Whole-Life Success Principles Podcast

Dori Etter
Welcome to the limited series podcast whole life success principles brought to you by the core leadership mastermind circle. I am your host Host Dori Etter

Susan Howard
and I am Susan Howard, your co host for this podcast and also founder of the core leadership circle.

Dori Etter
This limited series podcast will explore the tools and the frameworks used by entrepreneurs and thought leaders to grow themselves personally and professionally. We are glad you are here with us. Today, we are going to talk about transformational partnerships, what they are, how to create them, and how they elevate your game, both personally and professionally. Now, inside core leadership circle, we see this as one of our primary whole life success principles. And by the end of this episode, we think you will too. So Susan, let's get started with what does it actually mean to be transformational partners?

Susan Howard
Well, transformational partners is it's about a way of being together and relating to each other, with a higher level of accountability and vulnerability than normal relationships. So for example, in in normal relationship, typically the goal of the relationship is one of validation and agreement. Or it might be the opposite of that it could be competition and one upping. In our way of relating with each other, through Transformational Partnerships, the goal of the relationship is for mutual growth and evolution.

Another example that's typical, or part of the unspoken agreement in normal relationships is I want you to like me, and in our paradigm of transformational partnerships, the agreement is that I want you to grow and I want you to succeed. And so these tend to generate very different kinds of conversations and interactions than most people have in a normal day-to-day relationship.

Dori Etter
Absolutely. And this is, again, this is one of the core things that I think makes our mastermind so powerful is this idea that we're not looking for common relationships. But then the question becomes, outside of a setting like mastermind, how do people actually establish this way of relating?

Susan Howard
Well, first of all, in order to create a transformational partnership, you actually have to really want to. You can see this by those examples. There has to be a mutually agreed upon intention, that that's what we're going to be creating together. So if I want a relationship that's based on support and growth and empowerment, and you want a relationship that's about agreeing with each other about certain things, then that's a very different kind of interaction and it's not going to work. So you have to both really want to, because it's not something you can fake your way through, or play it safe through. So it's really not for the faint of heart, because it really raises the bar on relationships and raises the bar on the quality of the conversation. So it really has to start with agreements.

Dori Etter
And so what exactly do you mean by agreements?

Susan Howard
Agreements are the foundation of basically any relationship, whether it is spoken or unspoken, agreements are essential. And they're fundamental, especially in working relationships or even in personal relationships. They're like an essential tool toward accomplishing things together. So agreements give us direction, they let us know what we can count on each other for. They establish the foundation for our relationship with each other. If you're part of a company, then it establishes the foundation for the relationship with your clients and the company. But our ability to fulfill on agreements represents the core of our personal integrity with each other. And if you're part of an organization, it also represents the core of organizational integrity. So through our ability to reliably keep agreements with each other, people find out if we're reliable or unreliable, if we're responsible or not, trustworthy or not, dependable or not. And so in our community, in our mastermind community, we establish a set of agreements or kind of rules of the game that are based on core values that we hold. And everybody signs off on these agreements, kind of the thing that we all begin with. For example, one of the core values in this community is about presence - being present. So one of the agreements under the core value of presence is - I agree, to be present, which means to show up on time, to be fully engaged. To bring my most authentic self forward with openness, and courage. And so that's an agreement that we're making with each other. And that's very different than a relationship where you just agreed to kind of casually be together. So you can see how much more intentionality is present when there's an agreement that we're holding each other accountable for.

Another example of an agreement we hold under the core value of responsibility, which is another one of our core values, is - I agree to give up blaming and complaining, and instead, I will turn all complaints into direct requests for action, and I'm willing to be supported and coached by fellow members in this. So that's a big agreement, because in most relationships, blaming and complaining is a normal part of the conversation. And we're all agreeing that we're taking that out of how we relate to each other and to the world. And so we listened for that in each other's speaking. And we bring that to each other, each other's attention when its present.

Dori Etter
And you said that agreements are sometimes written and spoken about like these. And then there are unspoken agreements. So is it possible to create a transformational partnership inside a relationship that has unspoken agreements?

Susan Howard
Well, I think every relationship has unspoken agreements. I mean, you know, anytime that you're relating with somebody, there are certain assumptions that we're all operating out of. A lot of times, they're just live in the background of, you know, our agreements and how we relate to each other. One of the things I used to do is go in and companies and help them develop their organizational culture. And I would start by just going into the company and listening to the ways that people spoke to each other in the organization, listening in on meetings. And you could hear it, you can hear the unspoken agreements that were present in the conversation. For example, we agree to not bring up anything that's uncomfortable, or that somebody might have a negative reaction to - that can often be an unspoken agreement. Or I agree to not bring up anything that I noticed you're doing that is unproductive if you agree to not bring up anything I'm doing that is unproductive. So these little collusions that go along, that are actually a lot of what we're kind of raised with culturally, it's a kind of an etiquette that we grow up in, and then they have an expectation that we have in in normal ways of relating, which is why creating transformational partnerships requires this really naming of what the agreements are like what are the what are our rules for relating together and then crafting a set of rules that really elevates conversation. So like in our mastermind, and you know, people can do this in any community in which they establish these kinds of guidelines. But it's like, when we come together each month, it's like we're coming into a almost like an alternative world where the rules are different. Because we all go back out into our everyday lives where our agreements with other people don't consist of this. It's like, you go home and you talk to your sister or your friend or your mother. And we're not agreeing to bring certain things to each other's attention, or they're calling each other on stuff. It's like walking into an alternative universe that we're all creating, through these agreements that we have with each other is that we're up to something else together.

