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The Changing Face of Capitalism: Schizophrenia in the Apple Store

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The other day I was in one of the Apple Stores. The hinge had broken on my MacBook Air, which meant the top of the computer, the screen part, had to be replaced. It was to be done for free, which I love about Apple.

The store was crowded; I asked the young lady salesperson if using my Mac ProCare card would move things along. She looked at my card, told me it was out of date, and offered to go update it.

When she came back, she was apologetic. “The thing is,” she stammered, “I think they’re kind of going to be de-emphasizing the ProCare program.”

“Huh?” I said. “Is it continuing, or not?”

“Well, I think they’re maybe going to be phasing it out,” she squirmed.

“As of when is it phasing out?” I asked, “ and is there a replacement program? I just want to know how to get premium service.”

“Well, I think they’ve already stopped it, really,” she stammered. This was getting nowhere fast.

Fortunately, the store manager came by and took over; he assured me I’d get the repaired computer by day’s end (which I did, by the way).  I asked him, “What’s up with the ProCare program?”

“Oh,” he said, “we’re discontinuing it.”

“Why?”

“Well, it was so popular that everyone was buying it, and then you have a problem with, like, who do you let at the head of the line, and who do you have to say no to, and all that sort of hassle.”

This boggled my mind. “Why not just raise the price?” I asked.

He laughed. “You know, several other people have suggested that too.”

“Well no wonder they have,” I said. “If everybody wants something at one price, raise the price—you make more money, and it very easily sorts out to whom it’s worth more and to whom it isn’t.”

“Yeah, but it’s kind of unfair that way too, you know,” he said, in a ‘you clearly don’t get it, do you’ sort of a way. And I left, bemused again at the curious mix of capitalism and west-coast do-goodism that is Apple Computer.

No company is better at in-your-face planned obsolescence than Apple; just trying getting a replacement battery for an iPod. No company is better at aggressive pricing; and how many mature companies can claim a stock price growth of ten fold in five years?

All this, in spite of echoes of PC (not the computer) instincts and shades of tie-dyed Deadhead ethos in the stores. Or, is it because of said instincts and ethos?

Changing Ideologies in Business: From Competitive Capitalism to Collaborative Capitalism

Then again, why should Apple be unique in its schizophrenia about capitalism? Business in general is in the midst of a paradigm shift in business, away from shareholder-centricity toward stakeholder-centricity. An excellent article in the Economist  summarizes this ideological shift, citing several current business thinkers.

Business, I think, is undergoing some serious foment with respect to some very fundamental beliefs. Milton Friedman, Michael Porter, Michael Jensen—these are the thought leaders of the past, championing neo-classical economics, the purification of competition, and the primacy of shareholder wealth respectively.

The new thought leaders remain to be definitively enumerated, but the issues are emerging. They rhyme with collaboration, trust, networking, flat organizations, and Gen Y. To name a few.

Stay tuned, it’s getting interesting. And Steve Jobs may end up, once again, looking pretty prescient.
 

Ten Steps to Positioning Your Firm for the Recovery

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The stock market called the recovery 12 months ago.

The GDP is now rebounding. It certainly looks like a recovery. And if it looks like a recovery, quacks like a recovery, and walks like a recovery—well, you know the rest, and it might not be too soon to think about how your firm is positioning itself to take advantage.

Exactly when your business, or at least segments of it, will experience the recovery probably differs from other businesses. This looks to be a slow, differentiated recovery; your mileage may vary.

But whatever your timeframe, there are certain general rules that may help you take advantage of the turn when it does come around.

Ten Steps to Capitalizing on the Emerging (Economic) Recovery

These thoughts, courtesy of an occasional discussion group I’m part of (see author list) are aimed mainly at professional services firms, but in many ways will fit general business as well.

1.      What changes are now needed in your business acquisition strategy? Which relationships should you seek to strengthen, and where do you selectively want to plant new ones? 

2.      Business developers: Do a searching and fearless inventory of your past clients and high probability past prospects (particularly those who almost said yes but postponed).   Allocate responsibilities—get ready to triage.

