Messy collaboration refers to complexity, unpredictability and management dilemmas when educators work together. Such messiness was evident in a Hong Kong English Learning Study, a structured cyclical process in which teachers and researcher-participants from a teacher education institution work collaboratively on effective student learning. This paper describes and analyses the collaboration from a micropolitical perspective using multiple participant-voices, including that of one who experienced the collaboration differently from the others. The analysis explores some reasons for the messiness of the collaboration, addresses the epistemological tensions, and considers ways to shift the collaboration towards one that facilitates innovation and learning. (Contains 6 figures.)