Making co-operation productive

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Comment by Nicholas Hastings on April 17, 2012 at 10:56

If Bernard Williams is right, and we all suffer periodically from a 'fetish of assertion', where we hold on closely to our own point of view without really hearing other people's, how might we dismantle that? Is it a question of throwing ego out the window? Or having a collective ego? Or something completely different?

Comment by Dr marion witton on April 11, 2012 at 19:58

RSA London City Network next meeting

I am organising the next three London City Network meetings at the Coach Makers Arms, Marylebone Lane W1U 2PY and hope you will come and support the group. The first is on the Monday 14th May at 6.30pm on the subject of Philanthropy and the RSA. Susan Bennett will be speaking on the history of the RSA followed by a discussion on how today's Fellows match up to the work carried out by our predecessors. The second meeting on 11th June is 'Business and Social Philanthropy'; and the third on 9th July is 'The Value of Experience: Older people and Social Philanthropy'.

Unfortunately the Coach Makers is now charging for the hire of the room so Fellows will be asked to contribute £10.00 at the door, £5.00 concs. Sorry about that but it will be worth it.

Comment by Nicholas Hastings on April 2, 2012 at 6:45

If we are to encourage responsibility, we must also give people a stake in society which resonates not superficially, but profoundly for them. What people will ask us is how?

Comment by Nicholas Hastings on March 29, 2012 at 16:53

Hello all,

Hilary and I met at an RSA coaches lunch recently. We discussed the possibility of organising a get together at the RSA for those interested in developing our insights on co-operation into something tangible. If you're interested, please drop me an email at nick@tilm.co.uk and I'll let you know potential dates. I'll also look into streaming it online for anyone who's not in the UK!

Cheers & hope all are well

Nick

Comment by Nicholas Hastings on March 26, 2012 at 22:08

Anyone going to Coaches Lunch on Weds? Looking forward to meeting you if you are!

Nick

Comment by Nicholas Hastings on March 20, 2012 at 8:51

Nicholas Hastings nickhastings.com: Togetherness: A sweet spot between autonomous responsibility & collective support: David Cameron says of big s... http://wp.me/p1gzJ8-5H

Comment by Nicholas Hastings on March 14, 2012 at 13:50

Hello all,

Check out Richard Sennett's thinking on co-operation here...really fascinating stuff. Hilary the point about togethering is spot on. If we link that to Richard's work, there is something about the importance of thinking together for the longer-term, instead of reacting to our own individual targets, opinions and aspirations. I think 'togethering' (like this term by the way!) is a particularly useful way of reducing fear and encouraging others to take on challenges they wouldn't normally. Out of interest, does anyone have any thoughts on how we might best take our thinking forward, and take action (together) on it?

Hope all our well, Nick

 http://www.thersa.org/events/video/vision-videos/richard-sennett/

Comment by Hilary on March 5, 2012 at 14:01

This also reminds me of Pat Kane's Play Ethic call for a new way for people to get their complex thrills other than by consuming (also echoing Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's findings re our need for complex challenges).

I liked the idea from Pagel that the key thing is to get people in your boat and then they will be pre-disposed to co-operate. Its this togethering that is key. Is there also something here about how we use certainty of outcome and fear of conflict/the unknown to encourage co-operation? 

Comment by Nicholas Hastings on March 4, 2012 at 16:53

John this is fascinating. And Hilary I complete agree with you on a shift from an adversarial to a partnering model. I wonder if there's a connection between your two points. Last week I attended Mark Pagel's lecture 'Wired for culture: The natural history of human co-operation'. Mark talked a lot about the tensions between co-operation and competition, but argued that the co-operative driver is stronger overall. This brought some optimism into the room. I do believe that a common goal and, to John's point, a common language goes a long way towards bringing out the co-operative nature in all of us. Michael Sandel, in the Reith lectures, also argues very eloquently that this requires a shift from thinking of ourselves as consumers to thinking of ourselves as citizens. Adrian - I think there are overlaps here with Co-op capitalism, where thinking as a collective is valued above individualist motivations. Charity fundraising for example, has increased significantly in recent years. It is almost as if we innately want to be citizens, but need the provision of avenues to be so. Perhaps Hilary, the adversarial mindset occurs when citizenship goes down and our baser instincts of competition force us to look out for ourselves rather than our communities. Does this mean we need to find ways of creating greater meaning in citizenship to act as a hook for people's motivation to hang onto? 