3.      Service offerings: which of your offerings best helps which of your client types to build their performance in early recovery? Which of your clients’ businesses are poised for growth first?

4.      Help define your clients’ recovery-driven issues together with your clients. They may still be in siege mentality.  How is this recovery different, for them, from previous ones—what’s is new this time around? How take advantage of those differences? Again—discuss this with your clients.

5.      Pricing: move to mildly more aggressive; say no to discretionary discount requests.

6.      Raise your minimum size, scope, and duration thresholds for saying ‘yes.’

7.      Figure out to whom you’ll say ‘no.’ Use relationship-propensity as a screen–turn down the one-offs.

8.      The scarcest resource is always good people, so the best time hire is early in the recovery cycle. For many of you, that means now.

9.      What do you want to do more of? What have you been doing during recession that you’d like now to do less of? Is it time to re-balance and re-align selected resources from the likely conservative assumptions of a budget you built six months ago?

10. As others of your clients move into recovery mode—how can you become a prospective partner? What can you do in advance to set the stage?

Chris Brogan on Trust and Social Media (Trust Quotes #9)

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Chris Brogan needs no introduction to some TrustMatters readers. Some of you caught him at the Trust Summit last fall; Others may never have heard of him. I’m about to do the second group a huge favor.

Chris is co-author (with Julien Smith) of Trust Agents, CEO of New Marketing Labs and an active speaker and blogger. 

But that’s nothing. Chris is a guru in the new social media space; a Twitter deity; and an all-round major influence in the emerging new world of commerce and social interaction.

I find Chris doubly interesting; not only does he have solid things to say about trust, he lives them in a most authentic and high-integrity way. He is a genuinely, really, really nice guy—and I think he’s as famous for that as for anything.

We caught up with him right around his 40th birthday; rather young for the life he’s lived already.

CHG: Chris, how do you define your work these days: is it new social media? Marketing? Trust? Public speaking? Who is Chris Brogan anyway?

CB: My work is divided into a few camps right now. My company, New Marketing Labs, LLC, works as marketing consultants providing strategy and execution for online and social media marketing for Fortune 100/500 types. My media business, currently thought of as ChrisBrogan.com, is where I do public speaking, blogging, book authoring, and the like.

A few months after this interview, I’ll be announcing something that will make it just a bit more streamlined and unified. But my work, if I were to tidy this answer up, would be to educate and equip others for success in doing what I call “human business.”

CHG: You finished writing Trust Agents nearly a year ago. It hit NYTimes best seller territory, and is still ranked #3,000 today. That’s very successful. For the uninitiated, what is Trust Agents about?

CB: Julien and I wrote Trust Agents about how to be human on the web. We wrote about this new type of business application for social tools, which, when used by talented individuals (either in a company, or a church, or a nonprofit, or as a solo entrepreneur) can help people gain awareness, build reputation, and earn trust. We talk from the high concept all the way down to actionable steps about what elements people seek to attain trust via the extended digital world.

CHG: Have you developed some perspective on it yet? Do you see some aspects of it as more important now than when you wrote it? Less?

CB: Great question. I think both Julien and I believe that the most important part of Trust Agents is in building and maintaining your network. We’ve learned since the book came out that the most applicable parts for people to follow were about the way they interacted with others, and how they transferred value back and forth along their network (and we could define “value” as anything that improves the experience of a person in the network – such as helping a friend find a job).

CHG: My impression is you’re synonymous with Inbound Marketing. Is that right? More importantly, my strong impression is that in any case you conduct your life according to those principles. Can you share a little about both the definition of inbound marketing, and how you practice it? I’m thinking of things like 12-other referential tweets for each one of your own, or the way you once responded to a taunt/challenge from Robert Scoble.

CB: The folks at Hubspot coined the term “inbound marketing,” partly because Seth Godin has a copyright on “permission marketing.” In all cases, we all believe that beating people over the head with your needs and desires to sell products or services isn’t a successful strategy any longer. We look to build relationship-based selling models, such that we turn audience into community, and we guard our relationship with our community as an asset, every bit as much as we guard our trade secrets.

