Ike Lasater - Collaborating in the Workplace: A Guide for Building Better Teams

Collaborating in the Workplace

A Guide for Building Better Teams

2019 PuddleDancer Press

A PuddleDancer Press Book

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other mechanical or electronic methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for use as brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses as permitted by copyright law. To request permission, contact the publisher at the following address, Attention: Permissions Coordinator.

PuddleDancer Press, Permissions Dept.

2240 Encinitas Blvd., Ste. D-911, Encinitas, CA 92024

Tel: 760-652-5754 Fax: 760-274-6400

Ordering Information

Please contact Independent Publishers Group, Tel: 312-337-0747;

Fax: 312-337-5985; Email: for other contact information and details about ordering online

Author: Ike Lasater

Editor: Julie Stiles

Cover and Interior Design: Shannon Bodie, Lightbourne.com

Cover source photo: www.istock.com, Peopleimages

Manufactured in the United States of America,
1st Printing, April 2019

Printed on recycled paper

23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-934336-16-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lasater, Ike, author. | Stiles, Julie, author.

Title: Collaborating in the workplace : a guide for building better teams / Ike Lasater ; with Julie Stiles.

Description: Encinitas, CA : PuddleDancer Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018035906| ISBN 9781934336168 (trade paper : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781934336229 (ePUB) | ISBN 9781934336281 (ebook pdf) | ISBN 9781934336342 (mobi/kindle)

Subjects: LCSH: Teams in the workplace. | Violence in the workplace--Prevention. | Communication in personnel management.

Classification: LCC HD66 .L373 2019 | DDC 658.4/022--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018035906

Endorsements of Collaborating in the Workplace

I have used the exercises in this book with the participants of my Leadership Development Training and have witnessed the dramatic impact empathy has in a successful collaborative balancing act. I highly recommend Collaborating in the Workplace as a tool to improve both your teams management and its relationships. This book has the power to develop the vision and the skills necessary to achieve team cohesion and the dream of unity to which more and more organizations aspire.

GIOVANNA CASTOLDI, Nonviolent Communication Certified Trainer, Founder of School of Feedback

Recently, the business press has been telling us to build empathy and emotional intelligence into our organizations cultures, promising us more effectiveness through empowerment, trust, and mutuality. Sounds great in a workshop, but conflict often is a daily reality in business, and people soon fall back into their old patterns. Finally, heres a book that provides a clear and actionable approach that you can start using right away. Ike Lasater has a lifetimes experience helping organizations and individuals learn how to navigate conflicts. Ike presents specific techniques and practices to help team members become more open to one anothers creativity, so thattogetherthey can harness the energy that conflict often dissipates. Use the wisdom of this book to make your culture more resilient, your team more effective, and your work more satisfying.

ED NIEHAUS, Chairman, Collaborative Drug Discovery, Inc.

Business people understand the importance of effective teams, but often arent clear about how to develop the actual skills of collaboration. Ike Lasater provides this clarity. His many years of teaching the art of connection have resulted in this groundbreaking book. Once a team learns to communicate by connecting with self and others, they will never want to go back to functioning at a lower level. Every company would be wise to permanently place this book in the middle of their conference table and refer to it daily!

RITA MARIE JOHNSON, CEO, Rasur Foundation International Creator of the Connection Practice, Author, Completely Connected: Uniting Our Empathy & Insight for Extraordinary Results

Ike and I have been close colleagues and collaborators for over fifteen years, and this book is a powerful distillation and integration of the work for organizations. Ike and Julie lay out in clear, practical, and doable ways the core, and I believe universal, skills and maps for navigating interpersonal conflict and developing highly effective teamwork. Collaborating in the Workplace: A Guide for Building Better Teams provides skills and practices that will make any organization more successful and employees more fulfilled. This work will be common practice in organizations of the future.

JOHN KINYON, CNVC trainer and cofounder of Mediate Your Life training, coaching, and mediation, Author, From Conflict to Connection: Transforming Difficult Conversations Into Peaceful Resolutions, www.mediateyourlife.com

I could never have gotten these ideas to print without Julie Stiles. She and I have been working together as a writing team since 2005. I also want to thank all of the participants in my workshops, where I work out these ideas.

American psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, PhD, developed much of what underlies the approach in this manual, particularly the terminology and processes related to needs and requests, as part of a communication process he named Nonviolent Communication or NVC.

Rosenberg distinguished among four components of communication, all of which will be referenced and explored within the following pages:

Observations (versus judgments)

Feelings (versus faux feelings)

Needs (versus strategies)

Requests (versus demands)

He made suggestions as to how to think of these components in our communication in order to create connection with ourselves and with others. He developed the following terms:

Self-Empathy: When communicating with yourself

Self-Expression: To communicate what is going on with you out loud to others

Silent Empathy: When you are silently guessing within yourself what is going on within another person

Empathy: When you are guessing out loud what is going on within another person

I particularly appreciate Rosenbergs insights regarding requests.

I also want to acknowledge and appreciate John Kinyon for the years of insight and learning that resulted from our long collaborationwhich first began in 2002as cofounders of Mediate Your Life.

Ike Lasater