Luna Jimenez Seminars

This month we are blogging about the 12th book in the Gallup’s series “The Elements of Great Managing” entitled Power of 2: How to Make the Most of Your Partnerships at Work and in Life. Over five years and using thousands of surveys the authors Rodd Wagner and Gale Muller, Ph.D. have identified 8 elements of a powerful partnership:  Complementary Strengths, A Common Mission, Fairness, Trust, Acceptance, Forgiveness, Communicating and Unselfishness.

“Humans are made for collaborating,” the authors write, “Yet over time, humans created so many conveniences that we can now survive without each other.” I would offer that this is not the case in most parts of the world and certainly not in working class and poor communities in the economic North where survival is still very much linked to relationships and collaborations with other humans in strong clan, tribal, family or community networks. Nonetheless, for those of us with access to economic resources, their point is well-taken: we have “advanced” ourselves into isolation.

The first element of a strong collaboration, and the focus of this first book blog, is complementary strengths.  The authors debunk the myth of the “polymath”–a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas, otherwise known as the “Renaissance Man.”  This is a pervasive notion and supports the strong US emphasis on individualism, individual accomplishment and the Hero story.  Wagner and Muller write, “Few ideas so widely accepted are so demonstrably wrong [as the 'polymath.']“  Yet shoring up this myth reinforces values and beliefs that are not only deeply held and defended but also structurally supported and institutionally enforced by dominant culture in the US.

According to the Power of 2, in order to develop strong partnerships in life or at work, we would need to accept that while excellent in some areas we are also limited in others–the way any person’s skills and expertise are partial to the experiences, training and education they have received.  As they write, “So admit it: You stink at some things. You have blind spots, weaknesses….  Your strengths are stronger and your weaknesses weaker than you realize. You need help. You are also precisely the help someone else needs.” And this is why they make the case for true collaborators to actively seek a partner who is different from us.  In other words, we all need diversity to perform at our best.

I recently asked a client who has a very homogeneous workforce of largely white men if he thought it was a problem that his department lacked diversity. He thought about if for a while and then said, “No.”  He argued that they were still able to do excellent work, despite the lack of employees with different strengths or ways of thinking. Therefore, he concluded, no problem.  Wagner and Muller would disagree on the level of individual collaboration, contribution and excellence. “It’s a fallacy that…[you] alone will be anywhere as powerful as the two combined.” And I would also disagree, and even extend their argument to support the importance of having a diverse workplace.  It is also a fallacy, in my view, for any one group to imagine themselves to be as powerful, excellent, brilliant, or cutting-edge as two (or more) different groups collaborating and working together.

Wagner and Muller caution that seeking and acknowledging complimentary strengths means seeing your partner’s contribution of equal value to your own. In other words: ego and dominance must be checked at the door.  This is an important, yet difficult, diversity lesson when the groups we belong to (men, white, able-bodied, heterosexual, Christian, etc.) are in the position of dominance because of institutional validation for our way of thinking and acting.  It’s easy to get caught up into believing our complimentary strength really is the “better” strength in the partnership–and they wouldn’t make it without us.  According to Wagner and Muller, they wouldn’t. But neither would we.  It’s the interdependency of the complimentary strengths that allows each contributor in the partnership to shine. Therefore, to encourage true equity and peerness of both sets of strengths in any partnership, in other words to see them equally important, individuals and organizations will have to both closely examine and interrupt policies and attitudes that would seek to promote one strength over another. Failing to acknowledge that the partnership’s success is based in the diversity of the partnership itself will continue to invalidate and undermine true collaboration.

What are the strengths you bring to a collaborative partnership? What are your weaknesses?  Who would you need to seek out as a partner to compliment your strengths? What stops you?  How will you check your ego and dominance so that it doesn’t interfere with the partnership? Or conversely, how will you interrupt attempting to “adapt” yourself to mimic the dominant strengths you see around you at work and instead assert the value of what your bring as complimentary and essential to any successful collaboration?  How will you interrupt organizational dominance to ensure complimentary strengths are recognized, rewarded, and sought after?

By the end of June you can pick up a copy of this book or audio book through our website resources page (15% of all purchases are donated to a non-profit) or follow along using the audio podcasts adapted for the book.  Click here for the link to this chapter or here for a list of all the adapted podcast chapters.  Read (or listen) along with us and share you comments on this book blog!

This month, I’m delving into “self-awareness”–the second guiding principle of diversity. The basic essence of self-awareness is both understanding who you are as well as a willingness to engage in an on-going practice to examine the thoughts, behaviors, and identities that make up who you are.

