Thought Partnerships – Creating Outcomes Together

A thought partnership is: “A relationship formed between and among two or more people, in a value creating enterprise, that is formed for the purpose of generating social or intellectual value.”

These value products include such outcomes as:

Shared information

Collaboration to modify or change paradigms and assumptions

Engaging in social innovation

Adding to or enhancing existing skills, individually or for the group

Acquiring and transferring knowledge

A definition, in one sense, becomes a handle that becomes attached to an idea that allows people to manipulate it, to handle it, to examine it from different angles and perspectives, and to discuss it among themselves in an effort to achieve shared meaning.

Everyone can think of instances where people work together as thought partners in a variety of activities such as: learning/teaching, theory development, collaboration in complex activities, team working and/or problem solving.

The term "thought partner" provides us with a way to talk about, to consider and to explore the nature of that relationship.

By simply looking at the definitions of the two words we get a sense of the scope of this term. Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, 1996 defines:

Thought: the product of mental activity; the capacity or facility of thinking, reasoning, imagining etc.; a consideration or reflection

Partner: a person who shares or is associated with another in some action or endeavor; sharer or associate

Thought partnerships become the relationship interconnections that are key to the effective sharing of needed information.

They become the medium within organizations that facilitate effective collaboration, teamwork and the timely sharing of knowledge.

The interconnection of many thought partnerships then defines the organization as a social system. Think of them as the neural networks that enable complex thinking in the organization as a whole. Thinking is strongest when these connections are robust.

The premise of such a social system is the notion that thought partnerships manage knowledge and create a capability that is greater than the sum of the individual thinkers/participants.

In other words, “no one is as smart as everyone.”

This belief becomes a fundamental tenant of any organizational process that requires people to work together.

It also becomes a key ingredient in any leadership development effort. These ideas, when mixed with a sophisticated learning process traditionally referred to as “shadowing”, is what we are advocating as a new approach to sharing information.

Fire Testing Ideas:

Author’s Note: YI must acknowledge the input a thought partner of mine has had on my ideas in this section.
Mark Steele is both a friend and colleague who displays a vigorous commitment to thought partnering.
By education, Mark is a mining engineer and he stretched my thinking with the concept of fire testing.

In metallurgy, fire testing refers to a process for testing gold. If it were pyrite (fool’s gold), it would burn, smell bad and disappear. If the ore were gold, it would melt and purify when put into the flame.
This is a great metaphor for testing ideas.
One of the by-products of thought partnerships is the ability for fire testing ideas.
Are they great ideas, robust, hardy and valuable or are they ideas that sound lofty and solid until they are put to the test of close scrutiny or trial runs?
Many private companies and family businesses are bedeviled by advisors who serve up fancy ideas that sound good but which don’t have the ring of reality to the cautious ear of the street-scrapping business man or woman.
Their frustration often comes from the feeling that they have no way to test the ideas before launching an initiative that may or may not work for them.
Fire testing refers to a process for testing gold. If it were pyrite (fool’s gold), it would burn, smell bad and disappear. If the ore were gold, it would melt and purify when put into the flame. This is a great metaphor for testing ideas.
Great ideas are refined through authentic conversation, rigorous testing and shared thinking that serve to drive out the impurities.
Bad ideas disintegrate and can be eliminated. They can evaporate under the appropriate scrutiny of dialogue and conversation.
Thought partnerships become your laboratory for fire testing ideas before taking your company down a path that proves, long term, to be going nowhere.

The Jim McBride And The Affiliated Warehouse Companies Story: He does a nice job of demonstrating the power of creating thought partnerships with a variety of partners and customers as a key ingredient in how he does business. [Read Now]

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