The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 316 - Partnering

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hi, Pete.

Pete: I have a question for you. I've been trying to work out what this topic is, but I think what it is is a question.

Jen: Okay.

Pete: You can clearly tell that I haven't really thought through how I'm going to introduce this. But I want to ask you a question about partnering. And I want to ask you what you think about partnering, how you think about partnering, and get your perspective. Because you and I are partners in a way, in the way that we collaborate on this podcast. And I've been spending a bunch of time with a bunch of senior leaders in a bunch of companies, and I'm noticing this theme pop up of partnering, and how do we be effective partners as leaders, and what does that mean? And I feel like it's another word for "collaboration", but I want to get your thoughts. I want to get your perspective. So, that is what I would like to talk about today.

Jen: Well, I will partner with you on that conversation. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: I just always find it so fascinating when these themes and words appear in all of these different contexts that I'm in. And I know this has probably been the way that we've teed up so many episodes, but I'm like, I feel like I've had five conversations recently with separate people and all of them have talked about, "Oh, it's really important at the moment for us, in our company," and the company differs, "...we have a strategic objective to be better partners as a leader." And I have my own thoughts and opinions on what that means, and they do too, based on their context. But I also know that I have an incredibly smart brilliant human / partner at my disposal, i.e. you, who probably thinks about partnering in the context of your own work, and your own actors, and the way they partner with various people in that industry too. So that is the context. Does it make sense? How do you think about partnering?

Jen: Well, my first thought is a question, as opposed to an assertion.

Pete: Let's just keep asking each other questions.

Jen: Yeah. So my question is, are we talking about internal partnerships, meaning different people or groups inside one organization? And/or are we talking about partnering with other organizations or other groups?

Pete: Such a great question. Because all of the context that this has come up has been internally-related, and I haven't decided in my brain yet if that's actually a different skill than external partnerships. I feel like the skills behind the skills will be the same, but there will be some nuance in terms of how those skills show up. Because...I'm answering my own question. Because external partnerships are inherently going to have different contexts and characteristics than internal partnerships. I mean, even down to the information that you might share with an external partner versus an internal partner. But I do feel like the skill behind the skill is still going to be somewhat the same. So, let's talk internal.

Jen: Okay. Is it too early for a metaphor?

Pete: No, never.

Jen: I mean, we're only three minutes in. But the first thing that comes to my mind, Pete, is literal partner dancing.

Pete: Okay, alright. Hit me.

Jen: I've been using a lot of dance metaphors lately.

Pete: I love it. I love it.

Jen: It's a throwback to my younger days.

Pete: Jen, the dancer. Alright, tell me about how to be a good dance partner. What does that mean?

Jen: Well, there are so many things that are coming to mind, but I want to focus on a couple key things. And I'm laughing because I'm thinking about the times that this has gone wrong for me, in addition to the times it's gone right. The first thing is structure, that there is a physical structure to partnering. And when that structure is weak or flimsy or isn't supported, the actual execution of what you're trying to do is not possible.

Pete: Oh, interesting. So in a dance context, like you said, the physical structure of us holding hands or connecting in whatever way we need to is important?

Jen: Yes. And what is true...I'm questioning myself. I'm like, "Is it true 100% of the time?" But what is overwhelmingly true is that structure requires tension.

Pete: Ooh, here we go. Say more about that. What sort of tension, in the context of dancing?

Jen: Muscular tension. Like, actual...I don't want to call it "rigidity", because there's flexibility and there's movement there. But there is a sense of support and-

Pete: Strength?

Jen: Support and strength, yes. That is a great way to put it. So even though it looks from the outside, light and easy, and especially if one of the partners is being lifted, it looks like the partner weighs absolutely nothing, that person is being lifted because there is tension at the contact point between the two people who are moving together.

Pete: I can already see how this metaphor applies. I mean, even just the idea that really effective partnerships, in any context, from the outside look so breezy and light and non-frictional. And what you're saying is the reality in a dance context, which I tend to agree with in a partnering context in work or in life, there's a bunch of tension. There's a bunch of strength and stability required, which isn't always easy,

Jen: Yes. Okay, and then a couple other points that maybe are useful. Sharing weight is a big part of this. Giving your weight to someone else, receiving someone else's weight, and then a mutual sharing of weight. So, that just feels interesting to me. And it's all a balancing act.

