Accord

He calls it “healthy tension”. I’m instantly interested, on the edge of my seat wanting to hear more.  What is this phrase he has coined to describe the dynamic he believes teams should aspire to in their working relationships?  I am seeing tension for sure, whether it’s healthy or not is another story.  What’s unclear to me is if he feels we’ve already reached this goal or sees we have more work to do.

I observe our teams experiencing a faux collaboration; no one gets too friendly or too comfortable. A certain congeniality is extended and embraced on the surface, tempered by an awareness that at any moment the hammer will come down. We’re always prepared with our defense. Ideas over-incubate, hatching induced once their parentage is indisputable. It’s all about taking credit so we’re ready when asked, “What have you done lately?”  We’re just short of a partnership or true equality because at the end of the day one party feels entitled to wield power over the other. Each side wants to win separately, and as such they both lose, creating a double negative, abdicating the powerful alliance these two groups should be poised to create.

It’s worth considering why we join forces with others. I like to think we come together because we see mutual benefit.  We know that together we can achieve more than we could individually; we can make each other better.  Each party brings different strengths, experiences, viewpoints and priorities.  Inevitably this introduces conflict. It takes an enormous amount of humility, self-awareness and vulnerability to marry our differences into a harmonious, functioning partnership.  And the benefits are epic, beyond anything you could ever imagine.

Yet many of us take the easy way out, we keep our conversations at the transactional level, steering clear of contentious topics in the name of keeping the peace.  Our silence becomes consent, and as such we never feel heard because we’re unwilling to say anything.  Until it leaks out sideways.  In another conversation.  About something seemingly trivial and unrelated.

The thing is open discussion in the face of conflict is the breeding ground of an unbreakable union.  You can’t impart your unique perspective unless you’re willing to dispute tried and true views.  You can’t incorporate what the other party brings to the partnership unless you’re willing to risk floating an idea in its nascence so it can be nurtured together. Expressing frustrations uncovers our differences, discussing our differences builds a new and better path forward.

I recently ran across some research that says the healthiest relationships are not the ones between couples who keep arguments and debate to a minimum, but between those who openly address conflicts when they arise. They don’t let grievances pile up, in fact they are vigilant about raising issues in the moment.  They know the destructiveness of the rug of contempt, and avoid sweeping problems under it.  The couples who are comfortable working through disagreements are closer, have each other’s backs and tend to stay together.  This feels like healthy tension to me.

 

And I believe in this for business partnerships, too.  As service providers we’re taught to be people pleasers; “the customer is always right.”  Maybe we need to be asking our customers if they want to always be right, if the tension in our partnership is, in fact, healthy.

I’m thinking about the meta-conversation, the one that lays out the ground rules for discussing conflict and differences of opinion, and bringing new ideas.  The one that ensures we respect each other as individuals, leaving pride intact.  The one that opens the door for winning together.  

Keen

“These are a bit pricey,” she observes, passing the glass vase of tulip bulbs over the scanner. Surprised by her comment, a myriad of thoughts fly through my brain in rapid succession.  She works here, doesn’t she?  Shouldn’t she be supporting a customer’s purchase, no matter her personal opinion?  Maybe these are more expensive than those buried in a plastic pot full of dirt, but I get to keep the vase, don’t I?  It’s an interesting shape and a nice size. Do I really owe this woman a justification for my buying decision?  Isn’t value ultimately determined by the individual contemplating the purchase? 

As I’m thinking, I’m searching her face for the hint of judgment, trying to supplant my own mug with a pleasantly neutral expression.  I say nothing at all.

The truth is, I find the presentation of these flowers-to-be interesting. What compels me to hand over some of my hard-earned cash for this transparent vessel containing five sprouting bulbs resting in water is the opportunity to watch the flowering process.  What happens underground is made visible to me. It’s a new perspective into blooming.  I want to see how it works.

We’re all curious about some things, but thankfully we’re not all curious about the same things.  We’d be living in a pretty one-dimensional world full of a lot of helpless people, and far more unsolved problems than we have today if that were the case.  I can’t tell you how grateful I am to the amateur mechanic who knows his way around an engine so well he doesn’t even need to be in front of my car to talk me through jumping the battery, or the dentist so well-versed in the characteristics and inherent differences of gold and porcelain crowns, he guides me to the best choice for my tooth without regard for lining his own pockets. Where would we be if Thomas Edison needed more than 4 hours of sleep at night or Madame Curie preferred time in the kitchen cooking Monsieur Curie’s dinner to time in the lab?  Without individuals driven to sate intense curiosity, the world doesn’t evolve.

It’s interesting, then, how all at once we can dismiss the curiosities of another because they don’t align with our own, and at the same time feel compelled to weigh-in on subjects we know next to nothing about.

There’s a lot of pressure to be the first responder to a request for information, but the question I’m asking myself these days is whether I’m always the best responder.  It’s impossible to be expert about everything, and in a world that’s becoming more and more about specialization, we need to become connectors to survive, and be open to many perspectives to thrive. It takes time to connect the dots, assemble our thoughts and formulate our position.

I doubt I’ll be making the next breakthrough in horticulture watching both ends of a tulip plant develop. But what I take away from my point of sale experience is we don’t owe responses to every individual opining on our choices. There is power in knowing I’m quite capable of delivering a response in the moment, but I’m also just as confident offering none.

We can’t allow others to shame us into being less than ourselves. We get to be curious. Curiosity begets passion. How else do we bloom?   

Preposition

It’s a bit like the grammar school textbook instruction on diagramming a sentence, the nearly extinct dissection of subject and predicate into their individual components; the idea we’ll somehow construct better sentences if we can visualize how each part functions. Except we are diagramming me, attempting to put our fingers on the precise descriptors explaining what makes me who I am, that certain je ne sais quoi I bring to my work, what I do differentiating me from the pack.

 

Of course there’s the discomfort creeping in with the thought of proclaiming my unique talents.  If I were a megalomaniac I’m certain this wouldn’t be an issue, but as I work on what I might say, I’m discovering the real problem is the lack of clarity in my message. I know what I do well, but I don’t always recognize what it is I do well that no one else is doing. And I’m struggling to pipe up in my voice, as opposed to droning in the one sounding like everyone else.

My first draft is loaded with dry corporate speak, a litany of metrics and statistics, the familiar markers of success in my industry, an inhuman spouting of recent accomplishments. The only cue I give my reader to distinguish my list from that of any other is my photograph at the top of the page. We’re a world focused on results.  We bring in new clients, attract top talent, grow our businesses, we make money for our companies. But the numbers and associated clichéd buzzwords don’t tell the story. They translate into finite, static snapshots in time, incapable of doing justice to, nor honoring, the living, breathing human beings producing them.

Sure, the numbers are there to talk about what’s achieved, but along with them is the need to somehow impart how it’s achieved. There’s a latent repeatable process I’ve never uncovered nor unpacked; it’s a secret recipe honed over time, applied in all walks of my life.  A conglomeration of parts of speech buried in the sentence that is me, begging to be called out individually and studied in their own right if I’m ever to tell a compelling story.

We’re all a bit myopic about ourselves.  We tend to think what we do isn’t so special, surely others use our technique, look at issues from a similar vantage point, draw comparable conclusions, or inspire the same ideas.  We often need to seek out our colleagues and loved ones to show us how we’re different and point out where we need to place the “extra” in front of “ordinary”.

And so he and I draw my diagram, consulting the dictionary and thesaurus, searching for words I can comfortably put in my mouth, swirl around and share back with the world in a voice that rings true. Even as my story begins to take shape, I’m still tempted to stay within the safe bounds of the vernacular of my industry. I’m fearful my words will be too different, too human for the staunch world of business. But I need them to be.  I’m connecting my dots, deconstructing myself for understanding, allowing for a richer depiction of how it is I do what I do, over and over again, for winning results.  It’s a story no one else can tell.