Interdisciplinary Science Collaboration

Cross-disciplinary science teams are being asked to solve increasingly complex problems—but many of our leadership habits are still built for a simpler world. I’ve been re-reading Dr. Gemma Jiang’s 2023 paper on collaborative leadership in team science, which frames these teams as complex adaptive systems and then asks a practical question: how do we actually lead when outcomes are emergent, not predictable? The article highlights three recurring pitfalls: 1. Perpetual sensemaking with no real decisions or actions 2. Decisions made by a small inner circle without inclusive sensemaking, undermining both quality and buy‑in. 3. Rigid adherence to initial plans even as context shifts, treating the project plan as “the bible.” To move beyond these traps, Gemma brings together three conceptual frameworks that, in effect, act as lightweight operating systems for collaborative leadership: >> Theory U – Encourages teams to go “down the left side of the U” into deep, inclusive sensemaking before committing to action, linking the depth of inquiry to the quality of outcomes. >> Divergence–Convergence Double Diamond – Makes visible the oscillation between divergence and convergence in both sensemaking and action, including the inevitable “groan zone” where integrating diverse perspectives feels hard but is essential for innovation. >> Strategic Doing – Replaces long, hierarchical planning cycles with fast iterations and “pathfinder projects,” integrating thinkers and doers in short loops of sensemaking, deciding, and acting. What I find especially useful is how these frameworks shift leadership from a person to a process: distributed leadership becomes the disciplined practice of structuring conversations so that coherence, decision making, and actions continually inform one another. For those working in large, multi-institutional projects—or building innovation platforms and ecosystems—this paper offers a practical way to design the rules of engagement so that adaptive behavior can emerge without generating chaos or reverting to the rigidities of command‑and‑control practices.

I watched 25 senior leaders make a decision in 12 minutes. No debate. No compromise. No one left unhappy. This was the "Science of Decision Making" session I facilitated at Blend in London over a week ago. The best part? Reading their reflections days later and seeing they got it. Why I do this work. There's another way to collaborate. Another way to make decisions as a group. An operating model beyond never-ending meeting tunnels. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱: → Only 20% of people talk 80% of the time. You're using just 20% of your most expensive resource. But the real cost isn't the salaries of that silent 80%. It's the opportunity cost. The ideas never considered. The solutions never voiced. The risks no one hears about. → Your quietest people aren't quiet because they lack expertise. They're quiet because the environment hasn't given them space. We played games. We role-played actual meeting scenarios (yes, the kind that feel absurd when acted out but happen in your boardroom every week). We simulated working under pressure. Then we did something most teams never do: we reflected on our own process in real time. I introduced them to one technique from my toolkit - Note & Vote. Simple, but powerful. I use hundreds of tools, techniques, and frameworks when designing and facilitating strategy sessions, complex problem-solving workshops for leadership teams. They all demonstrate core principles: → Working together alone → Visualizing discussions (ideas made tangible, not lost in air) → Sequencing the conversation (diverge first, then converge) → Structuring the chaos (clarity over confusion) 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱: → "How peaceful I felt about the decision, even though I didn't vote for it." → "The efficiency of organized decision-making." → Voting was a leveler → Separating ideas from ego → "I had to check my biases before voting." They all come back to the same truth: collaboration isn't natural. We don't instinctively know how to make good group decisions. We default to whoever talks loudest or ranks highest. When you add structure? When you use facilitation techniques grounded in neuroscience and proven through practice? Smart teams stop getting stuck. Several participants said they'll "never look at meetings the same way again." Not because of one exercise. Because they experienced what happens when you bridge theory and practice. When you give people tools they can use the next day. Not after a 3-year long change program. The next day. If your Tuesday meetings produce nothing but more meetings, it doesn't have to be this way. ♻ Share this if you've sat through one too many pointless meetings. ➡️ Follow me Rujuta Singh for frameworks that turn stuck teams into unstuck ones. Julia Belle Christopher Lauder Angelina Headley

"Crappy SH@#T PLANT" "One dies and 400 pop-up for the funeral." I worked with my whānau at Te Rau Aroha Marae in Motupōhue / Bluff over the weekend. It never feels like work. They are dealing with a complex challenge—a rapidly spreading invasive native plant called Taupata. This plant was not historically present on the tītī islands but is now quickly establishing itself and threatening traditional practices—the ongoing sustainable harvest of tītī (muttonbirds) on the southern islands. I am using a choice model to understand the community's preferences for managing this incursion. Every taupata management strategy involves trade-offs. My work is to help guide management decisions by understanding which trade-offs are acceptable from the community perspective. For example, is it acceptable to change Tikanga (traditional customs) to control the incursion? Management might require people to go onto the islands out of season, something that is not traditionally done. Only the community can provide this wisdom. This challenge has so many complexities: - Multiple islands. - Multiple families on each island. - Multiple diverse perspectives. - Some islands are covered in taupata, some have none. - A collective challenge - if taupata is removed from one island but not another, it will re-seed. - and many, many more. It is a good case for a structured decision-making approach. The use of a choice model here allows for: - A shared sense of ownership in working on a solution - Trust built through equal input - every person's perspective is given equal weight. - Collecting a rich diversity of perspectives to formulate a solution - A straightforward, transparent process for how values and preferences inform decision-making - A structured, evidence-based approach to management - Increased commitment to the implementation of any final plans as the community can see their values and perspectives in the management strategy. My role here is simply to embrace the community's collective wisdom and filter it through a structured decision-making process. Their knowledge and wisdom are everything here; the role of science is only to help amplify this wisdom. My hope is that this work will not only help with the immediate challenge of taupata management but also provide some small support to the tītī community in their extensive efforts to enhance the resilience of birding on the islands for future generations.

