The Fabric of Efficient Collaboration

Following the solitude that Covid pushed us into despite online collaboration, we have come to cherish spending “quality time” together as the very fabric of efficient collaboration. There is nothing as productive as trust among people working together, and trust depends on knowing each other in terms of “personality” beyond the professional persona each of us has been cultivating.

Before Covid, consortia met in some town, each partner in different hotels, meeting only during the set meeting hours and perhaps for one group dinner. But apart from them, everyone went their separate ways.

The meetings were often determined by a series of slide presentations, during which those who weren’t involved in the respective task being presented, checked and wrote emails. It wasn’t quite what one would call “intense” or productive. It had more of an administrative feel to it.

Today, “retreat” meetings in secluded environments have become the trend in many projects to ensure that we make the most of the time spent together both in terms of getting things done and in trust-building.

This week, the transnational team of the REAVES platform project has experienced their third intensive consortium workshop near the city of Trakai near Vilnius, Lithuania, and its famous castle in the midst of a lake. In the midst of a forest on the shore of a small lake, our group of 19 people sat together in 2-3 groups planning, deciding, discussing the upcoming performance tasks in the projects, exchanging ideas to inspire best outcome of the activities to be carried out in the next year. After hours of intensive discussions, with brains nearly fried, spending leisure time together was invaluable, often topics from the day were taken up, proving the engagement motivated by being together and coming to know each other.

Though projects will end, bonds having been created on the personal level very often led to new ideas and opportunities for collaboration between partners. If that’s not cementing cohesion, what is?

Keep your eyes peeled for the activities and results coming out of this memorable and work intensive transnational partner meeting.

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