The key to collaboration: Share and grow

Most of us have heard of the story of an apple falling on Newton's head leading to the discovery of the concept of Gravity. Another popular scientific story was that of Archimedes who dropped to the bathtub, where he figured out how to calculate density. The folklore related to Einstein was also that he was socially awkward and dropped out of school. Similar stories were used to describe the lives of Bernoulli, Nash, Adam Smith and many others. From childhood, all these anecdotes create the image of a genius or a highly intelligent person to be someone quiet, somewhat of a recluse, working on his or her own, waiting for that 'Eureka!' moment to be a part of human history.
Unfortunately, the real stories for all these pioneers were much more different. Newton was known to have said - "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants". A beautiful statement, and something that is common for and categorises almost all important breakthroughs, both in science and social science! Bernoulli was credited with the discovery of the classical laws of probability, which he came to develop on a problem poised to the mathematicians and gamblers 200 years before, and it with the accumulation of these 200 years of attempts to solve the problem that helped Bernoulli come up with his intuitive solution. John Nash was awarded the Nobel Prize for his Nash Equilibrium, and its application in many different fields. Now he based his works on Von Neuman and Morgensten, who laid down the concept of Game Theory, who further worked on the model of free market competition suggested by Adam Smith. In fact, an interesting anecdote here is that a lot of people credit the coffee and tea houses that sprang all around England and then throughout Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries to be one of the major catalysts of both Industrial Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. These places brought in curious minds and people with enough free time together, and when these minds came together in similar places, ideas were exchanged, problems and possible solutions were discussed, and inspirations were given physical forms.
So the advancements in science and commerce that we enjoy today were not results of single minds working alone, but were results of ideas and minds coming together. And this is specifically something this scribe would like to discuss about in this article. This scribe has been teaching at a university for almost three years now, and has observed some really interesting phenomena. Most of the students can be divided into two generic categories - the individualist and the collaborator. The 'Individualist' has a tendency to be territorial about his or her achievements. There will definitely be instances where his or her resources will be offered freely for sharing, but such instances will be rare and will be in a closed surrounding. This category derives pleasure and pride from information asymmetry that he or she is creating in his or her surroundings. The other extreme group is 'Collaborators' - a group of people who are open to sharing, and make their resources open to all. Their satisfaction lies in the impact of their influence or the way their resources have helped others grow. Unfortunately, the 'Individualists' outnumber the 'Collaborators' on a significant scale. But this is something we were all programmed to, when we were kids. One of the many drawbacks of our education system was that from the very outset we are taught to be 'Individualist'. We are pressurised to protect our position in the class; fight for grades among each other, and sometimes this goes this far that we even cannot share copies with our classmates. Because if someone else sees my notes and does better than me, then I am not the first boy in the class, after all (a confession here, my highest position in the class was 11, apart from when I was the 3rd boy for a year [in a class of 9 people, but you don't need to know that!]). Most of us were never exposed to group projects or group assignments in schools, so we handled our educational challenges on our own. Many a time our guardians and society around us would also advise and encourage us to be as individualistic as possible.
Unfortunately, these experiences have made many of our graduates individually capable, but not aware of the larger picture. But the picture is not only gloomy. As a lecturer this scribe was also lucky to meet 'Collaborators' who share on a massive scale and these people are bringing about a great change for the future of the country. Over the last few years we had few TEDx events going on in Bangladesh - the whole TED and TEDx community is focused towards sharing ideas and experiences bringing the best, most creative and craziest ideas together. Another such experience was from a budding public speaking platform which has its start in Faculty of Business Studies, Dhaka University - Podium. The concept of the platform is again to share ideas. This scribe also had the luck of meeting people from Startup Dhaka, and working with Light Castle Partners and Ten Minute School, organisations which aim towards development through information and education symmetry. These experiences have enlightened this scribe of the simplest truth - for Bangladesh to develop, for our people to be leaders and notable in the international arena, we need to foster this culture of sharing. We need to develop places, events and opportunities where like-minded people can gather, and discuss - their works, their interests, anything. We need to break the border of individualism and understand that through sharing our competitive edges do not disappear. They grow stronger. So, let others copy. As long as the original came from our minds, we can still come up with something better. As Russel Crowe's character of John Nash puts it nicely in A Beautiful Mind - "when everyone only works in their best interest, they will get in each other's way, but when everyone works in their best interest, keeping in mind what's best for the community, the optimum outcome is possible." So let us Share and Grow together!
The writer is a lecturer at the Department of Management, School of Business and Economics, North South University.
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