Best Practice 4 – Advocator of Differences and Community™
Three essays are associated with this best practice, one focusing on the best practice itself and the other two providing concepts that complement this best practice, but also offer a somewhat different perspective.
Best Practice 4: Advocator of Differences and Community™ (Being: Advocator)
In this essay, the critical success skills associated with this best practice are identified, as are the BE attitudes that aligns with this practice. This essay concerns the ability to be an advocate for people and raise their visibility, recognize strengths and build value, build diverse teams, promote an inclusive environment, and recognize impact of business direction and communicate appropriately.
The Art of Building Coalition
There are numerous situations we face at work where we need to build coalition with others. The results we can produce depend on relationships that are effective and sufficient to the goals of the organization or project. These others with whom we need to build coalition may be colleagues, the board, co-workers, vendors, customers, peers, teammates or subordinates. Sometimes we need to build coalition to navigate a political minefield in our organization, sometimes it is to move a particular idea forward, sometimes it is to most effectively lead, manage, or motivate others. We offer a time-tested method for building coalition, creating a partnering relationship for whatever your purpose, so that you can increase your visibility, clean up a messy interpersonal scenario, create development opportunities for yourself or others, or simply expedite the results of any project or team on which you are working.
Breaking Free from our Cultural Chains
We’re often afraid of what is different. It’s easier to stick with what we know, especially when it comes to relationships. We tend to stick to a group of people who think, act and do things like we do. This is where we feel confident that we belong. Everything is easier when we are around people we know; however this can also be severely limiting. When we know or think we know, we close ourselves off from knowing anything else because we already know – there is no more learning to be experienced. We know and that is enough. We can stay in our comfort zone secure in our knowledge where there is no fear or uncertainty. Human beings rarely, if ever succeed at accurately perceiving their own culture. It is true to say that this is how most of us live our lives. We are victims of our culture and most of us don’t even realize. We can’t see it unless we have an experience where we notice an absence of our cultural norms and we know at a visceral level that something is missing.
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