Comment by John Oakley on March 2, 2012 at 16:03

In reply to Don's comments on LinkedIn, copied here for new readers: 

Don P:

Back in the 1980's I'd just completed the turnaround of a Japanese company. One day my Japanese Chair called me in - and with a broad grin, told me that he had just received a call from one of our biggest competitors, who had asked him if, now that our company was safe, could they have me, because they were in a spot of bother and thought I could achieve the same result for them. He'd told them that there was more to do on the international front, so, sorry, but my work was not complete. However, this did happen with other members of my team who moved across. Culturally, it was Japan Inc first, then individual companies second. And I was considered to be the equivalent of an industrial professional footballer, although I never found out if a transfer fee would have been paid. I did, however, get the feeling that I wouldn't have had much say in the matter if I'd been Japanese. It does strike me that the culture in which we work has quite an influence on this question. In this case, it was certainly a national culture, but as has already been said, in the West, perhaps business culture has more impact. I don't think there is an equivalent UK Inc. John Oakley has vast experience in the USA as well as the UK, and may be able to cast light on the American culture - should there be any such common thing? In some other industries, I did come to realise that co-opetition has much to recommend it, provided it is the right time and situation. I can't recall the risk of litigation affecting this, apart from once, in the search for survival (we all needed to make a profit) being involved in setting up something approaching a temporary cartel, and understanding the risks all the parties were taking. However, that was hardly a likely cause of a litigation case. Noting Paul's types, this would add another - immoral! That was back in the late 1960's, and of course, I would not countenance any such activity now. Seriously, considering the implications of different national cultures on the subject may well cast light and not a little learning. Having a common enemy does encourage co-operation amongst erstwhile competitors.

I have indeed spent many years working in both the US and UK and there are indeed some cultural differences - not least those brought about by "two nations divided by a single language."

That language difference does point out what I think is a fundamental problem when trying to encourage co-operation, the problem of establishing if the co-operating parties are using the same words to mean the same thing. I could have said "using a shared lexicon" ... but then would all readers have the same understanding of what I meant.

When trying to establish a cooperative environment building trust is the most important first step and a shared "language" is the first step. 

Then you can address cultural differences in context. We Brits tend to see Americans as far more competitive in business and react accordingly i.e. withdraw or shout louder, but I have found that understanding the meaning of the words in the context of the speaker and then hearing them as in the context of the listener really aids cooperation between people in these two nations. But its also true within ANY group with a so-called common language and that includes working together in the same geography but with perhaps different disciplines. 

I've recently been managing an international group of scientists, Americans, Europeans and Asians mainly. In that situation I saw the same cooperation issues occurring in multiple dimensions: country of origin, country of education, country of residence, level of education and discipline. By far the biggest issue was between disciplines. Physicists, chemists, biologists and engineers all have their own subtle understanding of many words. 

My challenge was to get this loose formation of distrusting specialists to work together for "common good". Of course that "common good" phrase had to be explored too! But it was worth it because working as a cooperative team they were able to achieve something immense in the world of biotech - which I won't bore the couple of you still reading this with the details.

All that having been said then the US is certainly more litigious and I believe there is more "immorality" in management - but that again depends upon your understanding of immorality. I once worked with a group of people that had a common religion. During our relationship I found out that some of the things they were telling me were not true. But when confronted by this their reply was as I was a non-believer then in their eyes that was a legitimate way for them to do business with me.

Its back to the shared lexicon.  

Bottom line: if you have a common understanding then cooperation becomes possible or even probable. If not then any cooperation is accidental.

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