When Collaboration Implodes

Ok, yes, when you have a book coming out, every single thing you see relates to the book, I know, I know. But this really does, I swear. 

I watched the Netflix documentary on the OceanGate disaster, Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster, and I can’t stop thinking about it. The people who were interviewed, how excited they were in the beginning to collaborate on something so new, so full of promise. They were ocoean lovers, engineers, Navy veterans, deep-sea divers, thinkers and builders. They knew their piece of expertise was needed for the project to succeed, and they brought it willingly. A true circle of collaboration, where everyone was going to have agency.

This wasn’t just a job for them. You could see it in their faces. They felt lucky to be part of it. Their engineering ideas, their diving knowledge, their decades of experience in the field, they offered it all in the spirit of shared purpose. That’s what a circle of collaboration looks like at its best. Each person brings what they know, and the result is something far greater than any single contribution. But each person's expertise is respected and they have final say in that particular decision.

But slowly, that circle collapsed. Not all at once. A warning here. A concern there. And then the realization, there would be no collaboration. None. One by one, the members of the circle were pushed out or silenced. Not because they were wrong. But because they were inconvenient to one man’s vision. Stockton Rush wasn’t looking for a circle of collaboration. He wanted control. The kind of control that cannot coexist with accountability. And so, just like the vessel’s carbon fiber hull, the circle began to crack.

You can see it unfold in the documentary. Guillermo Söhnlein, the co-founder of OceanGate. David Lochridge, the Director of Marine Operations who raised concerns about the vessel’s integrity. Rob McCallum, a respected deep-sea expert who warned that the sub was unsafe. They weren’t just dismissed. They were threatened. Legally gagged. Publicly discredited. Their enthusiasm, the very energy that launched the project, was discarded. And their knowledge, buried.

The erosion of collaboration is almost always slow. It happens when leaders stop listening. When voices that challenge the narrative are cast as disloyal or negative. When decisions are made not in circles, where people's value is heard and mixed into the outcome, but from the top of a triangle, where risk is ignored and a different point of view is punished.

And here is the thing no one likes to say. The people who died on that sub weren’t just victims. They were believers. They trusted the person at the top. They assumed that someone, somewhere, had tested the design, vetted the engineering, confirmed the safety. But that only happens when collaboration is alive. When questions are asked. When expertise is welcomed. When ego does not come first.

OceanGate wasn’t just a tragedy. It was a case study in what happens when collaboration dies. When a circle becomes a silo. When power is concentrated in one person’s hands and everyone else is told to stay quiet or get out.

We have seen it in politics. We have seen it in corporations. And now we have seen it 12,500 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. Collaboration looks pretty good, right? 

This is an extreme case, yes. But it reminds us why it matters to build with circles of collaboration no matter what you're building.

By Christine Merser

About Circles of Collaboration

What if the opposite of leader wasn't follower -- but collaborator? 

For centuries, women have gathered in circles, where every voice matters, decisions are shared, and progress is made together. Circles of Collaboration explores this time-tested method, tracing its history and revealing how you can harness its power to achieve your goals faster and with a stronger, more supportive network. Circles of Collaboration gives you the blueprint—practical tools, real-world examples, and the inspiration you need to build your own collaborative circle to achieve your vision.

Circles of Collaboration is now available to order via the Apricity Publishing website.

About Author Christine Merser

Christine Merser is a writer, strategist, and storyteller whose work spans fiction, nonfiction, and memoir. With a sharp eye for what lies beneath the surface, she explores themes of identity, power, and personal transformation, especially in the lives of women. Her debut novel, Flight of the Starling, is the first in a fiction trilogy already being called “made for Netflix.” Her nonfiction book, Circles of Collaboration, offers insight into women’s leadership and collective purpose, while her memoir, The Letter, chronicles the complex, beautiful, and often challenging relationship with her mother. She also writes a Substack column, The Voice Inside My Head, where she occasionally shares her reflections and musings.