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"GROUND RULES FOR COOPERATION" (DANIEL COYLE AND JOHN WOODEN)
Any group activity is improved when all participants have cooperation. In his book, The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle discusses some "ground rules for cooperation":
"When Forming New Groups, Focus on Two Critical Moments: Jeff Polzer, the Harvard Business School professor who studies organizational behavior, traces any group’s cooperation norms to two critical moments that happen early in a group’s life. They are: 1 The first admission of vulnerability. 2. The first disagreement.
These small moments are doorways to two possible group paths: Are we about appearing strong or about exploring the landscape together? Are we about winning interactions, or about learning together?
At those moments, people either dig in and become defensive and start justifying, and a lot of tension gets created," Polzer says. "Or they say something like, ‘Hey, that’s interesting. Why don’t you agree? I might be wrong, and I’m curious and want to talk about it some more.’ What happens in that moment helps set the pattern for everything that follows."
Applying these six ideas from Coach Wooden is a good start on establishing a cooperative environment:
- "A person can make mistakes, but they’re not a failure until they blame others."
- "We must be able to disagree without being disagreeable."
- "Listen if you want to be heard."
- "What is right is more important than who is right."
- "Be interested in finding the best way, not in having your own way."
- "It’s amazing how much could be accomplished if no one is concerned with who gets the credit."
What are your "Ground Rules For Cooperation"?
Yours in Coaching,
Craig Impelman
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COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE
Old Years And New
Old years and new years, all blended into one,
The best of what there is to be, the best of what is gone-
Let's bury all the failures in the dim and dusty past
And keep the smiles of friendship and laughter to the last.
Old years and new years, life's in the making still;
We haven't come to glory yet, but there's the hope we will;
The dead old year was twelve months long, but now from it we're free,
And what's one year of good or bad to all the years to be?
Old years and new years, we need them one and all
To reach the dome of character and build its sheltering wall;
Past failures tried the souls of us, but if their tests we stood.
The sum of what we are to be may yet be counted good.
Old years and new years, with all their pain and strife,
Are but the bricks and steel and stone with which we fashion life;
So put the sin and shame away, and keep the fine and true,
And on the glory of the past let's build the better new.
Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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