We are becoming a society that increasingly needs to rely on
each other. We are past the time when we are able to be completely independent…meaning
independent of one another. Our brute force will is no longer the answer to
success and movement forward. We are now forced to co-create, collaborate and
work together for any success. We are in the world of interdependence. This is
true not only locally, but nationally and internationally. Even in our own
communities we see that interdependence is the answer and key to forward
progress. This frustrates many. It even frustrated me at first. But the key is
to allow it. This is the only way to
adjust our sails and pick up the winds of forward progress.
How do you adjust to this interdependence? It isn’t easy at
first. We fight it. We resent it. We reject it. This causes more frustration
and anger among those of the older world order. It won’t get better. It can’t.
We are too integrated at this point; there is no going back. This is a good
thing though. We don’t realize it at first, because it is hard to accept that
our success and future isn’t solely dependent upon ourselves. At least that is
what we think at first when we think of interdependence. We prefer to think we
have our own futures in our own hands from beginning to end and that brute
force will and bull dozing forward will be the key to our success. In fact, I
was a strong believer in that. Few on this planet have a stronger and more
forceful will than mine (and I don’t necessarily mean that as a compliment).
But, it is in fact a complement ….to how we can co-create and collaborate for
our mutual successes in this life. Strong wills can now be re-directed to
creative forces to
finding solutions with others instead of bulldozing through
or over others. Never giving up and constantly re-directing and changing the
sails for those winds of success should now be the focus of those
strong-willed.
Here’s the good news….co-creating and collaborating means we
have help in our success…it means we don’t have to shoulder the burdens all on
our own. That is good news. I don’t know about you, but my shoulders were
getting pretty sore from all that burden I was carrying around. It means though that we have to consider
others in our paths. But, again, the good news is that we can use others to
help us succeed. Not as stepping stones that we step over, but as team
members. Most of us have played some
form of organized Every “we” includes every “I” or “me”. Maybe
not in letters, but in concepts. Has anyone ever felt they “lost” when their
team won? I don’t think so. Maybe you didn’t receive the MVP or game ball for
your play, but you certainly didn’t lose and you went a lot farther in that
team win than you could have alone. You need your team members to back you up,
pass you the ball, support you as you move forward.
sport in our life, and it’s the same concept. We’ve all heard
“there is no ‘I’ in team.” Well, that’s true, but there’s more to it.
The key to all of this is to recognize everyone for their individual
contributions to the whole. While you may not want to be a plumber, an
urologist, a lawyer or other role in your community, where would we be without
each and every role we have? We’d have a lot more problems and be pretty stuck
in some areas. So, the idea of having a team to help you succeed is that you
don’t have to perform every function. We already see this internal to
businesses in the different employee functions we have in each company. What we
don’t always see is how it applies also between businesses in any process.
Nearly every business buys or sells something or takes a piece of what is
needed in any given life cycle.
As a business, you don’t have to create a complete
infrastructure to perform every part of the chain. We collaborate and co-create
our success by bringing in others who have developed an expertise for a portion
of the process (e.g., using others for their business models). The days of the mega company may very well be
over. You may still have companies who gobble up others through acquisition to
create a mega company, but you don’t have many companies investing in their own
massive internal infrastructure development anymore. Instead, they partner and
acquire entire divisions and pieces of the whole.
It is interesting when you think of what “organic” really
means. Nothing grows without reliance outside itself. In the most basic sense of organic, plants
rely on everything around them to grow and thrive.
Soil, water, sun and nearby
plants and animals all are integral to a plant’s survival and “thrival” (yes, I
just made up a new word…“thrive” needs a noun just like “survive”’s “survival”).
This reliance outside itself must be true in business as well. Maybe we’ve had
the definition of organic growth all wrong….
Maybe co-creating and collaborating is the new organic growth….