My personal definition? Be helpful. The way I built my own personal brand was delivering information that others could use to improve their own lot in life. And I promote others at least 12 times as much as I promote my own stuff on various social networks.

CHG: We hear an awful lot of talk these days about the decline of trust in institutions today. I’m sure you understand that, but do you also notice that and experience it yourself? In fact, do you find significant areas where trust is in fact increasing?

CB: The big revolution that’s brewing is that we, the people, are sick of being numbers. We want to be seen and heard, and treated as individuals. The oft-cited example in the US for trust improvements are places like Comcast, who found their customer service approval scores a bit higher since the efforts of Frank Eliason and his @comcastcares Twitter efforts.

There are lots of anecdotal examples along these lines. Dell Computers has been in the camp of more trustworthy and more human, ever since 2005, when Lionel Menchaca came on the scene to humanize them. Significant areas, though? Not yet. I’m hoping this is the year we start demanding more trustworthy relationships.

CHG: Are you optimistic about prospects for trust in the emerging economy of our time? Can you explain a bit about why? 

CB: Interesting question. I think one way we’ll see more trust bubble up is through the creation of all these Internet businesses and Internet-born brands. No one had heard of Gary Vaynerchuk a few years ago, and now, if Gary says this is a wine you need to try, thousands and thousands of people will buy that bottle.

Trust developed to make up for a younger brand relationship might be the big lever that gets older organizations to have to rush in and follow suit. It’s how I see it potentially shifting. Look at car companies. In this new landscape, they KNOW that trust is one of the only ways to settle up and move forward.

CHG:  Is trust in the new social media world the same as, or different from, trust in the old analogue world? How can they cross over?  

CB: There are some weird differences in trust in the social media world, but in a way they parallel the way (western) society seems to be evolving.

We have no long-term memory any more in this country. Sins of the past wash away a lot faster, it seems, in many situations. We also seem to demand a more gritty, three-dimensional reality from our brands. Further, we want an entertainment factor to our education and information delivery.

All these traits in the analog world translate quite nicely into how social media delivers interactions around relationship-building, media making, and community environments. This new web is a lot more social, a lot more touchy-feely, and a lot more insistent on a more human interaction.

For me? Good times, and I hope that’s how others see this opportunity. We buy from people we know, and these tools allow us to build strong relationships before the sale.

CHG: Chris, many thanks for taking time out of what has to be one of the busiest lives on the planet; it’s always a pleasure, and I really appreciate it.

CB: You’re very welcome.

This is number 9 in the Trust Quotes series.

The entire series can be found at: http://trustedadvisor.com/trustmatters.trustQuotes

Recent posts in this series include:
Trust Quotes #8: LJ Rittenhouse
Trust Quotes #7: David Maister
Trust Quotes #6: Anna Bernasek

Old Faithful and Reliability

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Old Faithful is a geyser located in Yellowstone National Park, USA. It gets its name because it regularly shoots steam and water to great heights. In fact, with a margin of error of 10 minutes, Old Faithful will erupt either every 65 or every 91 minutes, depending on the length of the previous eruption. It’s been doing this since 1870.

While most of us who endeavor to be Trusted Advisors would probably prefer not to be associated with a “geyser” (myself included), there’s something we can all learn from this phenomenon of nature.

Reliability: The Good News/Bad News

Of the 12,000+ people who have completed our online Trust Quotient™ survey to date, Reliability comes out 16 percentage points higher than any of the other three elements of the Trust Equation. This isn’t really surprising, given that Reliability is the easiest to grasp and execute. Reliability is logical, concrete, and action-oriented.

The bad news is we’re not as good as we think.

Case in point: I’m always interested to see how participants in our programs handle the pre-work assignment we send via email a couple of weeks before the program begins. Responses are due to be emailed back within a week. It takes 10 – 20 minutes to complete the work. People generally fall into one of three categories:

  • Turn it in late with no acknowledgement (slightly more than half)
  • Never turn it in (some)
  • Turn it in on time (very few)

So while Reliability seems like a “slam dunk” in the world of trustworthiness, there’s room for us all to improve. (And by the way, I am no exception, witness how I’ve been doing lately on my goal of writing one blog post per week.)

