Collaboration

“ Thus union and cooperation are the great creative, the great constructive, and the great conservative forces in nature. They tend to give community of action, and harmony of action to her constituents; to give stability and rest. They express themselves in an evolution that leads toward completion; toward the fulfilment of the inherent possibilities of nature; toward perfection.
Creation then is the birth of new things through the union and cooperation of preexisting things. ”

“ While the author writes intelligently and forcefully upon stirpiculture, education, invention, hygiene, sanitation, moral, physical and mental growth and culture, and injects many new, beautiful and practical thoughts into each of these subjects, his chief theme is unselfish co-operation, his chief purpose is to exhibit the benefits, moral, physical, social and financial, that will be showered upon the human family when they become wise enough to cease competing with each other, and progressive enough to begin co-operating. ”

“ But in actual life it is oftener the latter that is prominent in our relations with our fellow-men. We—the category of co-operation—is at least as fundamental in all human thought and language as I and thou, the categories of mutual exclusion. That you and I are mutually complementary factors in a wider whole of common interests, is at least as early a discovery of mankind as that our private interests and standpoints collide. ”

“ But where the farmer’s wagons clatter up to the separator platform, there is combination in the best sense of the word. The Britannica article on co-operation says that the word “in its widest usage, means the creed that life may best be ordered not by the competition of individuals, where each seeks the interest of himself and his family, but by mutual help, by each individual consciously striving for the good of the social body of which he forms part, and the social body in return caring for each individual; ‘each for all, and all for each’ is its accepted motto. ”

“ Disciplined, orderly cooperation toward one common and useful end and purpose was never and nowhere shown to better advantage than in the work of organizing, creating and conducting to a successful termination this truly great exposition. ”

“ I have undertaken thru the medium of the juvenile organization to develop a new rejuvenated spirit of co-operation in the home life, the social life. Each child will thorolythoroly understand the value of co-operation, spiritual and material, its necessity and importance in the scheme of life. They, in their own way and time, come to understand the vitalness of co-operative principles, and learn by experience that failure is ever the creature of competition. ”

“ In point of fact, we get a composite expression of the highest soul element of the mass—a new phase of the exceeding fruitfulness of co-operative effort! It may be stated in conclusion, that there comes to the minds of our people, an added power, flowing from the general hypnotic effect, of harmonious co-operation. This power brings with it a right conception of human life, in which a certain amount of necessary, productive labor, becomes the keynote, which completes a perfect anthem, and more symmetrically rounds out the full measure, melody and grandeur, of an individual existence. ”

“ They are recognizing the fact that, not competition, but co-operation, reciprocity, is the great, the true power,—to climb, not by attempting to drag, to keep down one's fellows, but by aiding them, and being in turn aided by them, thus combining, and so multiplying the power of all instead of wasting a large part one against the other. ”

“ If all are to co-operate and share alike, what need of exclusive protection and fierce and individual struggle? Why not sit down now and break the loaf and share it, and pour the wine, and enjoy things as they are, without a thought for the morrow? ”

“ If God and His will be the end of our endeavour and the object of our co-operation, then the means towards the end and the ways of co-operation must be arrived at, step by step, by effort and experiment, by science and common sense. ”

“ Manifestly group progress will be made possible in any such case by a mutual willingness to co-operate—a willingness to attend a discussion even though not particularly interested in it, but because it may be of concern to someone else whose interests I have undertaken to promote. ”

“ Though mere love of companionship prompts primitive men to live in groups, yet the chief prompter is experience of the advantages to be derived from co-operation. On what condition only can co-operation arise? ”

“ He looks upon the employer as the senior partner in an industry and the employees as the junior partners, with the confidence that under such wisely planned leadership complete cooperation will gradually result. ”

“ She is in touch with, has, as we have seen, her stake and her responsibility in regard to every single activity of the meeting of which she is a member. Through every meeting and through every home, moreover, there is the cleansing and ventilating ebb and flow of the life of the whole society, and this not merely by means of the circulation of matter relating to the deliberations and the work of the society, but also in the form of personal contact. ”

“ In such a spirit of collaborative effort, the common burdens that we face today are less heavy than they seem. And the gains we have made by the midpoint of the years are touchstones perhaps for the vindication of our hopes. ”

“ In fact an informal body of workers have come together, all attracted by{3} a real love of work, and not by publicity or the buttering and log-rolling of societies. Without any parade of empty names, or speechifying, we each know where to turn for co-operation, and how to join hands to help in the work. ”

“ Thus co-operation, growing ever firmer at its centre and ever wider in its circumference, is the true vocation of man in Society: but such a co-operation is only possible by means of progressive improvement, for it is only in relation to their ultimate destination that men are one, or can become one. We may therefore say that mutual improvement,—improvement of ourselves by the freely admitted action of others upon us, and improvement of others by our reaction upon them as upon free beings,—is our vocation in Society. ”

“ The co-operation is involuntary, and is put upon us by the Genius of Life, who reserves this as a part of his prerogative. ’Tis fine for us to talk, we sit and muse, and are serene and complete; but the moment we meet with anybody, each becomes a fraction. ”

“ First comes the degree of effectiveness in combination. The prime requisites for effective combination are a spirit of comradeship and mutual trust, knowledge and self-restraint in the disposition of united force. ”

