What does the perfect Yin Yang of collaboration look like to you? We think it looks something like this....as Drs Schuster & Oxley left their breakfast meeting last July, they began to hone in on ideas for their writing collaboration. Here is roughly how it unfolded:
DrsSchuster&Oxley1: So let’s start to make a list of the subjects we might want to tackle. I was thinking we just list them out and we can then rank them. My initial list includes:
1 – A positive book about organizations. One that bucks the trend on emulating others but instead focuses on celebrating how many organization succeed with very different characteristics. Trying to buck this copying or coveting other organizations but instead looking to making the best of each organization's unique strengths.
2 – The Anti-Leadership book! Fighting to make the case that in 2022, leadership should be a verb not a noun. Reframing it for Gen Z and delivering a recipe for optimizing personal effectiveness. Really dislike the old leadership troupes and how for many it’s still about titles and power.
What do you think?
DrsSchuster&Oxley2: Well here are 5 ideas I scribbled down while on the plane…
Amazingly insightful visualization
DrsSchuster&Oxley1: I don’t know whether to be impressed or scared.
DrsSchuster&Oxley2: I also had a dream last night about the fifth idea and being visited by ghosts. One of them was Austrian. Is that Freudian? Possibly besides the point....... Isn't it amazing how we see the same opportunities here! Definitely on the same wavelength!
When does work not feel like work? When it is in pursuit of a passion or a deeply held conviction? Certainly, fighting for a cause is inspiring.
However, what we point to here is the sense of working with a partner or in a small team, where there is genuine synergy. Or put another way, the process of working is completely natural, you feel completely yourself, there is fun in what you do, and each interaction unveils fascinating new depths.
While this felt like a example of our form of perfect collaboration and complementary perspectives, we will let you judge if it is a good example of yin and yang.