Effectivity

The Power of Two

The old man waved the stick high above his head, and then “crash”.  A wild but focused blow to the helpless tree.  The debris rained down all around him as he took aim again, ready to continue his assault.  He shouted, short sharp orders at the vegetation.  Strong, unintelligible from my vantage, and serious.  I remember the concentration on the old man’s face and the strength of his arms as blow after blow he took out his life of aggression on this one poor tree.  There was not another person in sight, there was no obvious reason for his aggression and shouting, he had that shabby kind of crazy, wild look about him.  Surely this old guy was out of control.  He was one of those people that were best left to himself.  I made a  deliberate decision to stay clear of his swinging stick, because I was sure that at any moment his target could change.  It was obvious that this guy was crazy…until I saw his friend.

One minute the old man was by himself, the next minute, another old man came climbing out of the vegetation.  Slowly, slowly, the picture before me started to change.  The first old man lay down his stick and stood up straight.  He wasn’t so wild and twisted as I had thought.  The words that he was shouting, became spoken and playful as the other man drew nearer.  The long stick that was now lying on the ground was actually a thin rod of bamboo, and it appears that its target was actually the fruit of the tree not just the tree itself.  In the end I was forced to concede that the old man was not a crazy, angry, old menace, but a productive, lively and enthusiastic chestnut harvester.  It wasn’t until I saw that he was working with another man that my picture of him changed radically.  This is one of the powers of partnerships.  In simple terms, they validate otherwise strange behaviour.  A partnership lends credibility to an unusual venture and support to a revolutionary way of thinking and acting.

There are plenty of drawbacks to partnerships.  I am sure that the two old men could tell you all about the downside of splitting the harvest, disagreements over the balance of workload, the responsibility that you share for your partner’s actions, and the difficulty for either one of the partners to behave exactly as he chooses.  These problems increase as the complexity and importance of the relationship increase.  Sadly they also increase as the amount of money involved increases. 

There are also plenty of advantages to partnerships.  Apart from the validity already discussed, there can be definite benefits to having 2 sets of arms doing the work.  Or 2 brains doing the decision making.  2 sets of resources may be necessary to supply a venture and 2 different perspectives can double the creative output.  These benefits can be massive and are sometimes the only way to get a job done well.

If you combine the benefits and the drawbacks you may start to see a middle ground that is most effective.  I call this middle ground informal partnerships or simply cooperation.  I believe that they can be the secret to improving your performance without loosing control of the process.  In the same way that people form and dissolve work-groups and committees in flexible workplace structures, you too can benefit from strategic partnerships and cooperation.

The sort of partnerships I am talking about are when you meet another blogger and decide to link to each other’s posts or write a series of posts in tandem.  It may be the sort of partnership where you find a training partner who shares a similar performance goal and training schedule.  It may be when your graphic design business finds a small print shop to cooperate with.  Or it could simply be when two full time parents, meet and decide to mind each other’s children once a week to give each other the chance to do something for themselves.  These partnerships are simple to set up, simple to control, productive for both parties, and are still simple to wind up.

What to look for in an informal partnership:

1. Compatible values - It is important that you see eye to eye on what is important.  The only way that you can pursue objectives together is if you can agree on the ground rules in the context.
2. Complementarity - There is very little good in partnering without any synergy.  You must find a partnership where your relative strengths combine for a net gain.
3. Balanced energy - You must be able to keep up with each other.  It is important that both parties have similar levels of motivation and drive as well as the ability to put it all together.
4. Similar spirit - To some degree, it is important that you share similar ways of doing what you intend to do together. 
5. Flexibility - Productivity is often based on flow and being adaptable to circumstances.  Partnerships make this flexibility even more important.
6. Trust - You must find a partner that you find totally trustworthy, but more importantly you must be 100% trustworthy yourself.  If you hope to create a meaningful partnership, then you must contribute the value that we might call reliability.
7. Rapport - It probably goes without saying, but a partnership without rapport is like having a gaping hole in your boat.  You will inevitably spend your time bailing out the water instead of making any progress.  There needs to be some sort of “Like” between members of an effective partnership.

If you can find an informal partnership that has at least 4 of these things then you are onto a winner.  These sort of partnerships seldom fall into your lap.  Instead you usually have to hunt for them and ask around.

So have a think about where you could use the cooperation of an informal partnership?  Don’t stop there.  Actively seek out an informal partnership that will help you to progress towards your goals. What sort of informal partnership do you need?

Thanks

Tom