“ Co-operation or band-work is the life of it.' And 'it is the practice of band-work,' he adds, that, unknown till lately though its nature was to us, has so moulded man as 'to create in him two specially human faculties, the conscience and the intellect;' of which the former, we are told, gives us the desire for the good, and the latter instructs us how to attain this desire by action. ”

“ All the conscious co-operation of people is facilitated through the word: a call for work, in the form of requests or orders combining staff, and the distribution of roles between them in their work, an indication of the sequence and context of their activities, encouragement to work, concentrating their forces, a warning where a disagreement starts, stops work, rearrangement, change of direction of effort - all this is done verbally. ”

“ In the one case, we are saved one by one, by effort, response, growth; in the other, we are saved as members of a group. Here the individual and the corporate ideals in their most intense forms face one another. ”

“ They recognize that co-operation among themselves, as well as the active involvement of persons, groups, organizations and institutions, will be essential to ensure continuing progress towards their shared objectives. ”

“ The world is nearly ripe for the kingdom of heaven—the organization of society precludes it.
ASSOCIATION is the word that solves the problem. The earnest and believing hearts of this day everywhere have certain hopeful lookings towards that; and at this providential moment science comes and offers us the key which shall unlock the whole sphere of material interests to its true lord, the spirit of religious love and unity. The organization of attractive industry will be the reconciliation of spirit and matter, of religion and the world ”

“ I have attempted to show that in like response to the same given stimulus we have the beginning, the absolute origin, of all concerted activity—the inception of every conceivable form of co-operation; while in unlike response, and in unequal response, we have the beginning of all those processes of individuation, of differentiation, of competition, which in their endlessly varied relations to combination, to co-operation, bring about the infinite complexity of organized social life. ”

“ In other words, our great altruistic organizations discovered at the outset of their respective careers that the ideal and the practical are necessary to each other but, to produce results, must plan how to make constant compromises with each other for the sake of actual progress. ”

“ But therein science became allied more closely than ever before with certain branches of industry, and the cooperation thus established has been recognized in all civilized countries as of the utmost value to the future progress of mankind. ”

“ By co-operation I do not mean that clubbing together which saves us 30 per cent, in wine, 25 per cent, in boots, 150 per cent, in drugs, and something respectable in butcher's meat and baker's crumb, but that divine co-operation in which the feet cannot say to the head I have no need of you, but all are members one of another. ”

“ The countless societies, clubs, and alliances, for the enjoyment of life, for study and research, for education, and so on, which have lately grown up in such numbers that it would require many years to simply tabulate them, are another manifestation of the same everworking tendency for association and mutual support. ”

“ Hence, in the early days of the world's history we discern the principle of association and co-operation, with plans and systems embodying its practical application. Organizations came into being, obedient to the summons of necessity. ”

“ Co-operation, then, is of two kinds, inward and outward: co-operation between the interests of others and of ourselves in the motive to our individual action; and co-operation of our action with the action of others to accomplish objects too vast for private undertaking.—Both forms of co-operation are in principle the same; they strengthen and support each other. ”

“ In that rude state of social life, in which languages had their origin, the inventor of a word probably thought of little more, than the temporary facility, which it might give to himself and his companions, in communicating their mutual wants, and concerting their mutual schemes of co-operation. ”

“ Answering that challenge will require some soul-searching: Do we have the generosity to collaborate? Can we build legal, organizational, and financial structures that will preserve and order—but also share and disseminate the learning of the world? ”

“ They might as well say what is beyond the stars. It appears to be a part of the necessity of things, from what we see of the improvements they make, that all human improvement should proceed by the co-operation of human means. ”

“ They say that the attempt to realise the ideal of a new state of society which, like the Millennium to the early Christians, exalted the minds of the Pioneers, is now-a-days confined to the search after more comfort or large dividends in a word, they say that co-operation, instead of being a religion, is no more than mere business. ”

“ And to create this higher enthusiasm—which can never be quenched when once it is kindled in a man's heart—the constructive workers need the co-operation and help of the deepest and clearest visioned men of letters in every nation. ”

“ A vast of talk there is of all the country round; every strange circumstance; every incident and change of condition, and new alliance amongst their mutual friends and acquaintances, pass under review. ”

“ Most important of all the spirit of co-operation is fostered, co-operation among the workers, co-operation of worker and management, co-operation between all interested in the movement as subscribers, as collectors, as readers, as “passers-on.” As a positive force this spirit of co-operation is more valuable than anything else. ”

“ The leaders in the societies themselves insisted upon a better sensing of social responsibility, which meant simply the better realization of one principle, co-operation, the signpost to the second stage of growth. ”

“ In the relations between employer and employee, for instance, profit sharing is the most practical form of realizing this community of interest. Such action involves a co-operation of interests as the motives of the individual act. ”

“ We all work along in the jolliest possible way, and we have no meetings, or agenda, or minutes, or co-opting of additional members, or remitting to executives or anything of that kind. We just bring along anything that we think will be useful. ”

“ Without effective co-ordination, industrial civilization is jeopardized by the dangers of ultraspecialization: monotony, narrowness, and the tendency to breed distrust and jealousy.
13. Effective and wise leadership. In civilization much, very much, depends on an enthusiastic and effective load-pulling spirit. Ten men are of little more value than one in lifting a great load unless they lift together—all at the same moment. And such teamwork—social co-operation—is dependent on leadership. ”

“ The common identical aim steadily incited to an association and organisation of all work and to its common adaptation, therefore, from the begining every energy was directed to the organisation of a union in which every activity would be concentrated. ”