Page 138 - stephen covey The seven habits of highly effective people

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart

However, the essential purpose behind creative work can be recaptured. Like the Far Eastern
philosophy, "We seek not to imitate the masters, rather we seek what they sought," we seek not to
imitate past creative synergistic experiences, rather we seek new ones around new and different and
sometimes higher purposes.

Snergy and Communication

Synergy is exciting. Creativity is exciting. It's phenomenal what openness and communication
can produce. The possibilities of truly significant gain, of significant improvement are so real that it's
worth the risk such openness entails.
After World War II, the United States commissioned David Lilienthal to head the new Atomic
Energy Commission. Lilienthal brought together a group of people who were highly influential --
celebrities in their own right -- disciples, as it were, of their own frames of reference.
This very diverse group of individuals had an extremely heavy agenda, and they were impatient to
get at it. In addition, the press was pushing them.
But Lilienthal took several weeks to create a high Emotional Bank Account. He had these people
get to know each other -- their interests, their hopes, their goals, their concerns, their backgrounds, their
frames of reference, their paradigms. He facilitated the kind of human interaction that creates a great
bonding between people, and he was heavily criticized for taking the time to do it because it wasn't
"efficient."
But the net result was that this group became closely knit together, very open with each other, very
creative, and synergistic. The respect among the members of the commission was so high that if there
was disagreement, instead of opposition and defense, there was a genuine effort to understand. The
attitude was "If a person of your intelligence and competence and commitment disagrees with me, then
there must be something to your disagreement that I don't understand, and I need to understand it.
You have a perspective, a frame of reference I need to look at." Nonprotective interaction developed,
and an unusual culture was born.
The following diagram illustrates how closely trust is related to different levels of communication.
The lowest level of communication coming out of low-trust situations would be characterized by
defensiveness, protectiveness, and often legalistic language, which covers all the bases and spells out
qualifiers and the escape clauses in the event things go sour. Such communication produces only
win-lose or lose-lose. It isn't effective -- there's no P/PC Balance -- and it creates further reasons to
defend and protect.
The middle position is respectful communication. This is the level where fairly mature people
interact. They have respect for each other, but they want to avoid the possibility of ugly confrontations,
so they communicate politely but not empathically. They might understand each other intellectually,
but they really don't deeply look at the paradigms and assumptions underlying their own opinions and
become open to new possibilities.
Respectful communication works in independent situations and even in interdependent situations,
but the creative possibilities are not opened up. In interdependent situations compromise is the
position usually taken. Compromise means that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1/2. Both give and take. The
communication isn't defensive or protective or angry or manipulative; it is honest and genuine and
respectful. But it isn't creative or synergistic. It produces a low form of win-win.
Synergy means that 1 + 1 may equal 8, 16, or even 1,600. The synergistic position of high trust
produces solutions better than any originally proposed, and all parties know it. Furthermore, they
genuinely enjoy the creative enterprise. A miniculture is formed to satisfy in and of itself. Even if it
is short-lived, the P/PC Balance is there.