Self-awareness is not a destination, it’s a process.

Not everything about who we are and how we show up in the world is obvious to us.  Without an intentional practice of self-reflection, we can be oblivious to how we impact those around us. Our best intentions don’t always create the best impacts. People in our lives give us information about how our actions affect them. Sometimes this information is delivered via thoughtful and insightful feedforward. [Author's note: I use the concept of "feedforward" to mean a practice of offering information or observations in a meaningful and compassionate way that moves a person forward on their path (rather than "feedback" which can sometimes set us back, especially if it is masked as "constructive criticism"--an oxymoron, in my opinion).] Sometimes we get this information through other people’s reactions (which we may need to interpret or seek to understand our role in co-creating) to our behaviors and attitudes. Cultural competence requires developing a practice of self-exploration. We cultivate a curiosity about who we are, what we bring to situations, and how our behaviors co-create the outcomes we experience.

Here’s a personal example from my own life: I pride myself on being highly efficient.  It’s a set of skills I learned early in life and I received a high level of external affirmation for this way of being in the world. Efficiency skills helped me in myriad ways, including being organized and “getting a lot done.” Despite being aware of how much I value and strive to be efficient, I was less aware of how this attitude and my behaviors impacted those around me. I assumed that others would find my efficiency useful and a benefit in most every situation.  Sometimes this was true, but not always.

Once I noticed that my efficiency wasn’t always needed, I started to tune into the reactions of others and my own internal clues after interactions with others. The first thing I noted was how others often felt intimidated and subsequently hesitant to sign on for a task because they feared not living up to my efficiency standards. They were concerned, rightly so, that I would become frustrated and impatient. This led to a second realization–that my drive to be efficient diminished opportunities for me to be present with myself, others, and the moment.

My self-awareness journey started with acknowledging my efficiency skills, but it didn’t stop there. Rather than remain defended and hold tight to the idea that my way was the “right” one, I chose to examine, question, and eventually shift my internal drive to be efficient. I feared that by being less “efficient,” I would lose the approval and perceived value I mistakenly thought efficiency earned me. By releasing this fear, I noticed an unexpected outcome:  by being less efficient, people began to value and include me for being me-instead of what I could do for them.

This process moved me from focusing on others and their perceived “inefficiency” to examining my behaviors, attitudes, and biases. By turning my attention towards self, my increased internal awareness moved me to a place where I could compassionately, and even dispassionately at times, think about others and where they might struggle or be limited by being less than optimally organized. This process of self investigation lays the important foundation for being an effective ally. However if we start by wanting to be an ally before we’ve really developed a practice of self-awareness we are doomed to act from wanting to “fix” or “save” others (read: make them be like us)–a perspective of paternalism, condescension and dominance.

The same trap exists on an organizational level.  When an organization focuses its effort outside of itself (for example: How can we better serve our “diverse” customers–without first seeking to care and serve co-workers better? How can we increase our recruitment of women–without first exploring the roles and attitudes men carry in the organization? What approach would appeal to low-income communities–without first exploring the embedded class assumptions in the current approach? How can we use some new tool to work with children–without first asking and understanding how we can use this tool with our peer group of teachers?) there is the danger that organizational patterns and policies will go unexamined and unchallenged.  The focus is on “them” rather than “us”–without an acknowledgement that “us” is the only part of the equation we have any real influence over.

An all-too-common example plays out in the “Diversity Flavor of the Month” scenario.  This is when a new diversity program is rolled out every few months, leading to a buildup of employee cynicism. Furthermore, the group that is supposed to benefit from the program sees the program as a “check the box”-type effort rather than one which requires organizational cultural changes.  The diversity program comes across more as an attempt to win recognition rather than a system-wide commitment to inclusion. Efforts such as these lack the organizational self-awareness and reflective practice that leads to lasting, effective change.

What are some of your personal patterns or behaviors that co-create outcomes that reinforce dominance, paternalism and condescension?  Why are these behaviors so defended within you? What would it take for you to let them go? How would your view of yourself change if you did? I remember listening to a client express genuine confusion about why they seemed unable to attract or retain a diverse range of clients and employees. I gently suggested that the barrier to inclusion wasn’t about the other group at all–but rather within them. This was a perspective they clearly had not considered before. Have you?

In May LJS will present a 3-day customized leadership program for Latina managers at Nike. LJS is excited to collaborate with Nike, one of the premier sports merchandise manufacturers in the world, in its commitment to Latina leaders.

Add this event to my Outlook calendar (icalendar file)