I love the irony that it is the experience of competition in the marketplace – provocatively imagined as combat in this article – that awakens the need to find our collaborative team. Why is that?

We can see corporations as collections of people who have aligned their interests to watch out for each other.  Bill suggests that solopreuners can do that by identifying the team of paid professional advisors who will watch out for them.

And Biznik itself is premised on the idea that solopreuners can rely on each other.  The taglines “Collaboration Beats Competition” and “Going it Alone, Together” demonstrate joint reliance.

What’s radical about this idea is that the individuals in the Biznik community are not directly aligned together in their economic interest. They’re not doing it because they’re all employees of the same corporation.  They’re not doing it because they are paying each other (though those relationships do form, and they hope they do).

They’re doing it because they hold different beliefs in abundance and collaboration.  For many, these have supplanted the beliefs in scarcity and competition that served so well in the corporate world.

When we see competition, scarcity, collaboration and abundance as beliefs, we can then choose when to hold them, and when to drop them.  We then see we have the opportunity to extend our belief in collaboration beyond our co-employees and beyond our small circle of advisors.  When we realize that we don’t have to see a direct economic link to believe in the value of collaboration, we can extend our belief in collaboration to include other solopreuners.

But why stop there?

Imagine going a step further: extending our belief in collaboration even to include people who once were our “competitors.”

And why stop there?

Can we see extending our  belief in collaboration even to include people with whom we disagree?

Having some trouble seeing that? A little bit harder maybe? Drop me a line or give me a call.  Let’s talk about it.

What is a condominium anyway?  Or more precisely, who is a condominium?  What is this human system, this group of people?

You’ve got people living in close proximity to each other — maybe dozens.  Is it a family?  But they don’t have the bonds of biological relation or marriage.  So maybe not.

Many of the people living in condos own their unit, and it’s a big investment — maybe their biggest. So is it a business?  Yet they buy without having done any sort of due diligence really, not the kind they would if they were starting a real business relationship. They may not have even met their neighbors.  So, not really.

People in condos band together in a governing body.  So is it an association? But most of them have joined without having ever been to meetings, without knowing it’s work or it’s mission.  So maybe, not so much.

If it looks like a duck, honks like a goose and swims like a fish, what the heck is it?

I suggest that maybe it’s all these things.  And more.  A condominium association can be as many different things as the people in it see it as.

Some will see it as an extended family or community.  Others will see it as a investment business.  Others as a non-profit association.  Many will not understand that others see it differently.  Many will understand others see it differently, and think that the others are just plain wrong.

Let’s call it a system.  Take all these people, lump them in close proximity together, bind them in a joint economic/investment venture, and stir them up in a governing association.  Give each person a different perception of what the group is, and how it should work.  Now for catalyst, throw in a dash of a man’s home is is castle (careful — a little of this goes a long way).  Now you’ve got a rich mash-up of human interest here!

That’s a lot of energy.  Which means there is great potential, either for generating friction and heat or creating productive work. Want more of one and less of the other? Give me a buzz or drop a line. Let’s talk about it.

It’s not just that they have their own thoughts, or express them differently, but they actually having a different way of thinking.

Ian MacDuff of the Center for Dispute Resolution at Singapore Management University, in his blog MediAsian, reviews Richard Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought in his post Morality, Culture and Mediation.  The post is a great read for anyone interested in the cultural context of dispute resolution.

MacDuff describes Nesbitt explaining that people east and west don’t just communicate differently and they don’t just perceive differently.  They actually have diversity in their patterns of cognition.

So that reminds me of a story.

I spent a pleasant evening in Hong Kong with a group of people who all worked together in a small department of an international company.  They all spoke Cantonese.  But each of the five people came from a different place.  They were from all over: Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, mainland China, Canada.

During the laughter and the stories, fueled by an amazing meal and just enough beer, we got to talking about their perceptions of each other.  The Singaporean woman said she thought Hong Kong was busy and noisy and unkempt and all the people cared about was money. The Hong Kong and mainlanders thought the Singaporeans were uptight and closed. The Korean woman teased the Canadian about eating his pet dog.

The leader of this workgroup, the Chinese-Canadian, had been born and raised in British Columbia.  He grew up bilingual.  He had lived and worked most of his life in Canada, and had only recently come to Hong Kong to work for this company.  I was curious how the others heard his Canadian-Chinese speech, if they noticed an accent, or maybe heard regional differences in pronunciation or idiom.

