The Element of 1 plus 1 Equals More Than 2 And Its Hope for Achieving More Than We Can Do Alone

 

I Am Because We Are

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I will be grateful to you all of my life.”

“I am very thankful for all you have done for me.”

“I am thankful you came into my life.”

 “What a great team we made!”

There are many times in our lives when we will say that to somebody.

If we have never said that to anybody, then we have the wrong idea.  We think we have done it all ourselves.

If I am a Commissions Consultant with 12 assignments under my belt, it is because of all the people who gave me a break….

Don - who gave me a break by recruiting me to his Xactly implementations team.

Maneesh – who sent me for Varicent training, commissioned me to work on White Papers, and placed me at great companies such as White Hat Security, Varian Medical and Paypal.

And all the people who took a chance on me, or collaborated with me - going back to Laura H - who gave me my first Commissions Analyst job at Palm.

At the time, I didn’t know Excel. But 1 plus 1 equals more than 2. All it took for me to be able to fledge my wings, was for Laura to work with me and teach me the ropes.

1 plus 1 equals more than 2.

Biz Stone (one of the founders of Twitter) will testify to that.  Many of his great ideas have come out of having Evan Williams listen to them, second them, vet them, and if they had merit, run with them.

Every Biz Stone needs an Evan Williams.

Just as every Hellen Keller needs an Anne Sullivan.

Just as every Johnny Cash needs a June Carter.

Just as every Warren Buffett needs a Charlie Munger.

Just as every Bill Gates needs a Paul Allen.

Just as every Beaver needs a Wally.

I was Wally to my sister Rosie.

Or maybe it was the other way round.

Either way, we needed each other.

Together, we were a force to reckon with.

If you were an autorickshaw driver trying to get the better of us, God help you.

If you got into an argument with us, God help you.

Rosie and I thought up some interesting adventures together.

We would come up with wild ideas to get ourselves out of situations.

And even when we were trying to stay out of trouble, we would get ourselves into situations.

Such as when we set out in our nightdresses because we thought our younger brother David was in great peril.

When we reached dating age, we dated guys who were friends with each other, and Rosie and I had each other’s back, even though it led to some interesting complications which went like this:

Guy 1 to Girl 1 (who is his girlfriend):  “Guy 2 told me this, but please keep it to yourself and don’t tell Girl 2.”

Sooner or later, Girl 1 tells Girl 2, “Guy 2 said this to Guy 1, but Guy 1 made me promise not to tell you, so can you please not say anything to Guy 2 about it.”

Sooner or later, of course, Girl 2 would say to Guy 2: “Did you say this to Guy 1?”

At which Guy 2 would say:  “What! Who told you that?”

Girl 2 would say:  “Guy 1 told Girl 1 who told me.”

Sooner or later, Guy 2 would confront Guy 1….

“What did you go and tell Girl 1 that for?”

So then Guy 1 would confront Girl 1: “What did you go and tell Girl 2 that for? You promised you wouldn’t tell.”

So then of course Girl 1 would go to Girl 2 and say, “Why did you ask Guy 2 about that?  You promised me you wouldn’t!”

Round and round it would go.

Now when I think back on this, it was hilarious.

But there’s a lot to be said for the 1 plus 1 equals more than 2 sibling dynamic – whether you are partners in fun, or partners in business.

Orville and Wilbur Wright are testimony to that.

Walt and Roy Disney are testimony to that.

Charles and Maurice Saatchi are testimony to that.

In 2013, I was placed on a Varicent assignment, and I came across the names of two more siblings to add to the list -Russell and Sigard Varian, founders of the 65 year old Varian Corporation.

1 plus 1 equals more than 2.

Anne Sullivan came into Helen Keller’s life, and Helen Keller was able to achieve what she would never have been able to do on her own.

1 plus 1 equals more than 2.

When I started my career as a copywriter, I was a loner, and a narcissist, and an individualist.

But by the time I joined Contract Advertising, I had changed.

I was ready to collaborate.

At Contract Advertising, I discovered two great collaborators.

One was an Art Director Ravi Deshpande, the other was a copywriter Radhika Sunderraj.

Whenever I worked on a campaign with them, magic happened.

It was exhilarating in a way I had never experienced before.

Regretfully, I moved to a new city, and my creative collaboration with Ravi Deshpande ended.

Radhika and me got a chance to collaborate again briefly when I started Purple Patch.

But that ended too when I moved to America.

I wonder whether my life would have been different, had I started collaborating outside of my family, when I was younger.

My younger self was not conducive to that.

I was a loner, who even though I was enrolled in college, did not attend.

When I wrote, I wrote alone.

When I exercised, I exercised alone.

I composed songs for a brief while, but even this was a solo activity for me, involving just me, a guitar and a tape recorder.

Why I Can Never Get a Job at Google tells you something about that chapter of my life.

Thinking back, I wish I had partnered and collaborated more.

“What are you talking about, Minoo?  Every campaign you were involved in was a collaboration between you, and at the very least, one Art Director, no?”

Yes, yes, I know….but what I am talking about is a one-on-one connection for life.

Like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, like Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, like Bill Gates and Paul Allen…

….that’s what I am talking about.

Still I am grateful for every person in my life who, through a meaningful one-on-one exchange with me (however brief or short-lived that was), made me the person who I am today.

