“Showing Your Cards” Learning Object

• Showcase how individuals bring a variety of motivations for collaborating to a team environment
• Spark increased awareness of the potential for conflict between members of a team based on their motivations, but also the potential synergies
• Demonstrate the value of having open discussion around motivations to achieve benefits for all group members

Below is a simple set of steps to implement this activity. See below these steps for variations that can add real-world complexity to the activity through minor changes to the activity materials and instructions.

1. Get participants assembled in relatively small groups (3-7 is likely ideal). This can be achieved in a row seating setting by having nearby people “group” with each other, or in roundtables or more flexible seating by prearranging chairs into the desired small groupings.
2. Tell participants the following scenario: “You have joined a team with a primary goal in mind. That primary goal is written on the card I will hand to you. Your job is to adopt that goal as your reason for collaborating. Then you will talk within your group about the potential implications of your group’s diverse set of goals, especially regarding the group’s future collaborative activities.” (Feel free to add more specificity to this introduction, such as by adding the word “research” to specify what type of team it is.)
3. Give each participant a card that tells them to adopt what is written on the card as their primary reason for joining the collaboration. See example cards below. (More example cards are provided here. You can customize your own activity materials using these blank cards.)
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4. One by one, have each person in the group reveal to the other members what their primary reason for joining the team is. This reveal should be followed by a discussion (15-30 minutes) around ways that their various goals overlap and complement each other as well as how they could be at odds with each other.
5. In closing with the group, spend some time (5-15 minutes) having groups share out about their takeaways. Emphasize that this approach helps all members understand what each is aiming to get out of the collaboration. This transparency can help anticipate goal conflict, assist the team in making plans to meet everyone’s goals, and help maintain motivation for all members to participate.

Activity variations:

• For a brief version of this activity, pair people up, distribute the cards, and given them as little as 5 minutes to brainstorm some potential points of conflict and synergy across their motivations.
• Give more than one person in a group the same card (simulating a potential conflict, such as jarring for a leadership position on a publication or grant)
• Give each person multiple cards to “juggle” (simulating competing priorities for the individual, such as balancing field-related motivations like publishing with a desire to focus more on translational impact in one’s community)
• Print out the blank cards, which are missing the reason for collaborating, and have participants fill in their own primary reason for joining the team.
• Provide more context to each team, such as a real-world scenario that they must tackle (e.g., writing a grant proposal, planning for data collection), and have members consider how their motivations impact accomplishing the scenario and its related tasks.

• The example cards were developed especially with higher education and faculty researchers in mind, building on the notion that there is growing interest and participation in collaborative research teams by this group. However, the contents of the cards can be manipulated to make the motivations more relevant to any group. (Pro tip: Use ChatGPT to generate a listing of various motivations for a particular group to help with card creation.)
• It is not necessary for participants to adopt personas associated with their motivation card, such as “acting out” behaviors or simulating conversation. (Though this type of improvisation is welcome if all participants are agreeable!) The purpose of the cards is to have individuals consider the implications of possessing a given motivation in relation to how it will interact with and impact others on the team.
• More or less time can be spent at the discussion and debrief steps of this activity. See the “brief version” variation to the activity described above for a shortened version. See also the additional variations that can add complexity and, in some cases, more opportunity for expansive conversation, lengthening the time spent in discussion and debrief.

A recognition of the diverse set of motivations that individuals bring to a collaboration.

Greater awareness of the potential for conflict between members of a team, based on their motivations, and the value of having an open discussion around members’ personal goals.

Team Science Workshop

A popular topic at team science-focused trainings focuses on the importance of developing a shared vision for a team. What can be overlooked when developing collaboration plans are the more personal motivations that team members bring into a collaboration.  An interactive session like this activity can help workshop attendees see a visible demonstration of misalignment and consider the impacts on a team’s dynamics and productivity. It can also be an activity that they take away and implement in their own teams, especially those newly forming (see next use case).

