174: You Can't Do It All by Yourself

<p>The hero’s journey is for the very, very few.  I did it my way, I slaved away in a garret and got to the top, I realised the American dream – all good stuff, but an illusion for most.  The reality is there are more of us who need the cooperation of others, than those who can succeed despite others.  The age of the “one” has been taken over by the age of the “many”.  Hero teams are more powerful than individual heroes.</p> <p> </p> <p>The problem is although we may need the cooperation of others, we are not that good at getting it.  We limit our scope through two key areas – how we communicate and how we react.  We like what we like and we find affinity with those who like similar things.  We like to speak in a certain way and we click with others who speak the same way.  It might be a shared accent, denoting a similar background, and we are all pretty good at spotting the subtleties of dialect.  That is okay, but it still doesn’t help us to go far enough.  You might share a common accent, but that doesn't mean you get on with everyone from back home</p> <p> </p> <p>Reflecting the preferences of others is a much more effective way of building trust and cooperation.  Does this mean being two faced and manipulative?  No, it means being flexible and other focused rather than me, me, me focused. </p> <p> </p> <p>When we are speaking with others we notice the way they prefer to communicate.  It will vary from very low energy to high output - softly spoken to plain loud.  Neither side likes the other much.  The loud person can’t hear the softly spoken person and feels annoyed, because they have to struggle to hear what they are saying.  The softly spoken person is quietly upset, because they don’t like people who are loud and aggressive.</p> <p> </p> <p>The key here is to adjust ourselves to suit the situation and the other person, if we want to gain their cooperation.  If you say, “well I am me, I have my rights and they should adjust themselves to how I like it”, then let me know how that is working out for you?</p