Many connect the pursuit of critical thinking to the behavior of a group of stakeholders that I’ve come to call contrarians but we need to tread carefully on the semantics. There’s a valuable role for challenging assumptions, taking an alternative view, even a healthy debate. Those who help drive such thinking I call ‘challengers’. It’s a key role that I outline in Ch.14.

Contrast all that with the dynamic in unhealthy debates. These are,  sadly, all too common.

Contrarians play only to win. They argue for the sake of arguing. They don’t  listen, and don’t respect the views of others. These behaviors can halt the flow of collaborative insights, often becoming a death blow to team dynamics. In Chapter 11 of The DNA of Collaboration, I unpack this important area. Let’s unpack some of the major drivers:

• Q1 How do respect and healthy boundaries influence our ability to collaborate? 
• Q2 Broadcasting, talking over others and controlling the floor spell trouble. What can be done?
• Q3 When emotions rise, we stop thinking clearly .. have you seen this happen? What do you do about it?
• Q4 Arranging for up-front Opt-in to rules & participation changes the mix. Is self-selection a game changer? 

We’ll discuss this today at 11am ET at Twitter hashtag #cdna.  I hope you’ll join us!

– Chris Jones, author, @CollabDNA aka @sourcepov