New Research Collaboration

Effective collaboration requires understanding and aligning individual motivations. Often members of a team do not have explicit conversations about individual motivations, which may lead to assumptions about everyone’s reasons for collaborating or else a disregard for such reasons. Without explicit discussion about individual motivations, there is the potential for future conflict (with misaligned or competing motivations) and missed opportunity for synergy (with complementary and buildable motivations).

For example, if two members of a team have sought out collaboration because they see it as a way to lead a large research project, there may be future battles over who will be “PI” on a grant proposal or lead author on a publication. On the other hand, if a junior faculty member has joined a collaboration because they are interested in connecting and being mentored by senior faculty, but end up working mostly independently, that is a missed chance for their own professional development.

This activity could be implemented with a newly formed team, using the “blank cards” in which members write down their motivations for joining the team. Through the open discussion, the team can make plans to satisfy each member’s needs or else have a frank conversation about which needs will or will not be able to be satisfied in the collaboration at hand. Overall, members will walk away with a greater awareness of their colleagues’ interests and have important information that can impact the team’s forthcoming collaborative work.

This learning object is a great activity to demonstrate how individual motivations, when unknown to members of a team, can produce points of conflict. It can be used in workshop or training scenarios with various groups, such as faculty and students, and can be easily adapted to be applied with individuals holding different positions.

It can also be applied within a real collaboration, when a new team is formed or when a new project is taking off. New teams will benefit from better getting to know each member, and new projects may spark different interests from members.

When thinking about implementing this activity in a workshop, it could be difficult to coordinate in an online videoconference format with a very large group. Videoconference platforms can be leveraged to randomly assign individuals into breakout rooms for discussion to overcome this challenge. However, if the intention is for lots of people to have one-on-one or small group discussions, it could become unwieldy in the virtual space, favoring this activity for an in-person workshop.

While this is a foundational activity that would likely benefit a newly-formed team, it is important that members feel comfortable openly expressing their individual motivations for collaborating. This activity may be best not implemented in an initial team launch meeting. It would be helpful for members to develop a rapport before asking them to disclose such motivations.

This learning object could be a great introductory activity for a team-focused training workshop. It is simple and interactive, can be scaled down to five minutes, or provided more time for in-depth discussion and share outs. After this activity, a topic like conflict management or how to have difficult conversations could be discussed. Since the activity can reveal points of conflict between team members, conflict is a natural next topic to discuss.

In the context of a real team, once individual motivations are known, some extended discussion should be had either within the same or follow-up meetings around any anticipated areas of friction. Plans around leadership and authorship, if important to members, should be made. Additionally, aspects of the project such as bringing in external partners or providing opportunity for individual member development should be explored if of priority to members.

Considering a research collaboration in particular, members have various motivations as outlined in the following study, from interests in commercialization and profit generation, to those seeking public dissemination of findings, to those wanting to uphold the highest level of methodological rigor, and those who need grant funding to sustain their work:

• Harris, F., Lyon, F., & Clarke, S. (2009). Doing interdisciplinarity: Motivation and collaboration in research for sustainable agriculture in the UK. Area, 41(4), 374-384.

Another example of the diversity of motivations brought to a team was captured in this article on individual motivation, which found motivational domains like “Resource Acquisition” and “Recognition and Reward” as motivators:

• Lotrecchiano, G. R., Mallinson, T. R., Leblanc-Beaudoin, T., Schwartz, L. S., Lazar, D. & Falk-Krzesinski, H. J. (2016). Individual motivation and threat indicators of collaboration readiness in scientific knowledge producing teams: A Scoping review and domain analysis. Heliyon, 2(5): e00105.

A next step among those foundational activities that can help set a team up for success is having a “Collaboration Plan.” Visit our learning object on developing such a plan here.

As is discussed in Chapter 10 of the Collaboration and Team Science Field Guide, a common source of conflict is individual motivation. Surely, motivations in this chapter refer not only to motivations for being on a particular team but also intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that drive individuals more generally. Regardless, the fact that they are a source of conflict remains, and ideas for better understanding and resolving motivational sources of conflict are addressed in the chapter.