Partnerwerks Collaboratory for the week of March 8
In this issue:
1. 10-Second Collaboratory
2. About Partnerwerks Collaboratory
3. Relationship Integrity Sanctions Collaboration
4. 5-Minute Practice Tip
5. Index to Collaboratory archives on the web.
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1. 10-Second Collaboratory
Whatever else you do, don't be the first to defect.
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2. About Partnerwerks Collaboratory
Welcome new subscribers!
Please do yourself and others a potentially productive favor:
forward Collaboratory to your team, family and friends.
Partnerwerks Collaboratory is FREE. Our purpose is to provide
distinctions and tools for building responsible relationships at
work. Collaboratory is published weekly for anyone who shares
responsibility for getting things done and especially for
graduates of Partnerwerks' popular corporate seminar Project Team
Leadership.
What does Collaboratory do for you?
What relationship issues would you like to explore?
Reply to collaboratory@Partnerwerks.com and let us know.
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3. And now for this week's Collaboratory...
Relationship Integrity Sanctions Collaboration
For the last two weeks, we've been deconstructing extraordinary
collaboration. Using the formula "Extraordinary Collaboration =
Exchange + Expansion + Integrity," we've established Exchange as
the "bedrock" and Expansion as the "wellspring" of great
partnerships. Now it's time to look at the critical element of
integrity.
Integrity is one of those hard words to define. For workability,
Partnerwerks has adopted a definition of integrity that comes not
from Sunday School but science, specifically from the field of
structural engineering. (After all, relationships are structures,
aren't they?) As Buckminster Fuller put it,
Integrity is the ability of a system to maintain shape
under pressure.
We like this definition because it has a kind of benevolent
cultural neutrality to it. It stands at once inside and outside
all moral, ethical and religious beliefs.
As we apply this definition of integrity to human collaboration,
we can see the "system" simply as the relationship between the
people. And, what kinds of pressures typically cause such systems
to lose their shape? Well, a common pressure arises when any
party feels a need to put his/her own interests before the
collaboration, thus leaving the others hanging. Another can occur
when parties conclude that other parties aren't trustworthy
(whether they are or aren't) and allow distrust to prompt them to
defect. There are others, but these two are both universal and
timeless.
Shakespeare fans may recall Othello's Dilemma: trust can never be
proven, but distrust is the source of its own proof. (For you who
have forgotten the story: When Iago tempted Othello to think of
his beloved Desdemona as disloyal, Othello began selectively
filtering information he received, convinced himself she was
disloyal, killed her, and then discovered she had always been
loyal. In his grief, he killed himself.) In the volatile arena of
human relationship, trust is a fragile creature. It requires
sanctuary -- and continual sanction -- to survive.
The way we look at it at Partnerwerks, the best way to ensure
trust is to hold relationship integrity as hard as we can against
all pressure to give it up. Holding integrity (i.e., maintaining
the sanctuary of relationships we've entered) means the conscious
exercise of will and conviction that collaborations can and will
support the first two keys of exchange and expansion -- even when
one or more parts of the relationship are experiencing pressures
to look out for themselves at the expense of others. In past
weeks, I've recommended four practices to buttress integrity in
relationships:
1. Choose your partners carefully and communicate VERY frequently
to affirm your interdependence, update information, and maintain
rapport.
2. Always tell what's true for you, so suspicion never has a
chance to arise.
3. Make and keep agreements about participation in the
collaboration and maintain close tolerance on those agreements so
trust builds.
4. Co-create a conflict resolution process by planning in advance
what you will do to maintain exchange, expansion and integrity if
something goes wrong. The agreement to this process gives
everyone something to hold on to when pressures make things feel
uncertain.
Now that you've mastered these four, here's the short-cut to 100%
Relationship Integrity: Never be the first to defect.
Think about it. Even small defections, like breaking a small
agreement, or saying something about one person to someone else
when you haven't told the first person, can begin to erode
confidence (i.e. the sanctuary) in the relationship. And, once
the sanctuary has been breached, the door is left open for
distrust and defection.
So, to gain a reputation as someone who can always be trusted in
a relationship, never, ever defect first! How? Become a
doormat?!? No! Instead, as soon as you feel a need to put
yourself before the collaboration (and there is NEVER anything
wrong with needing to do this), tell on yourself! In other words,
take your discomfort as a signal to go to the other(s)
IMMEDIATELY and TELL them, so you can negotiate a change in the
relationship TOGETHER.
As Buckminster Fuller also said, "Unity is plural and a minimum
of two." And that's always true in teams.
Get started with this week's 5-minute practice tip.
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4. 5-Minute Practice Tip
Choose a partnership that could stand some reinforcement and
create more sanctuary in it by promising each other to never,
ever defect on one another. In other words, tell each other
out loud that if you ever need to take care of your own needs
before the needs of the collaboration (or if you ever suspect the
others are putting their own needs first), you agree to talk with
each other immediately about your feelings and needs.
Now that's an agreement with permission for intolerance!
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5. Index to Collaboratory archives on the web.
These archives are at the URL of
http://zip.mail-list.com/archives/collaboratory
3/1/99 The Collaborative Leader's Most Powerful Tool: Expansion
2/22/99 The Bedrock of Collaboration
2/15/99 Keys to Extraordinary Collaboration
2/8/99 Collaboratory Theory of Relativity
2/1/99 Honor Differences
1/25/99 Velocity Decision Making
1/18/99 Consensus
1/11/99 Is Your Silence Consent?
1/04/99 Teammates Don't Have to Like Each Other
12/28/98 For Energy and Direction, Reorient!
12/21/98 Clear Judgments When they Come up
12/14/98 Distinguish Criticizing from Feedback (Don't Speak Until
You Do!)
12/7/98 The Benefit of Showing You Can Be Provoked...
11/30/98 Talking About Trust Breaks
11/23/98 How to Trust Just Right
11/16/98 Trust Reflects Responsibility
11/9/98 "What's In It For You?"
11/2/98 Stop Trying to Motivate
10/26/98 Come Together Over Commitment and the Skill Will Follow
10/19/98 Who is the Most Powerful Member of Your Team?
10/12/98 Are You Playing Too Small A Game?
10/5/98 An Upset is an Opportunity to Learn
9/28/98 Agree to Response-Ability
9/21/98 Calling Others on Broken Agreements
9/14/98 Clean Up Broken Agreements
9/6/98 The Formula for Building Trust
8/31/98 Clarity: The Source of Power
8/24/98 Teamwork is an Individual Event
I wish you a world of productive relationships.
Faithfully,
Christopher M. Avery, Ph.D.
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of the source as (c) Copyright Partnerwerks Collaboratory, 1998, 1999.