The Road to Being More Reliably Reliable

Generally, people experience you as reliable when:

  •  You feel familiar to them. They’re at ease with you. They have a good sense of who you are and feel they know you. You use their terminology and templates. You establish routines in your relationships (regular meetings, emails, etc.). You dress appropriately.
  • You are consistent and predictable. People know what to expect from you, and they get it. You set expectations up front and report on them regularly. You are rigorous about using good business practices, such as meeting agenda and notes. You make lots of small promises and consistently follow through. They can count on you to be the same person at all times, and the same to all people.
  • You work to make sure there are no surprises when you’re around. You use others’ vocabulary and respect and reflect their norms and environment. You make sure that their expectations of you are consistent. You produce documentation of consistent quality and create deliverables with a consistent look and feel.
  • You do what you say you will do. You keep and deliver on your promises, and see keeping your word as a matter of personal integrity. When you are unable to fulfill on a promise, you immediately get in communication to acknowledge the impact and reset expectations.

Reliability is Reliability is Reliability

Here’s the rub: Consistency matters. If you apply these best practices more with your clients and less with, say, your Trusted Advisor instructor … then your reliability score suffers.

Perfection is not the goal here; impeccability is (See Impeccability vs. Perfection: Who’s Got Your Back?). There’s always room for error and for our humanity. When it comes to trust, what matters is being rigorously self-aware, transparent about our strengths and weaknesses, and willing to hold ourselves to higher and higher standards of execution.

Writing this post was one action I chose to boost my own Reliability today. What’s yours?

Bad for the Customer, Good for the Stock Price: Wait, What?

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Bill Bachrach has a business somewhat like mine, though with a specific vertical industry focus: he teaches people to become trusted professionals in the field of financial planning. I’ve read much of his material over the years and have the highest regard for what he has written (not to mention what he’s done—like the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon).

The other day, Bill found just the right words to express a paradox. Just how is it that an industry, by burning its own customers, can raise its stock price? We’ll come back to that: first, here’s Bill, from his newsletter The Trusted Financial Advisor:

The headline reads: "Wall Street wins big as Dodd drops fiduciary provision." And the first line of that article is "Chalk it up as a win for the securities and insurance industries." How do the securities and insurance industries win when the client loses? It’s a fascinating way to view the world, but not surprising.

Here’s my translation: "the lower the standards the easier it is for us to manage our advisors, salespeople, and agents." It’s the usual product-oriented, fear-based thinking from our industry at-large and it proves, once again, that you have a competitive advantage as an individual Trusted Advisor who chooses to put the client first.

Can you believe what you just read; you have a competitive advantage by putting the client first? Yes, you do. Doesn’t everyone put the client first? Apparently not. Amazingly enough, our industry considers it a win when they don’t have to adopt the highest standard of care for their clients. Wow.

Point One: There Are a Few Bad People Out There

Now, you can argue that the industry is right in its argument that the absence of a fiduciary standard is actually in the best interest of the client, but I’m with Bachrach on this one. If you disagree, I’ve got a bridge for you.

Some people think trust is naïve, that the world is a nasty place, that no one is trustworthy, and that trusting is a foolishly suicidal act.

Trust is not naïve—there is no trust without risk, for example—but it needs to be said that those people are not all wrong, not by a long shot. There are industries more rife than others with untrustworthy behavior, and the business of money, at least in recent years, is one of them.

But there’s a bigger issue that Bachrach’s indignation suggests:

Point Two: Watch Out for Profit-Justified Ethics

There are a number of researchers out there—I won’t name names, but you could research them easily—who invest quite a bit of time and energy in proving that "good" business is also good business; that you can do well by doing good. Profitability is shown to be correlated with values like transparency, social responsibility, candor, and customer focus.

I’ve studied a lot of that work, and think it is generally and fundamentally true. Doing good really does result in doing well. But—not in all cases, and not necessarily in the short run.

