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Beyond Performance … Collaboration!

Posted by Joseph Riggio on Thursday, September 14, 2006

Knowing how to connect and collaborate may be the most essential skill you can develop in enhancing your performance overall ... if you’re ready to generate the quantum leverage that all exquisite performers seem to realize - you must learn how to connect and collaborate.

Hello All,

Today was an interesting day for me as I presented a teleseminar program with Peta Heskell earlier this evening. What made it so interesting had to do with what goes on when you organize a program like this one. First of course there are the straight-forward logistics issues ... just getting it off the ground. Then there are all the details to put in place as well.

The thing that I found so interesting about today was doing all of this in collaboration with another presenter ... I'm used to doing it on my own, but collaborating on this project shifted the entire sense of the dynamics. However, there was the added dimension that this program was about "Exquisite Relationships" ... the very nature of collaboration.

I've been really pulled towards this idea for some time ... collaboration ... the nature of human interaction. Especially the nature of systems dynamics ... how people create realities amongst themselves. I think this goes to the heart of human performance ... even when the nature of performance tends to the individual the translation of it can still often be collaborative.

For instance, learning can be one of the most human things we do. Uniquely to our species we don't have to relearn everything from scratch in each generation, in fact we take the lessons from previous generations and continually build on them. So not only do we collaborate with others in direct contact, we collaborate with previous generations through the timescape of human experience.

"In the transmission of human culture, people always attempt to replicate, to pass on to the next generation the skills and values of the parents, but the attempt always fails because cultural transmission is geared to learning, not DNA." - Gregory Bateson

So it seems to me that the most critical "performance skill" that anyone can develop would be the ability to collaborate ... simply put the ability to connect and make relationships. What becomes possible in the interchange with others exists at a quantum level above that which would be possible as an individual acting alone. I'd go so far as to say our dominance as a species rests on our ability to collaborate.

So why then does it seem that it still remains one of the most difficult things for people to do ... to connect, make relationships that last and effectively collaborate?

I've been looking to folks who are giants of human performance, especially in the world of business, and what I've found consistently reminds me that those who are the most effective in establishing human connections that work are often the most effective at creating extraordinary results. I think of Richard Branson as an example ... his story points to an extraordinary ability to gather remarkable talent around him and to create the contexts for that talent to excel.

So what are the keys to collaboration?

  • My observations suggest that the starting point remains common to all great performance ... first, "Know Yourself" - this has shown up so often as the basis for great performance I've come to take it as a given.

  • Once you have an awareness of yourself ... i.e.: knowing who you are ... then you can begin to freely consider others - the basis of making successful connections has to do with being free to include others without limitation.

  • Acknowledge the other person for who they are as you've learned to acknowledge yourself ... give them the freedom to act without either a demand or an expectation for them to be any other way then the way they are ... let them be.

  • Look for opportunities in the collaboration and create the context where the opportunities can come to fruition ... demand that both you and others remain free - even as you remain connected - to express yourselves fully and manifest your outcomes.

    • This was why I was so interested in doing this program and working within the collaborative structure to deliver the teleseminar today and also to run the program of the same name ... "Exquisite Relationships" as a "live" program in the UK next week. The opportunity to do one's fascination and generate the outcomes that are possible as a result may be the most satisfying of things we do ...

    Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
    Princeton, NJ

    You can still join Peta Heskell and I in the Exquisite Relationships program in London on the 23rd & 24th of this month (September) ... for the crazy price of only $297 for the entire program!

    This will likely be the only time I personally deliver this program (I can assure you I have absolutely no intention to deliver this program in the UK again!) ... so if you're interested BE THERE! ... we're only offering this program at this ridiculously low fee so that we can launch the "Exquisite Relationships" platform and create the material for the CDs we'll be releasing after the program.

    Look for more information re: "Exquisite Relationships" soon ...

    (2) Comments • (1) Trackbacks • Permalink

    over the weekend i saw the movie The Last Kiss. It was all about relationships and people’s connections with each other. i don’t know that really any of the characters had exquisite relationships and considering your four bullet points above on collaboration, that’s why they didn’t… certainly in the beginning of the film, no one really knew whoe they were to begin with which greatly affected others around them...but this movie was about intimate relationships, though. By the end of the movie, you get a sense for what the characters really want for themselves and for their relationships...for their lives and then they make their decisions. And there is a lot of agony and misery in between the beginning and the end of it all.

    it was a pretty good movie - a little depressing at times b/c it shows how messy relationships can be (and are) but i think it did a good job at showing the reality of relationship - they are not all sugary and sweet all the time and it can take work, which i tend to find true too. on a side note, the soundtrack is awesome and added a lot to the movie.

    allison

    abriggs on Monday, September 18, 2006

    Allison,

    Just back in town (sorry for the long time away) ... this is exactly why Peta and I are doing an “Exquisite Relationships” program ...

    Thanks,

    Joseph

    Joseph Riggio on Wednesday, September 20, 2006

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