goal.
The best encouragement is to share with your district centennial coordinators what you’ve learned about the benefits of collaboration. Explain to them the qualities of successful collaborators and communicate often about the goals of the Centennial team, and their specific goals, to inspire in them a sense of purpose. As you learned in the last session, purpose can be a powerful motivator!
This can start at the District Centennial Coordinator Orientation. Having them meet face-to-face is a great opportunity to establish relationships and set the groundwork for collaboration. Encourage them to decide on future ways to communicate after the orientation via or social media outlets in order to foster ongoing exchanges of ideas and continued support. As they are working on their report for the Centennial Report Day suggest they work together and share that information with each other. When they see the value in collaboration, they will, in turn encourage their club centennial chairs to collaborate as well.
Ask: Are there other things you can encourage them to collaborate on, such as the Centennial Report Day?
Allow 2-3 participants to respond. Examples may include: communication tools they can use to keep clubs informed, opportunities for creating awareness about the Centennial, how to best support clubs.
Additionally, modeling collaboration with the MD/SD centennial coordinators is a great way to encourage others to do the same. This training has provided you all with a starting point for ongoing collaboration with one another. Decide on how you all will continue to communicate and exchange ideas from this point forward so you can experience the benefits of collaboration as well. Share with each other what is happening within your MD/SD and the districts you support, and ways in which you have found to make your job more efficient. Also remember, you can use your collaboration skills to work together with other leaders in your MD/SD as you work to support Centennial initiatives at the MD/SD level.
Ask if there are any questions
Transition to the conclusion.
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

12. MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training
Session Objectives
Define collaboration
Recognize characteristics
List the qualities of successful collaborators
Identify ways to collaborate
CONCLUSION (2:00)
Let’s take a moment and review our objectives:
Define collaboration
Recognize characteristics of working collaboratively
List the qualities of successful collaborators
Identify ways to collaborate within the Centennial team structure
Have we met our objectives?
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

13. MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training
“Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.”
Mattie Stepanek - Poet
I’d like to share one final thought with you before we conclude.
Remember this…
Read the quote aloud.
Working together you can help make our Centennial Celebration a great success!
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training

14. MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training
Evaluation
Conclude the session and ask participants to complete the session evaluation.
MD/SD Centennial Coordinator Training