So I asked one of the group, the woman from mainland China, about her Canadian boss — does he talk funny?

Her answer broke us all up: “He doesn’t just talk funny — he thinks funny.”

She could hear, sharing a common tongue, that she and her boss viewed the world differently at a very basic level.  Growing up on opposite sides of the world, in different cultures, she could observe that she and her boss  have different ways of processing thought.

It’s not just what he says, or how he says it, what words he uses or that he has an accent.  It’s how he thinks about it that’s different.

In our conflicts with each other we may not have such significant differences in background as having been born and raised in different hemispheres.  At times we may.  But even when we don’t, what small differences among our cultures may have had some small effect on our thought processes?  What of our differences — which we may in our ignorance attribute to improper motives or bad intent — are actually based in a fundamentally different way of thinking?

If you haven’t taken it, I’ll leave it up for awhile. Here’s the link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=HWpdZ_2fdo_2fpeyVctrGSBE9A_3d_3d.

The results are in the post below. But first, why a survey? Why ask people how they think about their disagreements?

Because lawyers talk funny. Everyone knows that. But lawyer-talk is part of the popular culture through TV and literature, so we sort of understand them.

Dispute resolution professionals talk even funnier. And the general public doesn’t have much exposure to these people. They sound just plain weird. As Steve Martin once said about the French, “it’s like they have a different word for everything!”

I did this survey to reground myself in the language of real people, as they really are, when they are in the middle of real disputes.

I really, really need to understand and to speak the language of real people in a way that is real to them when I’m marketing my services. I’m not there to see how my words are working and how people react to them. I can’t see it when they read my website and wince. I need the kind of information this survey provides to be able to describe what I do, how I do it, and when I might be able to help.

So – to the heart of it – what did we learn? Keep reading or click here …

I asked you to think back on a serious event, which you would have called a Disagreement (50.0%), Conflict (48.2%), or Difference of Opinion (48.2%), Strained Relationship (41.1%), Confrontation (39.3%), Issue (37.5) or Dispute (33.9%). What was happening with you during that time is you felt Frustrated (80.7%), Annoyed (50.9%), Angry (42.1%), Unhappy (42.1%), Upset (40.4%), and Unfairly treated (38.6%).

What you wanted to have happen was A solution (54.4%), A resolution (49.1%), An agreement (47.4%), Resolution (47.40%), A sustainable solution (45.6%) and To be understood (45.6%). What you didn’t want is Money (3.5%), To cause the other grief (1.8%), A public statement (1.8%), Attorneys’ fees (1.8%), Recompense (0.0%), To ignore it (0.0%), or To sue (0.0%).

What you wanted from an outside person were Suggestions (59.3%), Solutions (53.7%), Assistance (53.7%), Advice (51.9%), Support (51.9%), and Recommendations (51.9%). You didn’t want the outside person to sue the other person (1.9%), To avenge you (1.9%), to threaten the other person (0.0%), to cause the other person pain (0.0%), to cause the other person expense (0.0%).

Considering how you felt at those times, you felt better about these ideas: Being understood (4.34 out of 5), Resolution (4.31), Being heard (4.29), Results (4.24), Solution (4.24), Agreement (4.23), Being acknowledged (4.20), Thank you (4.18), Productive (4.11), Result (4.10), and Cooperation (4.08). You felt worse about these ideas: Adversarial (1.76 out of 5), Leave it (1.76), Drop it (1.68), Ultimatum (1.67), Patronize (1.46), Give up (1.45), and Lawsuit (1.38).

Facing that kind of situation now you’d be more likely to involve a Mediator (3.83 out of 5), Mentor (3.74), Conflict Resolution Specialist (3.72), Dispute Resolution Professional (3.58), or Facilitator (3.53). You’d be least inclined to involve an Attorney (2.56 out of 5), Therapist (2.47), Referee (2.41), Pacifier (2.36), Judge (2.35), or Umpire (2.05).

The contexts of the situations you were thinking about were Workplace/workgroup (61.2%), Family matters (34.7%), Professional Services (26.5%), Neighborhood/Community (22.4%), Real Estate/Property (22.4%).

Demographics. 78% of you were 40+ years of age, mostly female (52.1%). You often work with other people (77.1%), are homeowners (66.7%), are parents (54.2%), are employees (50%) or are employed by someone else (43.8%).

What do you think? Surprised? There were certainly parts that surprised me – so I’m really glad I had your help. Thanks again!