Pete: Right, right. So sometimes one person's weight is more important than the other, and then other times it's like it has to be 50/50.

Jen: Yes, depending on what you're trying to execute.

Pete: Hmm. Yep. Well, I mean that one, again, also feels relevant,

Jen: Right? Who knew? And then, a very important component is trust.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: The trust that is built in a partnership. The knowing, "I've got your back. You've got my back." There's an unspoken communication that happens with your body, with your eyes, with your breath. It's like you're talking to each other all the time, even when you're not saying words,

Pete: Yeah, yeah. Ah, that's good. Trust feels, I mean that one was the one like I feel most obvious in the context of the work I'm doing with leaders and companies. So the context that often pops up is, "We are a particular part of the business. Maybe it's the Sustainability arm or the Marketing arm or the Technology arm, and we need to partner or influence or collaborate with," whatever word you want to use, in this context 'partner', "...other parts of the business. And we want to do so in a way that's productive and effective, not in a way that we are separate silos of the business who don't actually like working with each other but we have to, like the opposite of a partnership." So for me, it's like, well, so much of that comes down to the trust that is built in those relationships. But I love this idea of, "What's the structure? Where's the tension? And how might we share the weight?"

Jen: Yeah. So, I'm thinking of this now from the internal / external perspective. I'm just already laughing, Pete. I feel a story coming on. I hope that's okay.

Pete: I love your stories and so do our listeners, so please. This is why I wanted to ask you.

Jen: So when you are dancing with a partner with whom you have rehearsed, you've figured out what it's like to work together. You've tried things out. You've modified things in order to find the best way to execute, as a partnership, the choreography. And once upon a time, Pete, I was doing a show on the Broadway, and I was the understudy for the lead dancer, who, most of her choreography involved partnering. And the first time I went on for this role...

Pete: Oh my god, I'm nervous for you.

Jen: ...I had rehearsed with the other understudy, the person who was understudying the partner. But that night, I was dancing with the person who actually played the role, and we had not rehearsed together. We knew the choreography. The choreography was correct. But we had not practiced and worked out the challenges of being partnered together. I was five inches shorter than the partner he was used to working with. I'm built completely differently. Anyway, Peter, I went on stage, and we were supposed to do a series of turns together.

Pete: Okay.

Jen: Dancers will know these as thigh turns. You basically press your thighs together and you spin around each other. And this was a very long sequence that traveled in a circle around the stage. And if you lose your point of contact with the partner, the whole thing collapses and there is no saving it. There is no like finding each other again. And Pete, in the first count of eight, our thighs lost contact. We had many, many more counts to go. So I panicked, and I started doing paddle turns in the middle of the stage. Meaning, for those of you who are like, "What's a paddle turn," I started turning around myself. And then, my partner, I believe he ended up doing chaine turns, so these are turns on his own, like in a circle around me. And it was in no way the choreography, and it was just a total disaster and probably the most embarrassing moment I've ever had on a stage, because it just went on forever. Anyway, that was long-winded, but I hope you all got a nice chuckle.

Pete: It's a great story. Okay, I have many thoughts and questions. The first is, was it a disaster for everyone else? Did the audience even know that something went wrong? Or was that only something that you knew?

Jen: Oh, I'm sure they didn't know that something was going terribly wrong. I'm sure they did not know. They were enjoying the song. The focus wasn't only on me in that moment, so there were many other people on stage to watch.

Pete: Right. Which I find just like worth articulating or saying out loud for you, because of what you said earlier, which is when a dance is going really well, it looks effortless on the outside, but they don't know the hard stuff that's gone into creating that tension, that healthy tension. And that is also true if and when things go wrong, perhaps. Others don't know that. Which, I don't know, feels important.

Jen: Yeah, it does. So relating this to like the internal / external idea, the internal partnership was probably the person I rehearsed with and the person he had danced with every night, and this was the external partnership, people who hadn't necessarily been in the trenches together. We didn't have all the same context, but we were giving it a go,

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And it was good enough to fake something, but it was not sustainable and it needed to have a course correction if we were going to do it again.

