Trina Hoefling Untethered

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A competency whose time has not only come, but with an imperative unprecedented. Not only do teams need to collaborate, so do entire industries - sectors - nations, not to mention small businesses.

As a teacher, practitioner, and facilitator of collaboration, I vibrate with excitement while shivering in worry.

We can do this. We are smart when we bother to be. The Cabinet being created and huddling in Chicago, preparing to break into fast action in DC is being compared to Lincoln’s Team of Rivals (a brilliant read by historian Doris Kearns) while hands wring or clap that the team has a ring of retro 90’s Clinton days. That’s not my worry, and here’s why….

First, whether it’s for the US Cabinet or hiring the best branding team, if you want the best and brightest, you find them. If you’re seeking smart experience with aligned commitment to the objective, you find them and hire them. If it provokes the media and pundits, reassure them by reminding them of what you know…. that you are setting not only the agenda, but the tone of the team dynamic. That people can rise above their own agenda for the greater good, and be better people with a wiser agenda in the end as well. In other words, people can collaborate better than they ever have, and for reasons bigger than WIIFM.

So now you have smart, experienced, committed, competent people embarking on a path that has never been travelled. You are forging a path together, smart and, I hope, humble enough to know that there is no time or room for isolationist action, polarizing politics, ego grabs, or stubborn insistence on holding on to one opinion when many are being offered for consideration. This is an invitation for not only critical advisers to the President, but for all of us in our own work and challenges and lives.

We are being invited into a higher order of caring and commitment and responsibility to be part of the solution, not the problem. We are being asked to stop standing by and waiting for someone else to do something for us.

I know - from over a quarter century of professional work facilitating collaboration and from twice that of living my life - that the end result of authentic joining together to think and act is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts. I have success story after success story, and a few disappointments and abject failures ready to give testimony to the Power of Collaboration.

We can do this. The Administration can do this. The Nation can do this. Possibly, if we really commit to this, we can beat all forecasts and odds and, even successful examples from history. Miracles happen every day when minds join, wisdom speaks, and hearts align. Actions follow.

Extreme opinions do not need to derail this overriding commitment to building a pathway back to the United States as global leader and prosperous nation. America is burying labels that don’t allow for crossing borders. We must collaborate across the distance of difference, beliefs, habits, perspectives.

So I don’t worry about too many Clinton administrators or the size of the challenge before us. My life exudes the power of collaboration even while I am severely impacted by the current global financial crisis.

Rather, I worry that fear will short circuit patience, and that strong opinion unexamined will hide the best integral solutions. I ask that I, you, and American leaders actively explore together the best routes to build our future together the fastest without disregarding risk, most innovative after reasonable examination, and as fairly as possible.

HIRING: A team of rivals committed to lead with a visionary executive fully committed to the United States being a healthy and contributing global citizen. Lots of room for strength and power and savvy and brilliance and advocacy. Much need for inquiry and What If’s and wisdom unfolding integral and synergistic solutions.

In other words, dialogue and collaboration that is so important it cannot fail.

Are you ready to be a full collaborator - beyond your labor-management views? your socio-economic perspective? Your “job status”? your comfort zone? Your zebras-are-better-than walruses bias?

Am I? Yup!!! I’m all in….

Soon after the election I caught a commit made by Whoopie Goldberg, where she said something about feeling like she fully “belonged” here as an American citizen for the first time. That she could finally put down her suitcase. Her comment / commitment resounded inside me with familiar but as yet inarticulate feelings. I, too, feel like a committed patriot moving past history and hurt and fury, settling in for the long haul as an activist American again. Can’t say worry has fully disappeared, or that I am blind to all the work left to be done - from the obvious to the irony of Proposition 8 on the same day we elected our first black president.

Always hopeful and sometimes frustrated, frequently worried and occasionally overwhelmed, but in. Fully in.

I’m still taking this in. I would not be surprised if we look back on McCain’s concession speech and know that this - his best and most important speech of his life - did as much to heal the rift in America as the country did by choosing President-Elect Obama.  McCain implored us to be the best that we are, and beautifully demonstrated deep and true patriotism. A gracious introduction into the next chapter of our regenerative nation.

Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson all believed that America was a great experiment in democracy from which the entire world would benefit. Was it possible to create a nation that would protect the rights of the human spirit first and foremost? That was their main objective - and that is a breathtaking one, still to this day. A government whose primary objective was to protect the rights of the human spirit above all else - just reflect on that for a moment and all that has come from their efforts so many years ago. (Direct quote from Carolyn Myss)

She said it better and more succinctly than I; hence, the lead for today’s blog.

Last Saturday I was privileged to meet and speak briefly with Gloria Steinem at a private brunch. In summary and gratitude for her decades of undaunted commitment to full democracy, I mentioned that I hope (and believe) that culturally we are in the death throes of a dualistic world view. [Warning - brag moment coming] She acknowledged her agreement of my succinct and well stated summary. [okay, brag moment over]

I am ready for the death and rebirth. Too old to believe it will be a magical or instant shift, but I am, as Ms. Steinem self-described, a hopeless hope-aholic. I hope I never lose hope. Some parts of who we have become needs to die. Dualistic extreme generalizations that throw inaccurate and unfair labels out for the purpose of stirring fear, exaggerating difference, and making people wrong if they don’t agree with the opposition…. should die.

We have so many critically important changes to execute. A small and easy one will be, I hope, the permanent death of character assassination as an election strategy. I’m sickened when I hear a smart woman call a smart man a socialist repeatedly. I’m more sickened because no intelligent person of integrity can call Obama a socialist. Brian Moore, Socialist candidate for president, is the first to declare that the Obama-Biden ticket is anything but socialist. I’m disgusted by what seems to me to desparate tactics that have, unfortunately, worked in the past. I’m more disgusted because McCain promised early on not to run that campaign, especially since he seemed to take it so personally when it happened to him a few years ago.

Of course, McCain, Palin, nor the Republican National Party have confided their motivations in me, so I can’t confirm the tactics are desperate. In my mind, though, I hear panic hovering around the character attacks. It’s fundamental extremism unfairly manipulating America. I pray it does not work so that this inane strategy for winning at the expense of truth can die a good death, once and for all.

Regardless of my party affiliation, beliefs, or hope-aholism, I cannot vote for a team that apologetically and proudly fosters fear mongering. It promotes dualistic thinking, which fuels separation and judgment.

Tomorrow is the day. For many reasons, I hope we all vote for the candidate that has not demeaned his opponents or let his ambition override his commitment to fairness. While painful to listen to death throes, some habits, some cultural norms should never have become acceptable, let alone embraced by good people. Any extreme dualistic way of defining reality is nearly always wrong. I hope fear feeding by exaggerating our differences loses power and, eventually, dies.