Review Essay No.

4
Fall, 2014
MD915
Hunn Choi
Cooperation can be described as follow:
1) Joint operation, collaboration, joint action, combined effort, teamwork, partnership,
coordination, liaison, association, synergy, synergism, give and take, compromise.
2) A beneficial but inessential interaction between two species.
3) Individual components that appear to be selfish and independent working together to
create a highly complex, greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts system so as to achieve
common objectives for individual and collective benefits.
Furthermore, we know that cooperation may be coerced (forced), voluntary (freely chosen), or
even unintentional, and consequently individuals and groups might cooperate even though they
have almost nothing in common qua interests or goals. Examples of that can be found in market
trade, military wars, families, workplaces, schools and prisons, and more generally any
institution or organisation of which individuals are part (out of own choice, by law, or forced).
However cooperation takes place, we cannot talk about cooperation without competition or vice
versa, because, for example, playing a sport like basketball involves not only competition but
also cooperation. Playing sports is a joint operation, but it is a contest for prize or profit.
Competition is the simultaneous demand by two or more organisms for limited environmental
resources such as nutrients, living space or light (ecology). This is due to the fact there is a
limited quantity of goodslike winning the tournament or the war, competing for summa cum
laude, or applying for a fellowship or faculty position in prestigious universities or institutions.
This notion of limited good means larger share for one automatically means a smaller share for
someone else.1 While cooperation is the antithesis of competition, the need or desire to compete
with others is a common impetus that motivates individuals to organize into a group and
cooperate with each other in order to form a stronger competitive force.
How can we remind ourselves who are taught to be selfish and independent, as Alfie Kohn
articulates, in No Contest: The Case Against CompetitionChildren sit at separate desks, as if
one their own private islands, instructed to keep their eyes on their work. Helping is construed as
cheating, since it goes without saying that one is evaluated only on the basis of ones solitary
efforts. The fact that each child is supposed to be responsible for his or her own assignment and
behavior means that when students are not led to see one another as obstacles to their own
success, each is, at best, irrelevant to the others learning2that working together has a greater
benefit of creating a system that is highly complex yet greater than the sum of its individual
parts?

Richard L. Rohrbaugh, A Peasant Reading of the Parable of the Talent/Pounds: A Text of

Terror? BTB 23 (1993) 33.
2
Alfie Kohn, No Contest: The Case Against Competition: Why We Lose in Our Race to Win
(Houghton Mifflin Company: New York, 1986), 199.
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Are two truly better than one, and can we be better together, by working together like the
components in a cell working together to keep it living, the cells working together and
communicating to produce multicellular organisms, organisms forming food chains and
ecosystems, or human beings forming families, gangs, cities and nations, for individual and
corporate benefits? Answer is yes, and both Tempered Radicals and The End of Diversity as We
Know It talk about working together to effect change, by valuing and effectively using diversity.
I appreciate what Debra E. Meyerson suggests, that is, tempered radicalism. First of all, she said,
people as tempered radicals operate for all sorts of reasons: To varying extents, they feel
misaligned with the dominant culture because their social identitiesrace, gender, sexual
orientation, age, for exampleor their values and beliefs mark them as different from the
organizational majority [Tempered radicals] struggle between their desire to act on their
different selves and the need to fit into the dominant culture Tempered radicals are therefore
constantly pulled in opposing directions: toward conformity and toward rebellion (5-6). They
behave as committed and productive members and act as vital sources of resistance, alternative
ideas, and transformation within their organization. This feels, to me, like the vital multicultural
people I envision for my multicultural church, to function as successful change agents. We want
to thrive a color-conscious, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-congregational
church, where people come for a rich diversity of Christian life and experience and a new
transcendent commonality of vision and values, shared across diverse congregations. Like
tempered radicals, we challenge the status quo, desiring to function as change agents within our
denomination. We work, quietly and slowly, but with a clear, shared vision to create a new way
of doing church in our rapidly changing world. We live a now but not yet life, seeing what
could be, but living in what is. Our vision is our multiple congregations united as one,
worshipping in the Word and Spirit of God, thriving together, making disciples of all nations,
and raising leaders for service and mission.
Though able to work alone, by working with the other congregations, each congregation as
tempered radicals gains a sense of legitimacy, access to resources and contacts, technical and
task assistance, emotional support, and advice (123). Through strategic alliance building,
tempered radicals work directly with others to bring about more extensive change. The more
conversations their action inspires and the more people it engages, the stronger the impetus
toward change becomes.3 This means we will have more power to move issues to the forefront
more quickly and directly than we might by working alone.4 As Meyerson suggests, a
compelling collective action framea shared purpose, a shared sense of opportunity, and
common feeling that as the next generation of leaders we are in this together and have a
responsibility to make a difference togetherwill help the church carry its missional goals (125).
As for Meyerson, I see leadership as the capacity to mobilize collective actions to build
confidence and hope to win limited victories, each of which will build confidence and the
feeling that if we can do so much with what have now, just think what we will be able to do
when we get big strong (170). Like tempered radicals, we desire to create sufficient energy,
hope, and common purpose to bring together independent individuals and mobilize them as a
3

