Synergistic Collaboration

It was an awesome autumn late afternoon, when I and my brothers were playing with our neighbour friends, just outside our home. Our home, in our native village, was on the banks of river Jhelum, in northern part of Kashmir. Our usual sport was cricket and occasionally we played football. On this specific day, sky was full of clouds and rain was expected at any time. I, and my younger brother, was in early teens and who cares about season/rain, during teenage. And who cares about surroundings when you are playing with your best friends. Do we even remember about our families during those precious moments of life, no way? And, and, and….. who cares what loss can be incurred by sudden rains, that too during autumn season in a village. If you are not born in a village, then you cannot imagine the importance of autumn season, let me give you a brief.

My grandfather had at least four apple orchards and one of these orchards was a huge one. Besides apple cultivation, we were using the land for other crops like beans, corn etc. Autumn is the harvest season for most of the apple varieties, wall-nuts and also for crops like beans, corn, rice etc. The harsh weather conditions during winters and the fact, that most of the roads including Jammu-Srinagar national highway gets closed due to snow, few vegetables like tomato, brinjal etc are dried as slices to be used during winters. The drying process is usually done during autumn season. The grass for cattle, the beans, wall-nuts, almonds are other examples which needs to be dried during autumn months.

I, and my brother, was unaware of the situation which had reached to a volcanic stage, at home. Since my father was not at home at that time, my grandfather was worried about the stuff which had been kept for drying in our apple orchard. It was not raining, but it was quite evident that rain is going to spoil our play. Our grandfather had started losing his temper and he, in fact, had sent our mother to call us. She, being mother, was just avoiding to tell us about the situation. One of the reasons of course was, this specific apple orchard was a few kilometres away from our home at an isolated place and she could not take risk of sending anyone of us, more so, as evening was also approaching. She was also trying to pass time, so that our dad could come and handle the situation. And other most important reason was that she was feeling happy to see us playing with our friends. Mothers are mothers and no one can take their place.

During the game, I realised that our mother had come more than twice towards us, but went back. When I saw her again, I went to her and asked the reason for her distraught situation. As per her, our grandfather was in a furious mood, he was concerned about the stuff in the apple orchard which may get spoiled by rain. Our mother could not convince him that her lovely kids are still kids for her and he should wait for kid’s dad to come. When I understood the situation, I realized that it will be suicidal to continue the game. I called my younger brother, explained the situation and we decided to handle the situation by going to the apple orchard together. Initially our mother was reluctant to let us go, but then there was no alternative solution available at that moment. We took our single bicycle and reached apple orchard at as high speed as possible. As soon as we reached the orchard, visibility started diminishing and it started raining. Besides the rain, there was also a thunderstorm.

The trees in the apple orchard are not of big size, so we couldn’t feel the intensity of storm. But both of us made a strategy and in minimal possible time, all the stuff was inside the one room temporary shelter, which was just in the middle of the orchard. No way, we could have even thought of staying there for the night. This apple orchard was far away from the residential area, ours was in middle of other orchards and being in a village, stories of ghosts were very prevalent.

We completed the work, picked the bicycle and started to ride in one particular direction. By that time, it was pretty dark, but we were pretty sure of the direction to go. My brother could observe the puncture in one of the tyres of our bicycle. Our first aim was to somehow come out of the orchard area and reach neighbouring village. From there, at least, we were sure of a road and there was a possibility of someone on the road to help. As soon as we reached the road, we could then realize the intensity of the storm. There were trees on the road which had been uprooted by the storm. Our bicycle tyre was punctured, roads were empty, we couldn’t see a soul on the roads. We started running and during running we made a strategy. We had to run few kilometres, we had to jump above uprooted trees, we had to carry bicycle and we had to reach home as quickly as possible. The strategy was to run as fast as possible, bicycle will be lifted by both turn wise, to ensure that both are running together and rest leave up to Almighty. It was a run for life and death. Trees were falling and we could hear the thud noise, we could see each other’s shadow. As mentioned, bicycle was lifted by us turn wise and both of us were knowing the fact that if something happens to one, other will ensure to give or to get some help.

We were hardly 500 meters away from our home, when we could see a third shadow approaching us. Imagine who was this third shadow, of course it was our mom who had come to see if her kids were alright. She hugged us and we reached home safely.

In the management, we frequently use the word collaboration. Through collaboration, individuals or teams work together for a common goal or a common business purpose. We have thousands of examples of collaborations across the world, but somehow, we miss to see the collaboration which we do in our daily routine work, without realizing it and its importance. Sometimes we collaborate to arrange a party, sometimes we collaborate just to prepare a dish. In my story as well, there was a collaborative work done by me and my brother.

There is a famous saying, “one plus one is eleven”, and that is what we miss when we explain the term collaboration. In my opinion, each collaboration results in synergic effect and it is called as synergistic collaboration. In synergistic collaboration, people accomplish more than what is expected. If we post-mortem our episode, the first synergetic effect was that we agreed to abandon the game. Imagine if I was told to go and my brother was allowed to play, or vice versa, would anyone of us have accepted to go. Other synergetic effect was, our mom would have never allowed either of us to go alone. When we reached there, we were there to support and lift morale of each other. We finished the activity in minimal possible time. We were not afraid of ghosts or rain or the storm, because we were one plus one. We were not concerned about darkness, we were not concerned about the punctured tyre, we were running with an assurance from each other and we were running together. We lifted the bicycle turn wise, were it me or my brother alone, we could have either abandoned ourselves or our bicycle. We were not afraid of uprooted trees or the furious winds or the grumbling sounds, neither were we worried if one of us will fell. Job could have been done by one person as well, but imagine the synergistic effects of this simple collaboration.

Some of the important components of collaboration are: know yourself and know your partner, be certain about your goal, define roles and responsibilities, have clear and transparent communication, take accountability, be flexible etc. Some of the most important reasons for collaboration failures are: not certain about the goal, mistrust, poor communication skills etc.

I also remember an incident when we observed more than expected snowfall during the year 1985 or 1986. It was an unusual five feet snowfall and as expected, all the electric wires and electric poles had fallen on the ground. After more than twenty-five days, when there was no indication of electricity, during one of the evenings we could see glowing lamps in a neighbouring village. We called the village electrician and all of us started scolding him. We were again and again showing him the lights in the neighbouring village and nobody was listening to him. We were around 10 friends. Finally, he started shouting at us and as a normal human nature, we started then listening to him. As per him, he was the only electrician in that village and if he starts digging poles and electric cables from underneath the snow (by that time, the snow had frosted and it was like a solid iron), it will take months to restore the electricity. When asked how come the neighbouring village could get electricity, he shocked us by saying that around fifty people had helped the electrician of that village to restore electricity. It took them more than seven days to do the job.

We started scolding him again, but this time for not sharing such a precious information. We discussed with each young person of our village. Our village was having at least 6-7 Mohalas (small colonies/areas). Each Mohala mobilized its people, we could see more than 500 people next morning getting poles erected and electric cables getting unearthed from beneath the snow. This whole activity was done in 48 hours and our electrician restored the electricity to the whole village. Most surprized and shocked person to see this episode was the electrician. It was a miracle for him. As per him, even 500 people would have taken 5-6 days to do the job, but we could do it in just 48 hours. This was another example of synergistic collaboration, and a learning for me.

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By

Dr. Arshad H Khuroo

Head Bioavailability and Bioequivalence