Quotes About Cooperation

It occurs to me that our survival may depend upon our talking to one another.

Groups of people are like a massive Rock, Paper, Scissors war.

Frankly, Victorians don't take orders from Greg Hunt, the bloke who forgot to place an order for vaccines. Seriously. "We're out there doing the commonwealth government's work for them; the least they can do is not be lecturing us on how to get that job done."

The national plan is about all of us moving together. It's also not a national plan for picnics, just quietly

Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, who run a leadership consultancy, analyzed 3,492 participants in a manager development program and found that the most effective listeners do four things: 1. They interact in ways that make the other person feel safe and supported 2. They take a helping, cooperative stance 3. They occasionally ask questions that gently and constructively challenge old assumptions 4. They make occasional suggestions to open up alternative paths

The kindergartners succeed not because they are smarter but because they work together in a smarter way. They are tapping into a simple and powerful method in which a group of ordinary people can create a performance far beyond the sum of their parts.

most of us instinctively see vulnerability as a condition to be hidden. But science shows that when it comes to creating cooperation, vulnerability is not a risk but a psychological requirement.

The mechanism of cooperation can be summed up as follows: Exchanges of vulnerability, which we naturally tend to avoid, are the pathway through which trusting cooperation is built.

One of the best techniques I've seen for creating cooperation in a group is flash mentoring. It is exactly like traditional mentoring—you pick someone you want to learn from and shadow them—except that instead of months or years, it lasts a few hours. Those brief interactions help break down barriers inside a group, build relationships, and facilitate the awareness that fuels helping behavior.

This is what I would call a muscular humility—a mindset of seeking simple ways to serve the group.

Skill 1—Build Safety—explores how signals of connection generate bonds of belonging and identity. Skill 2—Share Vulnerability—explains how habits of mutual risk drive trusting cooperation. Skill 3—Establish Purpose—tells how narratives create shared goals and values.

One study found that workers who shared a location emailed one another four times as often as workers who did not, and as a result they completed their projects 32 percent faster.)

Make Sure the Leader Is Vulnerable First and Often: As we've seen, group cooperation is created by small, frequently repeated moments of vulnerability. Of these, none carries more power than the moment when a leader signals vulnerability.

The interaction he describes can be called a vulnerability loop. A shared exchange of openness, it's the most basic building block of cooperation and trust.

Overcommunicate Expectations: The successful groups I visited did not presume that cooperation would happen on its own. Instead, they were explicit and persistent about sending big, clear signals that established those expectations, modeled cooperation, and aligned language and roles to maximize helping behavior.

Increasing people's sense of power—that is, tweaking a situation to make them feel more invulnerable—dramatically diminished their willingness to cooperate.

science shows that when it comes to creating cooperation, vulnerability is not a risk but a psychological requirement.

What are groups really for?" Polzer asks. "The idea is that we can combine our strengths and use our skills in a complementary way. Being vulnerable gets the static out of the way and lets us do the job together, without worrying or hesitating. It lets us work as one unit.

Exchanges of vulnerability, which we naturally tend to avoid, are the pathway through which trusting cooperation is built.

1—Build Safety—explores how signals of connection generate bonds of belonging and identity. Skill 2—Share Vulnerability—explains how habits of mutual risk drive trusting cooperation. Skill 3—Establish Purpose—tells how narratives create shared goals and values.

Group performance depends on behavior that communicates one powerful overarching idea: We are safe and connected.

Make Sure the Leader Is Vulnerable First and Often: As we've seen, group cooperation is created by small, frequently repeated moments of vulnerability.

I look to a time when brotherhood needs no publicity; to a time when a brotherhood award would be as ridiculous as an award for getting up each morning.

Leadership is not domination, but the art of persuading people to work toward a common goal.