Meet our expert: Karyn Garossino, Associate Trainer

Karyn Garossino is an expert in performance under pressure and leadership development. A former Olympic figure skater and five-time World Championship competitor, Karyn holds a Master’s Degree in Psychology and Adult Education and has spent 40+ years being coached and coaching others. She works with leaders across business and government, teaches with Queen’s Smith School of Business, and helps individuals and teams transform pressure into growth.

When someone thinks, communicates, or behaves differently than you do, collaboration can feel difficult, frustrating, or even impossible. If handled correctly, however, you can flip these differences into opportunities that benefit both parties. Doing this effectively starts with understanding what collaboration is and is not.

Collaboration is not compromise. Collaboration is the act of working with someone to produce or create something.

Compromise often means splitting differences and giving up something you value so that each side “meets in the middle.” That’s give-and-take, but it’s often at the cost of optimal outcomes.

Collaboration is something quite different. It’s a win-win mindset that grows the pie instead of dividing it. In genuine collaboration, both individuals bring their strengths, expertise, and perspectives to the table in a way that creates a better solution than either person could have produced alone.

Collaboration requires:

• Assertiveness: the ability to contribute and communicate your own perspective with conviction.
• Co-operation: an equal willingness to understand and integrate the other person’s view.

That willingness is essential. Research tells us that the most important factor in leveraging differences is Psychological Safety – meaning people need to believe they can share ideas, ask questions, raise concerns or admit mistakes.  So an openness on your part to practice genuine inquiry, rather than defend or persuade, will pay huge dividends. When collaboration works, both parties feel heard, and the result is broader, more innovative and more effective than a simple compromise.

Diversity: The Advantage and the Risk

Differences in personality, style, and perspective are not obstacles; they are assets. Research shows that diverse teams often outperform homogeneous ones because they bring varied perspectives, unique knowledge, and deeper problem-solving capacity.

However, diversity only leads to better performance when it’s managed properly. Without effective interactions, differences can amplify conflict, miscommunication, and breakdowns in cohesion. That’s the risk McKinsey and others have highlighted: diverse teams can either perform brilliantly or fail spectacularly depending on how they engage with one another.

So the first step in collaborating with someone different is not to wish away those differences; it’s to welcome them, and reframe them as advantages.

See differences not as barriers, but as opportunities to expand what’s possible.

When someone’s style or perspective differs from yours, that’s not a threat; it’s new data. It’s an invitation to learn something new and explore another approach.

To do this, you must be intentional about:

• Setting aside your default approach long enough to understand how their thinking works.
• Asking questions to truly explore the other person’s priorities, assumptions, and logic.
• Active listening, where your goal is to nurture a trusting environment.
• Holding both stories as true – yours, theirs – and then creating a shared story together.

One way to think about this is that it is about sitting on the same side of the table as the other person – instead of across the table. This can be either literal (in the case of in-person collaboration), or metaphorical when we are on the phone or virtual.

When we try to collaborate while facing off against each other by defending our turf, comparing our solutions, or debating who’s right, we create an us-versus-them dynamic. That’s not collaboration, it’s negotiation.

Instead:

• Position yourself with the other person, not opposite them.
• Focus together on the problem, not on each other.
• Use a shared surface (whiteboard, document, screen) where both contributions and perspectives are captured and visible.

Sitting side by side helps shift your brain out of opposition and into shared exploration. It also signals a partnership orientation: “We’re in this together.”

Pair this with curiosity-based questions like:

• “How do you see this unfolding?”
• “What matters most to you here?”
• “What’s your biggest concern?”
• “Where might we be missing something?”

These shifts – mindset first, then practical behaviour – are how collaboration becomes real. And yes, this takes time and self-management on your part. However, productive results and improved relationships will be your reward.