Debra E. Meyerson, Radical Change, the Quiet Way, Harvard Business Review 79 (October
2001): 6.
4
Ibid., 8.
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collective force (170). I seek to lead change and lead people by creating relationships and
local environments that support other tempered radicals, by acting as agents of positive
deviation, by instigating small wins and creating learning, by pushing people and systems to
confront their latent conflicts and adaptive challenges, by organizing other people to act together
toward shared goals, and by inspiring change and people (171).
Secondly, as Martin N. Davidson points out, it is important to work together in spite of social,
cultural differences: Traditional diversity efforts frequently emphasizes how to develop
workplaces in which people with different perspectives and identities work well together despite
(and because of) their differences. As for him, to succeed, we need to have as our diversity and
inclusion goal to attract, develop, and retain the best and brightest from all walks of life and
backgrounds... [and] have a culture of inclusion where all individuals felt respected, are treated
fairly, provided work-life balance, and an opportunity to excel in their calls (9). However, how
true that just putting diverse groups of people together, absent the right context and skills, can
create, rather than solve, problems (24), and, furthermore, people dont automatically like
working together when they feel divided by difference. Introducing some kinds of diversity can
diminish commitment and increase turnover (43). Yet, in our ever diversely changing,
globalizing, multicultural milieu, there is definitely a heightened need for collaboration (93).
As Dividson correctly states, diversity is mission critical (4), and the most important
leadership activity is to catalyze diversity, not just manage it (47). For him, leverageing
difference is the preferred way to describe a leadership activity that promotes synergy and
harmony produced by diversity. It uses peoples differences to help the organization achieve its
strategic goals (70). This leveraging difference model is a cycle of identifying (seeing), learning
(understanding), and exploring (engaging) those unique differences that are relevant to our
churchs strategic process. Multicultural leaders must actively live difference (75), but must
begin and do everything with the end in view.
It is paramountly important to notice differences existing within a given structure of diversity
(e.g., what are the differences within racial groups?) Leadership is not culture-free, and not
anyone from any culture can teach leadership in any place, even the biblical model of leadership.
Jim Plueddemann writes an interesting parable: Suppose a group of blind people is locked in a
large room. After bumping around for a few days, they begin to develop signals that prevent
them from colliding with each other. Maybe they learn to stamp their feet as they walk,
communicating location and direction. Eventually they build a strong sense of community. After
a couple of months, another group of blind people enters the room. These newcomers previously
constructed a different system of signals to promote cooperation. Maybe they clap their hands as
they walk. Naturally the new folks begin to stumble into the original community, causing harsh
criticism on both sides. Each group thinks the other uncultured. The clappers think the stompers
are rude, and the stompers assume the clappers are overly emotional. Eventually the two cultures
realize their blindness and work out a new system of cooperation.5 We must recognize our
blindness and learn to reflect on our own leadership values and be sensitive to the values of
others. Plueddemann is right when he notes, The continuing frustration often comes from the
5

Jim Plueddemann, Globalization, Global Church & Educational Ministries: Forging

Ecclesiological Relationships Between the Christian South and the Post-Christian West,
Christian Education Journal 8:2 (2011): 402-3.
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clash of leadership expectations between cultural values. Even though global cooperation in
missions will always be pestered by misunderstanding in this fallen world, a growing
understanding, appreciation, and harmony is possible and necessary.6 So we, like the blind in
the parable, must recognize that, first of all, we are blind to the influence of our own culture of
leadership values and that we need to analyze and better understand our values; secondly, that
the groups we partner with are most likely too blind to their leadership values and that any
particular system, while different, is not perfect and may not not be better or worse than our own;
and thirdly, that we must learn to harmonize divergent cultural systems and cooperate in global
ministries.7

6
7

Ibid., 403.
Ibid.
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