Doing Deep Work Together: Lessons for Improving Network Collaboration

Abstract

Collaborative networks that use continuous improvement principles and tools can accelerate and spread learning across sites and contexts. Districts face unprecedented challenges in meeting students' and families' needs in rapidly changing conditions. Collaborative networks can be powerful drivers of system improvement. Collaborating well is key to maximizing a network's effectiveness. This brief lays out three important lessons about how network members can work together: (a) Participants must understand the benefits of collaboration to overcome the "costs" inherent in working together; (b) collaboration requires a deliberately nurtured culture of trust and vulnerability; and (c) true collaborative work is different from "show and tell." These lessons help network leaders and members advance the quality of their work together to improve outcomes for students.