As Bachrach points out, you’ve got an entire industry that apparently believes they can make more money by gouging their customers than by being straight with them. Are they wrong? Put it this way: I wouldn’t even bet your money against Wall Street on this one. They are most decidedly not stupid.

Why’s this an issue? Because many of these socially-minded thinkers—whom I happen to think are basically right, and whom I support—are playing with fire when they use profitability as a justification for “good” behavior. The more you say, “the good-doing companies are actually more profitable than the evil companies,” the more you conflate the two. And the more you open it up for some companies to infer the converse and the inverse:

“It’s making the most money, so it must be the good thing,” and

“It’s not making money, so it must not be the good thing.”

And what you’ve then done is to re-define ethics in terms of profitability.

Now, there is no harm in pointing out that good deeds are usually more profitable. And none of these analysts intend to argue in favor of the perverse results. But intentions have a way of getting misinterpreted by those who have ulterior motives; those who are, oh let’s just say, bad.

It’s similar to what L.J. Rittenhouse said in a recent Trust Quotes interview, the "result of trying to replace moral standards with legal standards" is a lowering of integrity. So it is here, when we don’t guard against the turning of the ethical tables.

Just to be clear: if something is ethical, it’s usually profitable. But if it isn’t profitable, that doesn’t mean it isn’t ethical. And just because it is profitable doesn’t mean it is ethical.

There will be the more-than-occasional situation where the right thing to do is simply not the profitable thing to do. That’s when you find out who’s ethical, and who’s simply hustling their own customers.

The SEC Chose Wisely in Goldman Case

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The SEC earlier today announced a civil suit against Goldman Sachs.  This act was the talk of Wall Street—the DJIA dropped 125 points, Goldman’s stock lost 12.6%, and CNBC broadcast a special evening show called “Fraud on the Street.”

The suit charges Goldman with not disclosing information. I won’t bother with the detail, you can read that in the above links—the point is, the charge is non-disclosure.

Now, that’s an interesting charge. It amounts to some form of misrepresentation. In the non-legal world, that’s generally known as lying. In that same world, the teenager defense of “I didn’t actually tell a lie, I just let you think what you thought” is considered a distinction without a difference.

The point is, the SEC chose to charge Goldman with something that’s not only illegal, but resonates easily with Main Street as also being unethical. Since the gap between the illegal and the unethical is one of the main casualties of the recent financial debacle, this is a welcome sign—a charge that re-unites the legal and the ethical.

The Spin–Red Herring Issues

Goldman itself responded that the charges are “completely unfounded in law and fact.” Look for a splitting hairs defense a la “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

Goldman and others make several arguments that are pointedly red herrings. One is that they didn’t do this transaction to short the market (non-responsive). Another is that the buyers of the CDOs were big boys, and should know what they were getting into (ditto). Another (by Goldman) is that they themselves lost money on the deal (again…).

The pro-Wall Streeters are not alone. NBC News led with “if the government is right, people all across the country are still paying the price for schemes like this that we’re only learning about this now.” Their commentator presented the charge as betting against a carefully constructed product; not the SEC charge. Lisa Myers said, “essentially Goldman Sachs is accused of helping rig the game against investors.” And Robert Reich said the real crime is not what was done illegally, but what was done legally. Fair point, but not a commentary on the crime. CNBC’s Erin Burnett tried to get commentators to say it was suspicious timing, to buttress financial legislation in Congress or to deflect press attention from the SEC’s shortcomings in the Stanford case. Again—not on point.

What the SEC Did Right

I’m no lawyer, but I’m guessing the SEC could have pursued many other charges. It chose to pursue this one—the legal equivalent of what laymen call ‘lying.’ Lying is the most trust-corroding thing that can be done. It not only ruins credibility, it casts motives into doubt. Lying kills trust.

A charge of failure to disclose is exactly the kind of charge a responsible regulator should be pursuing. It reunites the legal and the ethical—a casualty of Wall Street’s actions—and aims at restoring trust.

Greed is not illegal, though it may be unethical; ditto for fleecing one’s customers. But misrepresentation—or the near-equivalent of selective disclosure—is both.

Good for the SEC for taking this route.
 

