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Friction is Your Friend: Why Sharing Values isn’t always Valuable

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I hear about it all the time… Collaborate with people who share your values. Really? You know why they say this? Because it is pleasant and easy. When you are around people who share your values you can agree all the time, because you are using the same basis for your judgements. There isn’t much friction. Maybe people who like writing about collaboration find it easier to achieve flow states when they are not experiencing friction. Maybe.

FrictionFireFriction Friend

But friction can be your friend. And not just when you are applying the brakes. You want to make a spark or start a fire? Friction. Friction can be your friend when you are trying to be creative. Friction can be your friend when you are trying to start a business. Friction can be your friend when you are trying to spark dialogue with your community.

Let’s take business for example. I have seen startups where two partners may as well have shared one head they were of such like mind. And neither of those minds had much business sense. Both were visionary. They valued the exploration of ideas. They seemed to struggle to come up with a way to generate revenue to keep going and reach some lift. Neither had much talent or interest in operations. On the other hand, you can take a very profit-centric person and team them with someone who values customer and community and away they go. That is not to say they don’t experience conflict or even strong conflict. They do. But they learn how to balance it. They don’t confuse sharing values with being valuable.

Share

Sharing is great. Share something with your collaborators. Values is just one axis. You might share a goal: keeping your neighborhood clean. But you might have different values driving the goal. One neighbor, Samuel might value the number otherwise known as property value which they believe is impacted by how clean the neighborhood is. Another, Joan, believes that “broken windows” talk from Tipping Point and feels that a cleaner neighborhood breeds less crime. Joan values being safe. And a third, Sandeep, simply values tidyness. Fine. They all want it clean. Share the goal. From different values.

A friend of mine, Steve Crandall, worked at Bell Labs. In one of his delicious storytelling sessions Steve mentioned working with someone – for years – who had a polar opposite political perspective. And yet, in the creative innovation space, the two of created well together. They didn’t need to share values to be innovative together and enjoy the pleasure of that work together. They shared a practice of innovating.

Value Time

There are certainly times when you should connect on your values. It can help reinforce your identity and give you support that you need. But if you want innovation or you want to connect a neighborhood or you want to create dialogue across political boundaries, work with the friction of different values and connect on some other dimension.

As I learned from Valdis Krebs, “connect on sameness and profit from your differences.” Please be intentional about which dimensions of difference and which dimensions of sameness.

Goals, Values, and Trust

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Yesterday on a terrific yitan call where Jerry Michalski introduced his fabulous offering of the REXpedition (guide to the relationship economy), I developed a mind-crush on Nicole Lazzaro. I loved her contributions to the IRC channel, and I am now reading more about her work with play and gaming.

One question she posed on the IRC chat really tickled me. She asked, “Wonder whether having a common goals or values create trust or are required or catalyze it?”

Trust, being an elemental particle of collaboration, fascinates me. And sure there is something about sharing common goals or values can facilitate the development of trust. But I would not say it is required for trust. For example, some families are split between progressives and conservatives and speak to clearly different values and goals. However, because the family is enduring and blood can sometimes be thicker than politics, there can be a measure of trust present. Trust for what?

  • Well, I may trust that my very conservative aunt is going to vote for a conservative.
  • I don’t trust her to vote on my behalf.
  • I trust her to watch my kids for an afternoon.
  • I don’t trust her to raise them if something happens to me.
  • I trust her real estate savvy, but I don’t trust her cooking.
  • I trust her to act on her goals and values, as I have seen her do consistently for decades.
  • I don’t trust her to give me advice on my career.
  • And I don’t trust her as a working partner on a project.

Trust is very contextual.

When I know someone’s values and goals, it is easier to develop trust. I may not need as much consistency over time to make myself vulnerable to someone who shares my goals, values, or beliefs. Sometimes we make these intuitive judgments about how aligned we are with someone else at hyperspeed. I met AB through a friend, we share several interests that rely on a set of values, and I know his company shares stated goals with mine. We were talking like old friends after an hour. I don’t need years worth of consistency to have some measure of trust with him.

We tend to talk about trust as if it is an on/off switch. But it isn’t. It is something we have to a degree and within specific contexts. Sharing values or goals can facilitate the development of trust, but I am not convinced they are required.