Simpatico

About a year ago, a friend recommended I meet another educator knowing that we're both passionate about coaching and professional learning. I’m sure you’ve all met someone where the professional connection is instantaneous. When you chat, time flies and so do the ideas. As we are now co-presenting at EducationNation, we decided to meet during the holidays to plan. This is my attempt to describe our planning session because when I later reflected on our meeting, I wanted to learn and understand why it worked so well.

Flow chart by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I’ve previously written a blog post about the Complexities of Collaboration. Yesterday, when we were collaborating, we were in the zone. One idea would be shared and then the other would take that idea further. We kept connecting concepts, beliefs, behaviours and madly drew visuals. Absorbed and enjoying the process, it was a partnership in productivity. Energised and totally involved, I suppose it’s what Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls the flow. The moments when you are so engaged, you lose track of time and/or don’t think of checking your phone. Accompanying or complementing this flow was a spirit of authenticity. Building on each other’s ideas, our thinking was aligned yet progressive. We were disciplined and interdependent and collectively, we found our flow.

I would love to hear about your collaborative experiences.

Always curious,

Andrea

@stringer_andrea