All the friends mentioned in my series The United States of Friendship.

All my friends back in India.

All my family members and relatives, whose words of advice or encouragement, have sustained me.

You can read my posts Family Advice I am Grateful For and Are You a Mosquito in Someone’s Room? to get an idea.

I am also grateful for all the brief but fulfilling collaborations I have had in both my careers.

The advertising ones are too many to count, or remember; besides the ones with Ravi and Radhika, there were collaborations with Sangeetha, and Deepika, and Deepa, and Shankar Sen, and more.

I read somewhere that competition is scarcity thinking, collaboration is abundance thinking.

This is so true!

As a consultant, I only collaborate, never compete.

And I have built up some wonderful friendships through collaboration.

When you collaborate, both people benefit, and both people grow.

You learn something from the other person, the other person learns something from you.

Also, your collaborator - by voicing their thoughts, worries, problems and ideas, and telling you their stories, gets you thinking in new ways.

Every person is unique and has a unique personal history, skill-set and experience. They bring something to the table that was not there before.

We should treat our collaborations like gold.  They are an asset, just like our other assets, only we cannot put a price on them, they are priceless.

A collaboration that has become very valuable to me in the past few years is my collaboration with Becky, who collaborates with me on exercising.

We keep each other going.

Thanks to Becky, I have returned to the long exhilarating walks I used to have in my twenties.

The origins of collaborations can be quite interesting.

Some collaborations can arise out of a “situation”.

My collaboration with Helen at Epicor was one of them.

The “situation” was a gal called Jamie.

When I was training Helen, she kept complaining Helen and I talked too loudly.

Repeated complaints to our boss resulted in Helen and I being requested to go to a conference room and work.

Stuck in a conference room, with just each other, for two whole months, Helen and I became great collaborators and fast friends.

There's a lesson to be learned from this story:  If you want two people to collaborate (and yes, 2 is an ideal number), for best results, let them work exclusively with each other in a private place. P.S. Don't forget to add this to your list of productivity hacks.

And what if you are stuck in a one-on-one collaboration - which is not by your own design?

Well then, you better learn to collaborate fast.

I can tell you from experience - you will not be successful as a Commissions Analyst, unless you learn how to collaborate.

Many commission jobs are one-on-one jobs - there is one Commissions Analyst, who works with one Commissions Manager.

This arrangement works, only when each person knows their place, and each has the other person's back.

It was how it was between Laura and me, and between Judy and me.

The interesting thing is, the more you collaborate, the better you get at it.

I know I am getting better and better at collaboration, with each new consulting assignment.

How do you know when to collaborate?

Almost anything we do might be enhanced by collaboration.

If you ever have to suddenly start delivering speeches, for instance, you would do well to have a collaborator.

I think back to when I was in Toastmasters.

I learned to be more precise and interesting in my speeches, because I had the help of a mentor, a seasoned Toastmaster whose name was Lorriane.

Thanks to Lorraine, I completed my CTM in less than a year, armed with tools for life.

My post Mmmmm….Good came out of my experience at Toastmasters; and my post How I Lost a Thousand Dollars on Donuts tells you how I parlayed an investment loss into a Toastmasters award.

When I volunteered to give a Money Workshop to the students of Bertha Taylor Elementary School, a collaboration helped me make my content more exciting and more appropriate for second, third and fourth graders.

My collaborator was Bonita Kraspoler, a school mum. With her help, I turned 3 dry speeches on Earning Money, Spending Money and Saving Money into 3 fun, interactive and memorable lessons.

Whatever your field, you will benefit from collaboration.

As Charles Darwin said, “in the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) it is those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively that have prevailed.”

You can try to compete, but you will find that you will get better results when you collaborate.

Reid Hoffman strongly believes it's the way to go.

In his book The Alliance, he makes a strong argument for collaborating vs. competing, giving the example of BillPoint and PayPal.  You will need to read the book to find out more.

Collaborating is the fastest way to turn your enemies into allies, says Jennifer Ritchie Payette.

For a collaboration to work, some ground rules are necessary.

Each has to know her or his place, each one has to have the other person's back.

It is said the collaboration between Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard was driven by accomplishment, not egos.

All successful collaborations will have this at heart.

Did you know that when Walt Disney died, Disneyworld was still being constructed?

Disney executives wanted to change the vision that Walt had for Disneyworld.

Roy Disney, his brother, refused, and moreover, decided that Disneyworld would be called Walt Disneyworld.

Whenever Disney executives referred to Disneyworld as “Disneyworld”, Roy would correct them and say “Walt Disneyworld.”

Roy Disney had Walt’s back even when he was gone. You can read the story here. 

Walt and Roy Disney had one of the most successful collaborations.

I will end with a quote my friend Mangesh shared with me a couple of months ago.

It is a beautiful way to remind ourselves of the importance, value and benefits of collaboration!

The quote is...“I am because we are”.

Whatever you do this week, say to yourself, “I am because we are”.

You can't go wrong!

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M…..a Pearl Seeker like you.  Thanks to Ajay and Christine for their comments and compliments on my post The Element of Awareness and Its Hope for Understanding It Is Half the Battle, and thanks to the rest of you for your likes, pins and votes. Much appreciated.