- Partnership – a relationship resembling a legal partnership and usually involving close cooperation between parties having specified and joint rights and responsibilities
- Compromise – settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions
- Trust – assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something, one in which confidence is placed
- Common Goal – Something that partners would like to achieve
These are definitions by Meriam Webster, except for the fourth entry. Now, why do I say these things? Working in Public Relations allowed me to be exposed to “partnerships” whether it be with client, stakeholders, media, friends, key opinion leaders and such and I noticed a flaw. A flaw that has been prevalent, that has been opaque and is not just happening in the corporate world. I mean I’m no expert, my career is currently a fetus still being developed but I am observant.
What is the flaw? It’s that we bend and break our backs to please the “partner”. We all aim to please but what is the cause? What are the consequences if we do?
When we have a goal in mind, we sometimes find a potential partner that can help us achieve that goal and when we find them, we form a partnership where parties, known as partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests or the common goal.
Why do we choose such partners? Because WE TRUST THEM. Let me go back to the definition of trust “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something, one in which confidence is placed” Now, this is where I lose my sh*t.
We are individuals and we have different sets of personalities, abilities and strengths, even organizations have different sets of services to offer where they are good at. Now, this is where compromise comes in, given that we have different ideas, ways and strengths, we need to marry ours and our partner’s ideas to reach our common goal. It’s not one is the superior and the other is a slave, I get that there are rules and protocols but again, we formed a partnership because we trust each other.
We will decide together, we will walk together, we will achieve together. Inclusiveness, that is also important. Trust me that I can do this for you so I may be a catalyst to hasten our march and I trust you for knowing and guiding me through the way that we chose to walk through.
We should not bend in whims to please our partner all the time because sometimes we know better than them on a specific topic and they know better than us on specific topics as well, we are good at our own fields and we need to use our strengths to allow us to be objective at achieving our goal.
What’s my point? Know when it’s not right to bend your body in angles your bones are not accustomed with.
The Inverted Trish 