Cooperation Is the Greatest Competitive Advantage (Part 1)

(Minghui.org) [This 2-part article builds on the same author's Lessons Gained from Reading the Traditional Culture Section on Minghui]

The business world recognizes the critical role that cohesive teams play in the success of a company. There are numerous test-cases in the business world that illustrate this. For example:

One Western business management expert changed the way entire industries work - from manufacturing, project management, supply-chain management, finance, marketing, sales, and strategy and tactics. He once attended a meeting of executives from some of the biggest companies in Japan, which were his clients. When sharing results from implementing his advice they were all talking about increased levels of cooperation and harmony in their respective companies. At some point he interrupted and asked what the “real” results were. They included increases in productivity, profits, and shorter lead times, etc.

They showed him the numbers, which indeed showed improvements - but explained that the results he was talking about are simply by-products of what they consider to be the results. They were discussing what mattered to them - cooperation and harmony. If these are achieved, they said, the organization was healthy and numerical results were guaranteed.

If the team doesn’t achieve cooperation and harmony, it may become crippled by distrust, politics, lack of accountability, and focus on individual results. Nothing good will last and the business may crumble.

Only then did he realize that his long-time and proven ideas, which are very rigorous and don’t have an emotional side, have been working so well only because they fundamentally and structurally eliminated “engines of disharmony.” They made it absolutely necessary for people to cooperate better.

I have now successfully implemented some of them in some of our business-like Dafa projects.

Background

Nine years ago I was made coordinator of our local media project. Looking back, I didn’t do a very good job. Despite my being fairly intelligent, capable, and enthusiastic, even with some management experience, we did not create a high quality product, generate enough revenue, or have a good cultivation environment.

Some years later I was removed from that position, in what I felt was a coup, which was strangely supported by my regional bosses. They later appointed me to another position in the regional management.

I wholeheartedly cooperated with their decision and fully applied myself to my new position, but for a while achieved the same kind of results as before. This caused me to take a serious, deep look inside, and try to figure out my own omissions.

I realized that being a coordinator and manager is a big responsibility that I have to do well, or not do at all.

Master said in Fa Teaching Given at the 2014 San Francisco Fa Conference:

“With you being a person in charge, Master has entrusted these practitioners to you, yet you don’t feel as though you are somehow responsible for whether they cultivate well or poorly? Yes, you are. I find that the cultivation states in some regions seem very lax. If you are at an everyday people’s company or are working at some job and you do things this way, then it’s considered just doing a halfhearted job. Can Dafa disciples just do a halfhearted job? What a serious matter this is.”

Management is a profession, so I needed to become a consummate professional to succeed in my role.

For me, it also meant realizing for the first time that people are what makes an organization tick. Thus, getting everyone on-board, enthusiastic, and wholeheartedly cooperative is as important as ideas, strategies and skills.

Further, it seemed like at that time my bosses didn’t fully trust me or back me up, so I felt I couldn’t make my subordinates follow my instructions. The only way I could do my job was to have my subordinates willingly want to follow my suggestions. So I had to do only what would provide true value to their work, and thus, to saving sentient beings (and not necessarily what I would “like” to do.) Then, through interacting with them, have them see this value too, and even improve upon it together. And not just in theory, but every day. I realized a good coordinator is serving others.

Once wholeheartedly on this path I began making real progress.

That is, by empowering the people I was managing to achieve real results for the organization. By the end of my tenure I had earned their trust to the extent that I felt my responsibility had gotten so much bigger, since by then they’d have followed my lead almost without question.

The Root Cause of Success

All companies seek a competitive advantage to survive, thrive, make money, and attain a leading long-term position in the market. What can our competitive advantage be? A clever strategy? A unique design? A top quality product? A cheaper price?

My limited understanding is that all the above things come as by-products of achieving cooperation and harmony. The root cause of our success is not our winning product or clever strategy – it is our ability to cooperate and harmonize well.

True Cooperation Is Key

Master mentions the importance of cooperation for success in Shen Yun ticket sales in “Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa - Fa Teaching Given at the 2011 Washington DC Metro Area Fa Conference”:

“As you realize, with the many projects that Dafa disciples have initiated in order to counteract the persecution, clarify the truth, and save sentient beings, what is most important is that Dafa disciples cooperate together well, and that only when people work together well will things go well.”

As well as in “Fa Teaching at the 2009 Greater New York International Fa Conference”:

“How sales go in a given locale is, in reality, a true, tangible sign of how well practitioners have cultivated and cooperated there.”

This is a critical issue. Good cooperation is not a “nice to have,” it’s a “must have.”

Thus, a key role that coordinators must play in our projects is to facilitate an environment of maximal cooperation. In such an environment, with guidance from the coordinator, project workers will begin to appreciate the need for professionalism (working wholeheartedly, acquiring new skills, developing strategy, etc.) which will soon become second nature – a part of the spirit of the organization.

To be continued...