Shared Values Pave The Way For Unique Collaboration

Can collaboration between two people who have never met and live a thousand miles apart be successful? Some people told us, no, but we didn’t believe them.

We were introduced through a mutual contact on LinkedIn and began having monthly phone calls to exchange ideas and offer entrepreneurial support to one another.  As we chatted, we realized that in addition to our work philosophies, we had other commonalities: our collection of eyeglasses, love of dogs, addiction to fiction, Scorpio tendencies, the same concentration in college (French), and MBAs.  Even though Susan is a New York City girl and Rebecca is a California girl transplanted to the St. Louis countryside, our different geographic perspectives just added to the mix of our discussions. In addition, we were able to finish each other’s sentences almost from the beginning.

We were aligned in our approach to be detailed oriented in servicing our clients, as individuals.  We wanted our clients to enjoy their work life and get fulfillment out of their employment and we were invested in them achieving their full potential.

Our varied conversations eventually led us to discover that we share a dislike for the typical business book (And by the way, this is almost blasphemous in our lines of work).  We agreed that they tend to be full of ‘business-speak’ rendering them terribly boring, and all too often they are replete with erudite pontification, making them a great cure for insomnia. Our greatest complaint, however, was that business books are rarely amusing. We are quite fond of amusing.

This common outlook on typical business books drew us into a discussion on how we’d love to write a book that teaches about self-discovery, engagement, communication, and leadership from a fictional basis. We wanted authenticity: we wanted to strip away the jargon, the Fortune 500 anecdotes, and the pop star business leader quotes so that EVERY person can recognize themselves in the story and apply the lessons to their unique set of circumstances. And so it began.

When we started toying with the idea of writing a fictionalized business story, we soon discovered we had something else in common: a love of “Alice in Wonderland”. When we starting talking about “Alice”, we discovered that both of us had found many examples of typical personalities one can run into in everyday life disguised as characters in the children’s book. In fact, they exhibit some of the same difficult behaviors that many of our clients encounter. This was how “Leadership in Wonderland” all started.

We laid out a general storyline.  Then, we discussed the cast of characters and who they would most resemble in a typical work setting. We would toss out basic highlights of each chapter, then one or the other of us was responsible for weaving the threads together. We took turns depending on our schedules and our overwhelming desire to author that particular chapter; we never had a conflict over choosing.  After a chapter was written, we would email it to the other for initial reactions and editing.  After the entire book was penned, we went through the process of re-editing.

Here’s the unanticipated thing:  sometimes we couldn’t remember who had written which chapter.  Really!  The process was so seamless, our writing styles were so alike, our vocabulary so similar that we would argue playfully over who had written what and would have to refer to our initial emails to gather the evidence to uncover which one of us had actually created that piece.  It continually makes us laugh.  Even when we’re editing we’ll come up with the same wording.   I don’t know that we can read each other’s thoughts, but, still…. You can’t make this stuff up!

After many months of working together, we can now look back and see how truly life-altering this experience has been for us. Not only did we enjoy the creative process, but it has sparked many other changes in our lives as well.

Since our journey began, we have encountered countless others who have told us that they tried to collaborate on various projects, but found it to be an unsatisfactory endeavor. So, what is the difference between our partnership and those that others have experienced? More importantly, how can our experience benefit you?

It would be lovely to think that the creative process just clicked with us because we are both amazing people (and humble too! Mais bien sur!!). However, the recipe for success has a few more ingredients than that. If you are a consultant or have ever worked with one, you know that we tend to put things under a microscope in order to better understand them. That is, after all, how we are able to assist our clients. Since both of us consult on the people side of organizations, we study what makes people tick. Consequently, it shouldn’t be surprising that we wanted to understand why our collaboration was successful. We became our own lab rats so that we could learn from our experience and help others benefit from it.  After much pondering on this matter, we came to a conclusion…We simply followed our own advice – a tried and true formula for successful interactions:

First, both of us were committed to communicating with the other. We were very mindful of how we treated one another at all times and were fully appreciative of the other’s contributions. While we didn’t always agree (otherwise what would have been the point of collaborating?), we did respect one another’s points of view.  Throughout our communication process, our sense of humor came in handy allowing us not to take ourselves too seriously.  Laughing during the process was a great way of releasing writer’s tension and stimulating our creativity. With this in mind, we were able to eliminate the stumbling blocks that many people encounter when trying to work with others, especially in a creative endeavor.

Our open, honest and respectful communication created a level of trust that permitted us to be effective collaborators. That trust meant that both of us were flexible with our writing and editing; our egos were healthy enough so that we were never too wedded to our exact initial wording and took suggestions easily from the other.  As we have talked with others for whom collaboration was less than successful, we learned that many of the issues arose because there was a lack of trust. This can take the form of inflexibility or defensiveness of one’s own ideas/work and a myriad of other symptoms that can spell disaster for a team no matter the size or project.

We were also aligned to a common vision. We, like every team, struggled with this from time to time. Sometimes, we had different visions, other times, one or both of us didn’t have a clear outcome in mind. You can see how this could spell disaster. Luckily, we were able to overcome this potential barrier. Ultimately, we were both more concerned about “Alice” than we were about having our own agenda fulfilled.

Productivity improved as we worked together learning about one another’s creativity and style. As our process evolved, matching our writing ‘voice’ and editing became second nature. The more we learned and honed our process, the smoother it became…and more enjoyable as well.

Through the experience, we have learned more than either of us could possibly have imagined. Indeed, we continue to learn from every encounter with “Alice” and company. Who knew that our characters and the collaborative process would be such fine teachers? We hope our collaboration will inspire you toward more successful partnerships.

In the coming months, we are going to be introducing Alice and some of her leadership issues, which we are sure will resonate with you from some point in your career. We invite you to share your feedback and stories as we follow Alice on her adventure. We look forward to hearing from you.