Empathy is the Antidote to Resentment

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If you’re groaning at the prospect of another ‘soft skills’ blogpost, hang on. The soft stuff is what enables ‘hard’ stuff like profits, speed and success. Here’s what I mean.

You Might Be Copping a Resentment If…

You may not think you’re a resentful person. And maybe, graded on a curve, you’re not.

But how often do you find yourself muttering at the driver who cut you off; re-arguing arguments in your head, where you win this time; waking up in the middle of the night pre-occupied with your checking account; and gossiping with someone about how so-and-so really isn’t all that?

All those are versions of wishing you could change reality—when you can’t. And that’s a pretty good definition of resentment.

It’s the difference between hoping and wishing. Hoping things will change is fine, particularly if you’re doing something to help the change. But wishing that things were other than they are—that is living in an alternative universe. And that’s resentment. It’s fine to hope you win the lottery—as long as you bought a ticket. But wishing you’d won last week’s lottery—that’s resentment territory.

By living in an alternative universe, you’re playing at being God. Unless, worse yet, you think it’s not play, and you actually believe that all your wishing makes a dime’s worth of difference to Reality. There is a God–and you’re not it.

Resentment generally, eventually, manifests as resentment against other people. But personal resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. All it does is eat you up from inside, while the Resented One is either blissfully unaware, or at least generally doesn’t give much of a damn. 

Why Resentment Kills Sales and Influence

This is not afternoon TV psycho-babble. It makes a daily difference in business—a huge difference. Let’s just take business development and advice-giving.

If you are prone to the Black Art of Resentment, then you are likely to believe in short cuts, quick fixes, fad diets, new interpersonal techniques, flashy methodologies, and come-on lines for dating bars. Because all those gimmicks appeal to your desire to live in a world other than this one: one in which you can dominate, control, bend the other’s will to your desire. And when they let you down—and they do, and they will—you will once again feel Old Friend Resentment (or its kissing cousin, self-pity).

People don’t buy from those who are trying to change them. People don’t pay attention to people who are trying to persuade them to their own viewpoint. People don’t take advice from those whose egos are tied up in having their advice taken. They interpret all those things as attempts to manipulate, and they shun the manipulator. This is not a good thing.

The Best Way to Sell and Influence

The best way to sell and influence is to get rid of resentment; get rid of living in alternative universes; accept everything, starting with the customer in front of you.

Acceptance in this case means taking them at face value, getting to know them on their terms, giving up all attachment to outcome (because that’s about you, not them), and applying your focus, energy and attention to them. Let’s call that empathy.

If you do that, and spend your time and energy seeking to understand them, you’ll do a far better job of understanding them and their needs than all the other resentment-fueled alternate-universe salespeople and advisors. One result of which is, you’ll end up selling more and having your advice taken more often.

Goals are Great, but An Expectation is a Pre-meditated Resentment

Goals are great. So are objectives and milestones and targets. They give you a sense of what you’re aiming for, and help you envision the to-be state. 

But don’t confuse goals with their purpose. The purpose of a goal is not to achieve the goal—the purpose of a goal is to help you achieve your True Purpose. You should never confuse a quarterly sales quota with a Purpose.

It’s when goals get transmuted into expectations that we confuse goals with purpose. When we start living in that alternative universe defined by the goals, when we start obsessing over the new car, winning the contest, getting the boss’s approval, ranking in the top 20% on the bonus plan—that’s when we begin to have expectations. And an expectation is a pre-meditated resentment. When we expect, we are setting ourselves up for resentment.

Plan, set goals, and strive. Then celebrate what you get; because to bemoan what you haven’t got is to live in resentment. A life spent wishing you were other than you are is a failed attempt at playing god, and a recipe for unhappiness—not to mention poor sales.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Trust Primer Volume 6

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Every 2 out of 3 months we publish an issue of the Trust Primer, an ebook series highlighting three recent provocative and insightful topics and conversations from the TrustMatters blog. 

Catch up on posts you missed.  See what we think is worth highlighting, and agree or disagree with us.  Pass it along to friends you think might enjoy it.  It is free, after all, and it looks pretty cool, if I do say so myself.