Pete: Yeah. So then, I wonder, how could you have avoided that situation? Was it like a lack of practice with this person?

Jen: Yes. 100%.

Pete: It is? Just practice? Okay, it's just practice.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And the practice enables you to understand the quirks of one another's, I'm guessing, body types and like how they move and instigate certain moves. Is that sort of fair?

Jen: Yes. And it forces you to challenge your assumptions about how things are going to go. Because, you know, when you're dancing with someone who is five inches taller, for example, and you aim to place your hand on their upper back between their shoulder blades, and you go to do that and suddenly you're hitting the back of my head, you assumed my shoulders would be there, but no.

Pete: Oh, I just had a hilarious visual of you and I dancing together, by the way. That would be so funny.

Jen: Right? I know, it would be so funny.

Pete: Six-foot-seven and five-foot-one. Firstly, I can't dance. It would be hilarious. But secondly, the height difference would be very funny.

Jen: Ah. Yeah, I think it's like the information you take for granted when it's internal.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And like, needing to pay extra attention to the details. And the things that seem like a given might not be a given.

Pete: Totally. Yes. I think you could almost take out the internal / external here, in that it sounds like we take for granted when partnerships are going well, why they might be going well. And what I hear...and this is my own confirmation bias, so feel free to challenge me on it. But my oversimplified summary of what you said is ultimately, the partnership that went well was when you understood your partner. The partnership that didn't go so well, in the dance context, was when you didn't understand your partner. Now, I think about that in the leadership context all the time. Because one of the things I rant about often is empathy as being the most, if not one of the top three most fundamental skills to being a great leader. And that's because what it requires of you is to understand the people you're trying to partner with, as intimately as possible. In a dance context, that means like physically understand them. (Less relevant and important in a leadership context, in terms of the physicality of the people you're leading or trying to partner with.) But understanding what makes them tick, or what's important to them, or what their own priorities are, or how their technique might differ to yours on this particular thing that you're trying to partner on, these intricacies of the individual you're trying to partner with are so important, in order for that partnership to be effective.

Jen: Yes. That is true. You know, Pete, it's making me think about the two of us. And how like, at this point, we know each other and the way we work together so well, that we know that if we both come into the room and we say, "I've got nothing. I have no ideas. I'm totally stumped. I don't even want to do this today," twenty minutes later, we're still going to leave with an episode. But can you imagine if you went into a Zoom room with someone to record a podcast, and they didn't know you, and you were like, "I have no ideas. I've got nothing to say. My mind is a void."

Pete: That is so true. "I haven't had my coffee yet, and I don't want to do this, but let's do it."

Jen: And then, we have so much fun, and we are so glad that we did it.

Pete: Right. Like, this was us twenty minutes ago. I was like, "I maybe have a question for you. That's pretty much it. But I also haven't had my coffee, and I'm like a little fatigued." But you're right. I mean, imagine if I said that to someone who I had not partnered with before, for six years. They'd be like, "Uh, okay. Why are we doing this? What are you talking about?"

Jen: "Then, why are you here?"

Pete: Yeah. That's hilarious. So, I feel like we're somewhat in agreement there. It's one of the most fundamental parts of this. And again, I think this is internal and external exclusive. It's understanding your partner as well as you possibly can. Now, then it's like, "Okay, so how do you do that in a dance context?" It sounds like, "Practice a lot with said partner." In a work context, this is where I think it can be a little tricky at the moment, I observe, with organizations working in a hybrid way, where sometimes they're in-person and sometimes they're remote. You don't get to walk across the office and have a conversation with Jen about how she's thinking about this project anymore. You have to set up a meeting, and then the meeting feels more formal. And do you need a slide deck? And so, I feel like the challenge at the moment is, I think most people recognize understanding the person they need to partner with is really critical. And so then, it's like, "And how do we do that in a corporate context?"

Jen: Right.

Pete: I wonder, is there a learning or a lesson for how actors think about this with agents, for example? Like, is there a partnering mindset that occurs in those relationships?

