Chapter 5: The Soft Side: Attending to Relationships

At risk of overpromising, we hope this chapter explains how to attend to relationships to build group cohesion. While the greater part of this chapter involves thinking about how we have grappled with balancing the self-and work-imposed expectations of our careers in academia, we share our motivations and career paths while discussing some of the less measurable aspects of group collaboration (e.g., trust, respect, empathy). These aspects influence the ability to feel comfortable with your vulnerability and to engage with others to discuss your work critically. Later in this chapter, we will briefly examine two frameworks for understanding group development and dynamics. These provide some perspective when you are in the thick of things. Knowing that group struggles are natural and do not last forever is helpful. We hope that attending to the soft side of collaborative writing will allow writing styles to blend and achieve synergy. We also hope this chapter will demonstrate ways to manage workload while simultaneously tackling multiple larger projects with various collaborators from all over the globe. Ok, maybe a little bit of overpromising! However, we believe that beyond integrating the 3Cs and 4Ps, attending to the soft side of group and individual dynamics is a fundamental component of healthy collaborative work.