When you think and act reciprocally, almost immediately three magical things begin to happen – Firstly, you feel good about yourself and those you work with. Secondly, they feel good about themselves and those they work with, and finally, just when you least expect it (because if you expect it, it won’t happen), those that you work with start thinking and acting in ways that help you to be successful.

 

For us, Reciprocity simply means ‘a focus on the other’: our ability to move away from an exclusive focus on our own perspectives and seek to understand the perspectives of those we are in partnership with. 

In terms of partnership success, it works like this...

"We have our own ideas about any number of particular aspects of partnership and that’s great. However, we recognise that for the partnership to be successful, it is critical that we understand the thinking of those we seek to be or are in partnership with".

'Other-discovery' is the practice of Reciprocity . At the simple level, the practice involves asking those we are in partnership with two very straightforward reciprocity questions…

 

“Please, tell me what YOU think?” and “Why is it that you think this way?” 

The complexity of the practice becomes apparent as we seek to maintain this ‘other’ focus. In other words, it's simple enough to ask the questions. It's a much more complex practice to actually care about and use the answers we get to shape our future thinking.

The ability to act reciprocally is fundamental to the on-going development of in-depth shared understandings and shared agreements: the foundations of sustained partnership success.

A FOCUS ON “THE OTHER”