In this issue we touch on three different aspects of relationships: the relationship of a company to society, the relationship of a company to its several stakeholders, and the relationships between ourselves as individuals.  The individual posts are:

But you can get them all at once in .pdf ebook format by clicking below:

Get the Trust Primer volume 6 here

We hope you enjoy it.

April Carnival of Trust is Up

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The Carnival of Trust this month is hosted by Skip Anderson, who hosts the Selling to Consumers blog.  Those of you familiar with the Carnival can click right here to go straight to it. 

If the term "carnival" in this context is new to you, it’s a monthly compilation of the ‘best of the web’ regarding trust blogs, as adjudged by a floating host, unaffected by yours truly.  This month’s selection of 11 articles, being made by Skip, partly reflect his interests and partly reflect a more eclectic taste as well.  They cover the gamut of sales and trust, from strategy to technique, from social meaning to inner meaning.

He’s selected an interesting smorgasbord of material, including the relationship of trust and ROI; trust, profit and ethics; stale popcorn and how it affects buying behavior; a comparative ranking between ‘interesting’ and ‘truthful’; and a rollicking good dialogue about a controversial YouTube post put up by adfolk OgilvyOne, hosted by @davidabrock.  Among others, that is.  Eleven in all.

See what a great Carnival is all about: read someone else’s take on trust for a day.  Go visit April’s Carnival of Trust, hosted by Skip Anderson–many thanks Skip!

At the Corner of Assertiveness & Cooperation: Collaboration

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© Copyright 2003-2010, Pfaff & Associates. All Rights Reserved.What do we meet at the corner of Assertiveness and Cooperation? The Thomas-Kilmann assessment suggests that it’s Collaboration.

Their assessment,  which is the basis for many others, explores different styles people use when handling conflict. For some of you this work may be familiar, but I only learned of it a few days ago from my sister, a professional mediator. Here is a free version which gives you a quick view of the five areas measured by the Thomas-Kilmann assessment.

It identifies five styles of handling conflict between two people: the Avoider, the Accommodater, the Compromiser, the Competitor and the Collaborator.

These types are arrayed in a graph with Assertiveness (defined as concern for the task, or as "thinks of self") on one axis, and Cooperation (defined as concern for people, or "thinks of others") on the other. In the lowest left hand corner is the Avoider, someone who’d rather not deal with conflict at all, and in the upper right hand corner, the corner where the highest level of Cooperation meets the highest level of Assertiveness, is the Collaborator. (Smack dab in the middle, as you’d expect, is the Compromiser, but we’ll save that for another day.)

What fascinated me about this model is the light it sheds on Collaboration: where its power comes from, and what distinguishes it from Compromise. Certainly, there are situations in which compromise is adequate and even worthwhile. I’d like to go out for dinner, you’d like to stay home. Taken a step further, I’d like not to cook tonight, and you’d like not to get dressed up or spend a lot of money. A compromise on a nearby casual restaurant fits the bill perfectly, and you and I probably don’t need to spend a minute more on a "conflict" like this. But a compromise is always a meeting in the middle, so each gets a little of what they want, and compromise often gets to a gray solution, not really satisfying to anyone but sort of appeasing everyone. In art, it’s mixing a lot of colors to get mud.

Collaboration gets its power because it uses the energy of Assertiveness–ideas and real points of view, championed by people who care–and the energy of Cooperation–a willingness to make things work for all involved. From collaboration comes the best result, the idea or solution which is fashioned from everyone’s input and is better than what any one person could have come up with on her or his own.

And a key point in all of this, a key ingredient in collaboration, is that it starts with conflict, but it doesn’t end there. It takes the energy of the conflict–opposing or differing views, needs and goals–and the attitude of collaboration–the willingness to reach the best solution for all concerned–to get somewhere we’ve never been before, and somewhere we couldn’t go alone.

I’ll close with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"A leader isn’t a seeker of consensus, but a molder of consensus."

PS: If you love this kind of self-knowledge quiz, try our Trust Temperament assessment. Far cheaper and more revealing than a therapy session.