Collaborative Writing

Together we stand, divided we fall.
Such is a famous line that every motivational speaker

promotes to corporations in team building activities. Co-operation and corporations are two words
that are somehow linked to each other. Collaborative writing in the Malaysian workplace brings
many fruitful things especially when it comes to working together to solve a problem in preparing a
report for our loyal client in such short notice.
As team leader, I had the opportunity to lead people of different skillsets and capabilities.
Personally, having a team to complete such an important task really is important in order to satisfy
our client’s needs. We were given 3 weeks to complete the report. I gathered the best candidates in
the company and briefed them about the upcoming task and the time frame given to complete it.
Before preparing the report, I had divided the tasks into several parts to make sure everyone
could perform and deliver their best. One of the challenges faced in the earlier stages are the
amount of procrastination shown by some of the members. When asked, most frequent replies
would be “I am still waiting for her to produce her work before I can proceed with mine”. With
proper nudging, the procrastinator eventually started making the right moves to assist the others in
the same task group to make their work smoother. That was the most communication among the
members that I have seen after working so long with them. It really got everyone excited.
Since communication improved, productivity also improved. Everyone was looking forward
to each day of writing the report and dare I say, even I felt like I could do anything. I could go
through a number of materials without feeling mental exhaustion. Usually, I would have to get up to
catch some fresh air to prevent myself from falling asleep. I felt the materials were flexible since
most of the things provided by our client was carefully selected.
Our team would gather every 3 days to check on each other’s work. Since this is like
communal work, everyone had a say in almost every decision made. Despite having opinions agreed
on, some would be whispering through their phones, showing disagreement. It was not obvious but
their facial expressions say a lot about their unspoken thoughts. This is one of the disadvantages of
collaborative writing since some people are afraid of voicing out their opinion to avoid unnecessary
arguments. Most of us are trained to produce our works independently and submit them privately.
Schools has not taught us that voicing out opinions is not wrong. This is something that should be
taught in schools.
I noticed that when the team works together, somehow everyone is confident with their
responses, making them more effective in producing their work. Apart from that, the flow of idea
seems to flow as smooth as butter. There are studies conducted on the effects of working together
to reduce stress and anxiety at workplace and from what I have experienced, it really is beneficial. In
one example, the members were discussing about the choices of pictures to be included in the
report. They spent days working together in order to come up with the best choices of pictures
which was discussed with the client’s approval.
Even though it sounded mostly positive, there was a side of the story that most people
wouldn’t see. As mentioned, should one of the members decided to take a break from work, be it
call in sick or have a day off, it would affect the others’ morale. The tenacity to complete the task
would somehow be disturbed like a stone that is thrown into a pool, it ripples into other members
also wanting to take a break since everyone was putting in extra effort.
Another thing to be taken into consideration is how cooperation would actually make some
people become too excited hence making them negatively competitive. There was one member that
felt he was above others when he voiced out his opinion on the facts that should be included in the
report. Since he was one of the senior members in the group, he thought all of his opinions should
be taken into account even though some of them were really unsuitable to be included in the
writing. The team almost fell apart had I not step in to ask both parties to list out the strength and
weaknesses of their ideas using the SWOT method. In the end, they both agreed that both of them
had opinions that are as important as the other.
As a conclusion, collaborative writing in Malaysian workplace brings positive and also

negative effects. To collaborate means to work on something together to overcome a problem. It
may come with issues and negativity. Therefore, it is how we embrace the negative that matters
most because without it there would not be anything positive to learn from.

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Together we stand, divided we fall.

Such is a famous line that every motivational speaker

As a conclusion, collaborative writing in Malaysian workplace brings positive and also

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