Dori Etter
I know that many of the people, myself included, have actually utilized this framework to create conscious agreements in other relationships. Both business relationships, I know we have one of our mastermind members who actually has a foundational agreement based on core values with every client that they take on. And, like you said, it creates an entirely new kind of relationship. And that new kind of relationship is really based on something that many people have a challenging relationship with. And that is accountability. In the mastermind, we have a particular way of engaging in holding a person accountable and I'd love for you to share a little bit about that here.

Susan Howard
Normally, when we think about holding somebody to account in an organization, you know, you're going to be held to account or when your parents used to say you'll be held to account, it usually wasn't something good. It usually meant that some form of punishment or criticism or shaming was rapidly coming in our direction. And we really want to come completely away from that idea about accountability or holding each other to account. So in our community when we hold somebody to account, we do that in the spirit of empowering that person, to find their own agency, and to be able to take action where there's been a lack of action. And we do this through inquiry, asking really good questions and giving really astute feedback to the person so that at the end of the conversation, if the person hasn't learned something or they haven't been enabled through your interaction with them to move forward, then they really have not been effectively held to account. In fact, if you're in any way diminished or disempowered in taking effective action, or feel shamed In some ways, and you have not been held to account.

Dori Etter
that's quite a different frame.

Susan Howard
Yeah, it's a very different frame. And we use this word sponsorship, we sponsor each other toward our highest possibilities. So sponsorship is about recognizing and acknowledging core characteristics and core values of another person. Who they are as a person, their value as a human being. So we really look for and help reveal these qualities and potentials within each other. Sponsorship is about being an advocate for someone the way that you are an advocate for your favorite athletic team or somebody in the competition. We're really being for each other.

Dori Etter
It's a really powerful experience of being in the mastermind and experiencing this sense of sponsorship. And also, frankly, this sense of being held to account because that notion of being empowered out of that kind of a conversation. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's extremely powerful. And I know part of the reason it's extremely powerful is because we build on a foundation of trust. Inside the mastermind, we talk a little bit about trust in a variety of different ways. I think, again, part of what we're really doing in the mastermind, is deepening our understanding of a variety of distinctions that give us more power in the world. And the way we think about trust, I think, is one of those powerful distinctions.

Susan Howard
Trust is also based on on agreements that we have with each other. I mean, there has to be clear agreements in order for trust to begin to be established, because trust and vulnerability are closely related and we're not going to be more vulnerable with each other unless we understand the ground rules that were really agreeing on for how we relate to each other. When I used to work with leadership teams, going into companies, one of the questions that I would ask them always was, what are your agreements about how you work together and relate to each other? And I never got anything other than a blank stare, when I would pose that question. Nobody could ever answer that question because they had not actually established really clear agreements, and really clear intentions for how they will work together and how they will support each other. How they will deal with difficult situations, how they will deal with issues between each other when they have relationship breakdowns. So none of those things were established. And then you can track all of the problems that happened between people in leadership teams back to these unclear agreements that they have. Agreements are part of what really helps establish trust. But in mastermind, we also distinguish trust in a couple of ways. And then we move toward a more generative, responsible way of creating trust. So normally, we think about trust as something we call relative trust. So relative trust is the kind of trust that we have between ourselves and others, which kind of depends. It's conditional. Does this person keep their agreements? Are they reliable? Are they well intended? What are the behaviors like? What are their capacities, their capabilities? And that's fine. That's a relative kind of trust. If you don't ever keep your agreements with me, I realize that about you, that you have difficulty keeping agreements. So I take that into account when I'm asking you to do something. But in generative trust, this is the kind of trust that we really work toward, and is the foundation of transformational partnerships. It really starts with the choice to trust - we're going to choose to trust. And it's based on mutual commitment, and it includes the recognition that we will have breakdowns in trust. I've never seen a relationship that didn't at some point has some kind of breakdown in trust. But that when we do, we're going to discover what's needed to restore it. And by doing that we rebuild and actually generate greater trust. In the process of that, resentments are worked through, hurt feelings are worked through and that working through it together becomes the pathway to greater commitment and to more mature relationships, more developed relationship.

Generative trust is blame free, yet it also holds ourselves accountable for our actions and other people accountable for their actions. We take responsibility for our own part in a relationship breakdown, including our own feelings and our own interpretations. Basically, what we're talking about is everybody looks at their own agency, in whatever is showing up in their relationship, as well as in other parts of their life. Agency is different than the New Age adage of "you create your own reality" or "you create everything." It's more about really elevating your ability to impact and influence the results of your own life by, first of all, seeing where you can take responsibility for what's showing up. So in transformational partnerships, we assist each other in doing that.