This NWO (Dutch Research Council) article features our #SPOTstudy research to improve the quality of care for women with #Preeclampsia in Ghana. It illustrates something equally important as the scientific insights and outputs we generate: the way research is done matters. In the article, Koiwah Koi - Larbi, Dr. Hannah Brown Amoakoh and I share our reflections on this. As one of the leading causes of maternal, fetal and newborn mortality and morbidity, pre-eclampsia is a complex global health challenge that cannot be addressed by biomedical research alone. Instead, we need to design transdisciplinary collaborations that generate knowledge which is relevant, implementable and sustainable through collaboration across disciplines, institutions, sectors and countries. These collaborations bring together researchers from the (bio)medical sciences, the social sciences and the humanities, alongside the lived experiences of women, families, practitioners and communities. Equitable partnerships, in which all forms of knowledge are valued and incorporated, are a prerequisite for producing research with both scientific and social value. As articulated in the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) Guidelines, these are fundamental ethical principles that should underpin health research. When research agendas, leadership, decision-making and capacity strengthening are meaningfully shared, the resulting science is more robust, more relevant and more likely to contribute to improved health outcomes. This collaboration between colleagues and partners in Ghana, the Netherlands, the US and beyond reflects years of learning with and from one another. As the first to acknowledge, this is not always easy or straightforward. It also requires continuous learning, training and research on how to do this well — and how not to. 🔗 The full NWO article is available here: https://lnkd.in/eZb3W8AR 🔗 The protocol of the #SPOTImpact study is available here: "Co-creation of a toolkit to assist risk communication and clinical decision-making in severe preeclampsia: SPOT-Impact study design" – Hannah Brown Amoakoh, Bregje de Kok, Linda Lucy Yevoo, PhD, Klaartje Olde Loohuis, emmanuel srofenyoh srofenyoh, Daniel Kojo Arhinful, Koiwah Koi - Larbi, kwame adu-bonsaffoh, MD, MPhil, FWACS, MSc (Epid), PhD, Mary A.-Coleman, Joyce Browne 🔗 For more inspiration for future research: research agenda for hypertensive disorders in pregnancy in Ghana through a priority setting partnership, https://rdcu.be/fxB19. Dora van Duijvendijk, Jeffery Arhin. Koiwah Koi - Larbi, Leah V. Dodds, PhD, Dorotheah Obiri, Prof. Titus K. Beyuo MD, PhD, FWACS,FGCS., Emmanuel Srofenyoh, Megan Milota, kwame adu-bonsaffoh, MD, MPhil, FWACS, MSc (Epid), PhD & HDP PSP Advisory Committee 🔗 For others interested in collaborating with patient advocacy organisations in Ghana, Tanzania or other sub-Saharan African countries - links in comments.

A quick story. Two teams ran the same simulation. Team A kept a beautiful lab notebook: dates, parameters, plots—a diary of everything. Team B wrote a one‑pager called “Decision #42”: problem, options considered, evidence, trade‑offs, the choice, and the next checkpoint. Six months later, when reviewers asked “Why this method?” Team A opened ten pages of notes and argued. Team B sent Decision #42. Conversation ended in three emails. Why it works: - Decisions are the real artefacts. Your future self, collaborators, and reviewers care about what you chose and why—not every keystroke. - It forces clarity. If you can’t explain the trade‑off, you probably don’t understand it yet. - It speeds alignment. A good decision doc travels faster than a 30‑slide deck. How to do it (15 minutes, tops): 1. Frame the question in one sentence: “What’s the smallest model that answers X?” 2. List 2–3 options with costs/risks. (Yes, include the one you didn’t pick.) 3. Evidence snapshot: one figure or table; link to reproducible run. 4. Decision + expiry date: “We choose Option B until data Y arrives.” 5. Next checkpoint: what would make you reverse the call. You’ll still keep a notebook. But your career momentum will come from a stack of crisp decisions, not a pile of pages. Scientists ship judgement. #CareerAdvice #Scientists #ResearchCulture NB: No, I didn't pick 42 randomly.. big Douglas Adams fan here ')