This will allow you to brainstorm together with your team. “I don’t quite understand that-can you just explain it again?”.John Cleese in fact includes prescriptions for ways to TALK to the other side that encourage synergy or the open mode: Now this was an attempt to reach the open mode by one’s self, but you could see that it could also apply to negotiations or creative interactions with others.
#HABIT 6 LEADER IN ME SERIES#
If you want further elucidation of this process, I suggest you go straight to John Cleese himself and listen to his entertaining and informative talk which is laced with a series of “light-bulb” jokes. Use humor to become more spontaneous and creative. You need to create sufficient time within which to allow truly creative solutions to emerge.Īllow yourself to play and suppress the fear of making a mistake. You need to create your space at a specific beginning time and a specific ending time in order to create an atmosphere which is closed off from the closed mode in which we normally operate. Seal yourself off where you will be undisturbed. John Cleese suggests the following elements are essential for entering this creative state.Ĭreate space for yourself away from demands that accompany the closed mode. What are some of the ways of entering the open mode? Remember that, although the idea of “synergy” is the one from Stephen Covey’s book, I am positing that it is closely akin to the “open mode” described by John Cleese in his talk on creativity.
A playful spirit engendered by the open mode will create a solution that NEITHER party may have anticipated. However, this is anticipated by Stephen Covey, who says that “purposeful” in this sense when you are dealing with another person means “the predetermined purpose you had in mind” at the beginning of negotiations. Notice that the “closed mode” is purposefulĪs opposed to playful, which seems to go against the principle of Habit 2 (Begin with the End in Mind). If you enter a Win-Win relationship (Habit 4), this engenders an atmosphere of trust and cooperation, which together with empathic listening (Habit 5) creates this open or synergistic mode. Here’s how it fits into Stephen Covey’s Habits 4, 5, and 6. The Synergistic or “Open Mode” contrasted with the Closed ModeĮxpansive (inclusive of other’s viewpoint) The research on the open mode was introduced to John Cleese by Brian Bates, who runs the psychology department at the University of Sussex, and it had been done in the 1970s at Berkeley University by Donald MacKinnon.įig. The closed mode is the opposite of this, and is what you get if you don’t have that level of trust and cooperation you need for the open mode. Here are the links to the three blog posts which contain the substance of his talk on “creativity and the open mode”. John Cleese did a talk on “creativity and the open mode” in which the “open mode” is precisely this trusting and cooperative atmosphere engendered in a group that allows for creative solutions to take place. This is itself an example of “synergy” or two ideas sparking a third connection (in my mind). Then I realized where I heard something similar, and realized that I had done a series of blog posts on an idea that was very similar to that of Stephen Covey’s. And that’s the true wellspring of group or team creativity.Īs an example of a creative synthesis, I was reading this passage about Habit 6 and all of the wonderful things about team creativity sounded very familiar to me. So the interesting thing about the Win-Win interaction in the present is that it lays the groundwork of trust and cooperation in future interactions, and allows creative syntheses of viewpoints or synergisms to occur.
Human Interaction Matrix-Trust and Cooperation Levels What is the level of trust and cooperation for FUTURE negotiations that are engendered in each of these four possibilities? See the matrix below:įig 2. 1 Human Interaction Matrix (four possibilities) If you may recall the matrix of possibilities that may occur in human interaction, you have Win/Win being the desirable or actively desirable outcome, with Lose/Lose (compromise) being an acceptable or passively desirable outcome, and Lose/Win (capitulation) and Win/Lose (domination) being unacceptable outcomes for the parties involved.įig.
Habit 6 flows very directly out of Habit 4 (Think Win-Win-on negotiating) and Habit 5 (Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood-on empathic listening). Introduction to Habit 6: Synergize-Sometimes 1 +1 = 3 is a better answer
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