Dori Etter
And I love when you said take responsibility for what showing up. That is a concept that people often sort of push up against, because there's a conversation that says things are happening to me. That there are things happening in the world that are outside of my control. And so how do I actually take responsibility for that?

Susan Howard
Yeah, and it sure feels like that a lot of the time! It feels like things are happening to us. We understand that we all have that experience, but we hold that responsibility is a choice. It's not a conversation of "Did I create this?" Which is really a conversation about the past. I may be able to look to the past, and see some connection about that, but it can be arguable. What we're really talking about is a way of relating to what's showing up in the present. How can I relate to what's showing up now, from an ethic responsibility. This is not something that can be imposed or demanded, you can't require people to take responsibility. But it occurs as an outgrowth of a choice or freedom, and also our willingness to accept that our experience of life and ourselves and other people has something to do with us. But when we do this, we experience and confront aspects of ourselves - our fears, our self doubt, our need for approval, our willingness to own our own power - and people who can't make this move, of being willing to take responsibility and confront themselves, largely experience life from perspective of being a victim - life has happened to me. And they feel disempowered to really create change in their life. So when you take responsibility, you begin to see the connections between the way things are showing up, and the results of your own choices and your actions and your thinking and your behavior. And then when you do that, you can make a judgment.

Dori Etter
That's really about being empowered. And again, in the context of what we're doing inside this core mastermind, it really is about creating the success that you want to have. And that comes from taking that responsibility and taking that agency. And these transformational partnerships in this model of engaging with each other, actually is a huge component of empowering that kind of responsibility as a choice.

Susan Howard
With these transformational partnerships, people find these become relationships that are unlike anything that people normally experience in life. You know, we have different rules for relating socially, that are different than the normally agreed upon types of etiquette that disallow for pointing out inconsistencies in someone's speaking or inviting them to take responsibility for what's showing up in their life. I mean, we usually just agree to ignore those things. So, in transformational partnerships, the idea is that we're here to wake ourselves and each other up. We're here to wake up and it requires being more self aware, it requires being more conscious of other people. It requires a willingness to have an uncomfortable conversation. However, you find that these people become friends for life because you know you can count on each other to tell you the truth, to be for each other, and to become sponsors for each other. So that's why I say it's a little bit like walking into an alternative reality, because the way we are relating - the rules for how we relate - are different.

Dori Etter
I also want to say that I have, after many years now, of being a part of the mastermind, and I think both myself and many of the other people in the mastermind also experienced the ability to create these kinds of relationships in other environments. Obviously, the agreements, the types of agreements that we make, and frankly, in some cases, the level of transparency in those agreements is sometimes different than this. But I think it's safe to say that most of the people in my life have had an understanding from me, that they will probably experience me being a call for them to wake up and looking at how do I use our relationship to wake myself up as well. So I do think it's something that that we carry in the mastermind, but it's something that permeates all aspects of our lives, which is really why I do the mastermind.

Susan Howard
Yes, this can bring a higher awareness into into all of your conversations with other people. And yet again, like I said, this whole thing is a partnership. So, you're not doing a partnership by yourself. You're coming into relationship with somebody where you're saying, "Hey, you know, these are the agreements that I'd like to make with you. Is this something you'd be interested in?" rather than, "I'm going to just do this. And you can run screaming into the night, if you don't like it."

Dori Etter
Tthat's happened to me a couple of times, but you know, that's okay.

Susan Howard
That's okay. Sometimes, that's just fine. We can establish this, but it's an intentional conversation. And it's an ongoing conversation. We come back to this - we come back and we revisit this. And we revisit these, these rules and these agreements with each other so that we really keep it alive in the context of our conversations.

Dori Etter
What we would like to do for those of you that are listening is we would like to give you this transformational partnership chart, that's really designed to empower you to create a transformational partnership in your own life. We would like to invite you to just explore - Who could that person be, who could you try this out with? Download this transformational partnership chart and and give it a shot, see what kind of growth and development and transformation can come into your own life from taking on this level of expanded possibility and responsibility in a relationship.

Susan Howard
Or, invent your own. It's really this intentionality. So we're going to offer this to you as "these are the roles we play by." Feel free to use them or create your own. But again, you have to come back to, what is the intention? What is the quality of the kind of relationship that you want to have with somebody in your life or with a group of people that you're participating with? And then in order to have that, what are the agreements that you have, that you'll need to make with each other? And then what are the roles of the game and what are the roles that you play by?

Dori Etter
That's awesome. And I'm going to let you know where you can get a copy of that transformational partnership chart. So you'll be able to find it in the show notes with this episode. You'll be able to download that to help you see all of the ways that transformational partnership is different than what we'll callour typical unconscious relationship. And you can listen to this and look at creating your own transformational partnership. Also on that site is where you can find out more about the core leadership circle. And you can schedule opportunity to speak with Susan about how the mastermind community might be able to empower your personal and professional goals for 2020,If that is something that is of interest to you. And we thank you very much for listening today.

Susan Howard
Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai