Setting the Stage: Rush University Medical Center, a teaching hospital, was celebrating Collaboration as part of a larger celebration of their corporate values. Each employee is expected to go beyond supporting each other’s efforts to support Rush, and to seek out strategic relationships that promote a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Easier said than done. Stress brought on by difficult patients and their families, and the stresses brought on by tightening health care standards were getting in the way of true collaboration. They lacked the ability to have an open dialogue about the challenges they face day to day without alienating, well, everyone.

Playing the Part: We love working with interdisciplinary teams, especially when they are comprised of different levels of the org chart. It gives us an opportunity to flatten an organization, albeit for a few hours, and show groups the benefit of free and open communication and collaboration. Participants in our 2-hour Collaboration Workshop represented several different units in the hospital, as well as some divisions of the university. During our collaboration exercises and subsequent discussions, some salient points about from where Rush’s lack of teamwork was coming. At the end of the session, a big “aha!” came out. By working together in our safe workshop environment, Rush’s people