Transformative Collaboration (IC)

In whatever way we envisage contributing to the wellbeing of our world, for most of us it is going to mean working with others. It is going to mean collaborating. Collaboration is key to collective agency and empowerment. It’s a basis for effectiveness, a crucial means of embodying our values, and it can bring forth emergent and creative qualities that alone we could barely imagine. And collaboration is not only a root of social transformation, it also provides a vital context for individual transformation, enabling us to share and live out our deepest values.

But working in groups is not always easy. It can feel frustrating, draining and unproductive. Meetings drag, personalities clash, power conflicts arise, chaos reigns and all this gets in the way of achieving what the group or organisation set out to do at the beginning.

This training will help you to learn how to collaborate, communicate and make decisions effectively. It will help you to draw out the best in yourself and others, to stay in healthy relationships, build teams based on shared values – and get things done! This course and related resources provide you with the tools and know how to make your group effective, fun, brilliant, and inspiring.

Effective collaboration requires an understanding of how groups work, it involves learning the skills for organizing and structuring our work together, it also requires deepening self-awareness, the honing of our ethical sensibility and the means to transcend our limiting habits in order to bring forth more helpful and creative capabilities. So this course integrates practical skills and approaches to group and organisational development with reflective and group practices that make the personal-interpersonal interface a truly creative place to be.

Through a blend of participatory education and immersive learning you will learn how to:

• Unpack your assumptions about group life and why groups thrive and fail
• Identify common patterns and habits in groups and how to transform them
• Create group cultures that reflect shared values
• Work with power – transforming it, distributing it, and using it well
• Apply different approaches to decision making and distributing authority (exploring hierarchical, horizontal and distributed approaches)
• Communicate more collaboratively and understand conditions that help us hold important conversations 
• Manage conflict creatively
• Run effective and enjoyable meetings
• Harness diversity and help each other to bring our best to our teams and groups
• Evaluate your group’s purpose and activities holistically – understanding the personal, interpersonal and systemic elements at play

This course is practical and participatory and offers several opportunities for you to explore group dynamics in real time with other group participants using hands-on activities, role play and other experiential methodologies. It also provides individual and collective review spaces to reflect on what came up at a personal and group level in order to learn beyond theory. If you have any questions about this feel free to reach out to us at events@ulexproject.org .

Who is it aimed at?

Anyone involved in socially engaged action addressing ecological, political and social justice issues. We embrace a broad definition of activism, including: Resistance – action preventing further damage to ecosystems and social justice; Renewal – action focused on developing and creating alternatives for healthier societies and communities; and Building Resilience – action supporting increased resilience in communities to weather the uncertain times ahead.

The main spoken language on the course will be English.

For accessibility and venue information see here.

This course will be made accessible for immunocompromised people. More information on the covid protocol is available here. Please contact us with questions or concerns.