Monday, 9 January 2006

Collaborative vs. Cooperative
Topic: family
Preston had a Communications professor early on in college that gave him a framework we really like. He was talking about the difference between cooperative groups and collaborative group and gave these definitions:

Cooperative: In cooperative systems, some people get together and realize that they all have similiar goals. They agree to compromise each goal a little bit, tweak it a bit here, tuck it a bit there, until they can all come up with one goal that they agree on as a goal for everyone to pursue. In cooperative systems, everyone reaches the goal much faster than working individually or in the collaborative model, but everyone gets something just a little bit removed from their original goal.

Collaborative: In collaborative systems, some folks come together and realize that they have some goals. In this system, the goals don't even have to be similiar, as long as some of the steps to attaining them overlap (like all the goals involve a fundraising step). No compromises are made, and everyone keeps their original goals. The collaboration comes in when everyone agrees that they will help each other person to attain their individual goals, because it is in each person's best interest to do so (like working together on fundraising). In collaborative systems, everyone gets exactly the goal they wanted more quickly than pursuing it individually.

In my perception, most intimate relationships operate on the cooperative model. That is definitely a valid model and one that works very well for lots of people and situations. It's where things like the idea that "relationships are all about compromise" come from. However, neither Preston nor I is very good at compromise or sharing or adjusting our goals for someone else's sake. Not only that, I wouldn't *want* someone to adjust their goals for my sake. I don't wish to have that sort of power over anyone's life but my own. So we've pretty much always had a collaborative relationship.

In some ways, our goals are hardly related at all. He wants an exciting job in the motorcycle industry where he will get to travel the world and do interesting and exciting things and earn a relatively large amount of money so that he can buy property which he will visit once or twice a month and to which he will retire in 30 or 40 years. I want a self-sustaining job that I can do from home or in the woods which allows me to spend the bulk of my time in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, cover a house payment, and eat out once a week or so, and feed a dog and a couple cats. So there are a couple things that overlap, like getting property, and a lot that doesn't overlap. I'm not even sure how we would begin to compromise if we chose to try a cooperative system.

So, for the 6.5 years that we've been together we've known that our goals were eventually going to take us to different states, and maybe different countries. And even though we've been talking about that specifically at least once a week for the last year, we still feel like ALL OF A SUDDEN we are faced with the prospect of Preston moving off to a foreign land (L.A.). It's going to be challenging, but probably easier than trying to change the whole dynamic of our relationship.

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