Last week’s post on the Benefits of Collaboration got me thinking more about values fit and how that alone can make a significant difference in the success of a partnership.

In case you missed my earlier comments, let me explain. Partners’ values — the intangible outcomes they hold as important — don’t have to match up identically for a joint project to work. They do need to be compatible, not in opposition to each other. And if they are not mutually exclusive and not identical, they do need to be mutually respected.

A misalignment of values means that even if you and your partner have compatible skills, personalities, and communications style, the collaboration still may be a bust because you’re at cross purposes. You have your heart set on different intangible benefits, even if your tangible benefits are the same, i.e. financial success.

Mutually respected values means that even if you don’t hold the same priority to your partner’s values, you still respect and will honour those values equally to yours.

Now here’s where things get interesting and where 1+1=3 really takes off. By not prioritizing what matters to me more than what matters to you, but making them equally important, we push for a better outcome.

Say one partner values functionality over design, and the other values design over function. One is the technician, the other an artist. If the value for function wins out, you have a chair, but it’s aesthetically uninspiring. If the value for design wins out, you have a really cool looking chair that is uncomfortable to sit on.

However, when those two values come together, you get a chair that is cleverly designed and beautiful, as well as comfortable and stable.

Another example we can all relate to, technology tools were primarily functional from the day they were invented. Then along came Apple and turned things upside down. Their products are highly functional, no one can dispute that. But at last, someone over there decided functional could also be beautiful. They compromise neither form nor function, and the result speaks for itself. They have raised the bar and continue to do so.

Don’t compromise what really matters, work together to create a more amazing outcome than you might have.

Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting

Tags: 1+1=3, business partnerships, collaboration, joint venture, Liz Gaige, Market Navigators, values in business

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 12:50 am and is filed under 1+1 = 3 The Power of Collaboration, Blog, Liz Gaige - Marketing, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.