"I want them to cooperate, I want them to help each other, replace each other, work together."
Yes, yes, more than once there is some "big man" who looks around him and thinks that if he just says "I want you to work together," that's what will happen. This big man can be a manager, a teacher, a parent, an authority figure… and yet, it doesn't happen….
What makes people act together out of a genuine desire? What motivates a group of people to work together? First, we must distinguish between – I want us to cooperate and… – I want you to participate in the action. In many cases, we talk about cooperation and actually aim at participation in the action. That is, I will say what is right, what needs to be done, how to do it, and you… just do it. This is the place to emphasize clearly and distinctly that this is not what is at stake.
Cooperation as an equal value
The first parameter that must exist for cooperation to take place is equality of value. That is, mutual respect for the needs, desires, and path of each member or participant, in the face of a common goal. Why doesn't this exist? After all, we all understand the importance, the enormous benefit, and the power that the collective has over the individual. But are we willing to pay the required price?
And what is the price?
Immediately, giving up being the one who knows everything and believing that others also have knowledge, experience, and understanding. Being willing to follow a different path, not exactly my path, being open to new paths, listening to others from an equal place, and acting from an honest and genuine place, not manipulative.
The payment is not easy. The fear of a lack of control over the process, and trusting others requires faith and a solid personality. For people in senior positions, with great responsibility, it is sometimes difficult to give up this position. The organization pays a high price – the loss of knowledge that is in the people, creative solutions, enormous abilities, and human well-being. Sometimes tricks are used to try and create cooperation, and then continue to control the process and the people, and are surprised that it does not work. The result is of course not achieved. What actually takes place is at most participation in the action. In such a case, growth and development do not take place in the organization, in the family or in the person… and the individual does not feel part of the group.
Group collaboration
To achieve the desired result, one must go through a process in which the concrete matter for which we gathered and the informal, hidden matter, which is the essence of the relationships between the group members, are integrated. One must go through several stages in which trust, communication, getting to know the other, openness to a different worldview, a willingness to give up a little of one's own, and a willingness to take part out of an understanding of the need, importance, and desire to feel part of the group are created.
If you've already tried asking people to cooperate, and you didn't understand what's so complicated and what's not happening…why there's competition, stalling, pressure and tension, judgment and dissatisfaction, and you're not getting the results…it's time to look into the possibility of investing differently in the process and in people.
Where there is mutual respect, equality, consultation and sharing, openness and commitment, the result will be cooperation. And the many benefits that come with it are: creative solutions, harnessing, a sense of belonging and commitment, personal responsibility, investment far beyond what you imagined, the realization of goals and achievements…. They are not too late to come.
It's time to tell the truth. Most employees today are managers. Unlike the time when being a manager was a matter of seniority, education, connections, and hierarchy, today in the organizational world the dramatic change is also in the way things are run, and they are run differently!
Each employee is responsible for quite a few tasks and assignments, needs to meet goals, work collaboratively with several other people to lead a project or be a partner in a team. Organizations change according to the rapid fluctuations of the market and needs, people move from here to there – from team member, to team manager and back to team member, the organizational hierarchy is flattened in favor of rapid movement and flexibility, so that over time each of us manages, with responsibility and commitment, for which we are constantly measured and judged and experience pressure.
Therefore, in all the executive development workshops that I lead, the focus is on the concepts, approaches, behaviors, and tools that each of us is required to implement as a manager, as a team member, as a person in the current organizational world. The executive development process creates an approach that sees human partnership, the importance of human connection, as part of a management skill necessary for the success of the organization.
