Prioritizing the Puzzle

Part III: Partnership Puzzle

This is the third and final article of a series. This series started with a focus on self, which we all struggle with prioritizing. Part I: Personal Puzzle focuses on self-awareness, seeing success within the journey, and the continuous path we take assembling our personal puzzle.

Part II: People Puzzle transitioned to the significance of trust and relationship building. This article emphasized how important self-awareness is for building trust and how important building trust is for our own individual puzzles and future partnerships. This final article will focus on those partnerships.

Identifying Trusted Partners

There will always be a bit of uncertainty when it comes to any partnership. The ability to innovate together requires we take risks. Asking others to value your mission, your passion, and your ideas the way they do their own is scary.

When I consider what I want in a professional partnership I first consider Cultured Kids' vision. Whether you have a vision for your life, for your business, or for your child, this vision is your puzzle in completion. You will be striving for this puzzle throughout your entire life and it cannot be executed alone. Elements of shared vision with other organizations/corporations will support collaboration and growth.

1. Cultured Kids' Vision

We help local schools build global citizens. 

We're in the bridge-building business. We don't build with bricks and concrete and steel, but by empowering each child to tell his or her own story. To help them share their unique culture with their community in a safe environment that values understanding, collaboration, and respect.

Our bridges don't cross rivers and streams. They bridge the gaps between generations, languages, and cultures. They create unique learning experiences, unforgettable memories, and lasting change.

2.   Your Why

I have yet to find something about Simon Sinek’s work that I do not like. More than ten years ago he spoke at a TEDx event: How Great Leaders Inspire Action. During this engagement he spoke about how people are not buying WHAT you do but WHY you do it.

The WHY for any organization/institution will start on the inside and work its way out. You can see and access a visual depiction of this concept that Sinek has dubbed, The Golden Circle, for your professional teams on his website.

Simon’s book: Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action, provides a more in depth understanding of this work. While there are many great take-a-ways, one statement drives home the connection between partnerships and our WHY.

"When a why goes fuzzy, it becomes much more difficult to maintain the growth, loyalty, and inspiration that helped drive the original success."

The best partnerships will symbiotically support each other’s WHY, providing the loyalty and inspiration needed to remind one another of their WHY when it gets fuzzy. 

Which partnerships will support your WHY? Which partner’s WHY'S can you support?

3.    Praising Progress

We all desire praise, we innately want to be acknowledged for the work that we are doing. We want the encouragement, the prize, the reward. However, those who spend their days seeking out and orchestrating this praise for themselves will not make for good partnerships.

Conversely, those who praise the progress of their partners and actively encourage their work will not only model what we need to see more of in this world, but also ignite a desire within them to do the same for others.

It is in this vein that I would like to thank two partners Cultured Kids is working with.

Liaison America provides cross-cultural education experiences for young adults and adult professionals.

They are a bridge between communities, businesses, and organizations here in America to communities, businesses and organizations in Brazil.

Liaison America's CEO, Sandra Lima-Argo, is passionate and focused about her WHY. Like Cultured Kids, she desires to see increased unity amongst humanity. She believes cross-cultural experiences will create stronger global citizens.

It is through Sandra that we were introduced to Daniel Herkenhoff, CEO of Holistica Foundation.

Daniel is passionate about getting books into the hands of children in Brazil. Cultured Kids and Holistica Foundation believe in the power that literature has to change the world.

They see literacy as a bridge to progress and believe that literature can shape stronger, wiser, and more knowledgeable world leaders and global problem solvers. Together they are working on a program and curricula to support literacy in Brazil.

Conclusion

Considering your vision and your WHY prior to solidifying partnerships is important. There is a sea of potential partnerships and many may seem to fit into your puzzle. However, time, energy, and money can be wasted on trying to force a piece in that does not belong. In the end, partnerships should be mutually beneficial and supporting one another's big picture puzzles.

Strengthening and nourishing those partnerships will require actively and publicly supporting their work in the world. Their success should equate to your success. After all, if you are in the right place with the right people, then your big picture puzzles will be one in the same.