Jen: Well, I am privy to, I mean, dozens, hundreds of these relationships, Pete. And they run the gamut from "wildly successful" to "so dysfunctional, I don't understand why these people are working together". But I will say, with the people who are wildly successful, there are a couple patterns I can identify. One is, that they check in with each other. I'm not saying on a daily basis. But when there isn't a crisis, they just have regularly scheduled check-ins. Like, you know, "Let's sit down every six months, no matter what's happening, and just talk about how it's going." So, there is like a cadence to the review system.

Pete: I love that. Which builds context, and then empathy, and then trust. Yep, yep, yep. That's brilliant.

Jen: And I think where I see some of these relationships go really well is that the partnership doesn't have a sense of...is "status" the right word? That the partnership really feels like a partnership, within the context of that relationship. And there is an understanding that, to people outside that relationship, there is a status. Like, the agent should be the one talking to the casting director, as opposed to the client doing that. Or that the client should be the one building relationships with people on creative teams, that's not what the agent's going to be doing. So it's, I mean, that's like a very oversimplified way to explain it, but there's an understanding of what our roles are and what our responsibilities are, and we let the other person do their job.

Pete: Yeah. We value that role and their responsibilities. I love that. So like, clarity in the role and responsibilities. And one of the things I was thinking, whether this fits or not with that second point, was something you and I have said before, which was like, in a perfect world...this is very hard to orchestrate, especially in status-based roles or organizations or contexts, like you mentioned. But in a perfect world, both people in the partnership feel like the lucky one.

Jen: Yes. That is so good.

Pete: You know? Like, I feel like the lucky one, in our context.

Jen: No, I'm the lucky one.

Pete: We've laughed about this often, where I'm like, "I feel like I get so much out of this, and you just have to show up and talk to Pete." And sometimes, we've joked about how you feel the same way.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And it's like this big, long joke. But I've worked in and been part of some amazing world-class communities, and I think the best ones are where everyone kind of feels a little bit like an imposter. And I mean that in a positive sense, because they're like, "Wow, everyone is so smart. I'm getting so much out of this. How did I end up here?" And I feel like if everyone kind of feels a little bit of that, a little bit of that tension, then actually it's a really great collaborative place to be, where there's a lot of partnering.

Jen: Oh, I love that so much. I love that so much. I don't want to fall too far down the rabbit hole of these disastrous partnerships, but there is one glaring consistency that is worth calling out, is, they don't know how to talk to each other. There have been no clear expectations or boundaries set, and there is a fear, "I don't know if I'm allowed to ask that person. I don't know if I'm allowed to call. I don't know how they like to be spoken to." And it goes both ways, and so there's no communication happening ever. There's just fear building up over time.

Pete: Yeah. Ah, because without information, we create stories. And the stories are usually fear-based, because I'm like, "Oh my gosh, Jen isn't talking to me because she must hate me, because of that text that I sent her that she didn't reply to three months ago. Oh my god, I just won't approach her with anything." Yeah.

Jen: Exactly.

Pete: So how do we maintain or develop, from the get go, clarity in how and when we like to communicate? Which goes back to your idea of like, "Can we check in regularly, and sit down and have a conversation?" I love this. This is super practical, and I think applies, for sure, in the leadership context. For me, a really effective partnering looks like firstly, like almost an audit or an understanding of, "Who are the people I'm trying to partner with?" Like, literally, "Who do I know that I'm trying to partner with?" And then, "What do I know about them," to the point of empathy. "What are the skills and the hows and the practices I can put in place to continue to build trust with them and get clarity in how they like to communicate?" I love that idea of a check in. And then, the third one (which is, you know, probably a separate episode that we've talked about), where it's like, "Okay, and how do we be aware of the fact that partnerships can be hard and messy and uncomfortable? And what are we going to do when that happens? Like, is there a pre-mortem? Is there a way for us to agree to navigate conflict?" Because conflict is going to be part of any collaboration. Like you mentioned, there's tension. There's physical tension, in the dance context. There's emotional and relationship-based tension in partners, in a leadership context.

Jen: Yeah. And Pete, to just bring this home with the "Jen's Most Embarrassing Moment on Broadway" story, when it didn't work, we couldn't throw our hands up and just walk away and be like, "Well, that didn't work." We had to come back the next day and figure out how to make it work, because we were committed to the partnership.

Pete: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.