Anja Adler, project manager of the betterplace co:lab program, met Bettina Rollow, trainer of the basic workshop modules and process facilitator in the thematic clusters, and asked her questions. This first part of the interview is about collaboration, New Work and inner transformation.
Collaboration - what is that?
For me, collaboration is a process of potential development, in which we try to realize the potential of a project, impulses, etc. together as much as possible. For me, this includes venturing into the unknown and going beyond what we already know. So it's not just about bringing our knowledge and skills together and recombining the known. We want to let something truly new emerge between us. This is what we call co-creative today, and this is in contrast to transactional or strategic collaboration, where we negotiate more elements/contributions/commitments with each other, or try to push our own agenda within a project based on parallel existing intentions and goals.
For me, such a collaboration is like a flow, a kind of river that we follow together until something noticeably clicks into place - that's usually the point at which the decision is made or the result becomes visible to everyone.
Then it literally clicks in the room. I remember many moments in which such a flow arose for a short time. I have only known this as a really explicit conversation and procedure since I started with my meditation teacher Thomas Hübl. Part of my training there was to refine my perception more and more and to perceive process movements in groups and to be able to discuss them explicitly. I still apply much of this in my daily work and experience again and again how much more is possible in groups and project teams when this fine perception is part of our understanding of collaboration.
How are Collaboration & New Work related and what kind of competencies do we need to learn?
New Work is the collaboration model that makes collaboration possible and competency-based hierarchies are the tool that goes with it. If potential development - within an intention, an impulse, a project - is our goal, then we need a collaboration model in which leadership can always move to where the most competence and knowledge is. This is what we then call competency-based or New Work.
For me, co-creative and competence-based collaboration is the basis of New Work.
Indispensable for both New Work and co-creative collaboration are self-contact, reflection, communication, holding tension and meta-reflection - all skills that we unfortunately do not learn in most educational stations of our lives. All of these skills are interconnected and build on each other.
How I am in touch with myself and a person, and how I can reflect, conditions my ability to communicate clearly and directly with the person. The more clarity I have about myself and about my counterpart, the easier it will be for me to go out onto the balcony and shape how we interact with each other from a meta-perspective.
We need an ever-increasing ability to hold or regulate tension within ourselves in order to be able to include more and more of life. Where I can't hold tension in myself, I have to exclude parts of life - the very parts that either trigger the tension in me or the ones I suspect are the triggers. The more I can hold tension, the more I can simply perceive, observe and contemplate. The greater my ability to hold complexity.
In this tolerance of ambiguity and multiperspectivity, I have more freedom to make decisions and, if necessary, find answers to the current challenges of our time.
As a freelance coach, trained psychological counselor and alternative practitioner of psychology, Bettina Rollow brings a lot of experience in translating wellbeing approaches for everyday professional life. Through her training in Thomas Hübl's "Timeless Wisdom Training" and in Gestalt therapy, she has also gained several years of experience in guiding self-awareness. Together with Joana Breidenbach, she shows in the handbook "New Work Needs Inner Work" that every external change of structures and processes must necessarily be accompanied by an inner transformation.
The betterplace co:lab program is a project of the betterplace lab and is funded by Luminate and the Schöpflin Foundation.