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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2012-12-28
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKGkBRk1kSo
you know I tell you be entertaining speaker being here all the state is pretty amazing it's a however humility tricked me I just about the time you think maybe you made a difference in the world the next speakers up I playing the so it's interesting as I travel around the world to do you think people are asking me is that I need new no more about
collaboration I think people are finally getting with the speed of change nowadays that you can't learn everything by yourself if you want to stay up to date you need to learn from other people and that people are finally getting that no one of us is a smart as all of us and %HESITATION so you might say well Blanchard you know you're going to talk to us
about collaboration would what's your credentials well I've I've written over fifty books which I guess is not too bad for a guy that goes to my professors told me in graduate school I could write and they said if you want to be around a university you better be a college administrator could still with the publisher parish will never make it so out it's so interesting I
never forgive my mom said to me one day she said can I want to write a book by yourself and I've only written two books by myself and all the rest of them with other people the my seventieth birthday party I invite all my co authors to come together %HESITATION kind of for you know to ZZ Maury gathering you know that %HESITATION and %HESITATION it was
really kind of fun to spend a day and a half kind of sharing some of the simple truths that we've learned over the the years and %HESITATION who is really a hoot but the biggest question people ask me is how could you collaborate with so many different people with different personalities and different egos and %HESITATION so what I wanted to share with you three collaborations that
I've had this to maybe give you some thoughts about collaboration for yourself because I think all of us today need to be able to reach out to people around this and learn from them and then learn from from us my first a job coming out of graduate school I was assistant to the dean of the college of business at Ohio University when I got there the
dean said to me Kenny said I want you to teach a course no of course I never thought about teaching of course because of the publisher parish kind of thing resettle carry the but don't want to teach a course so I did %HESITATION and after about two weeks they came home to my wife Margie and I said no this is what I ought to be doing
this teaching is really fun she so what about the writing I still don't know all figure some out about that but at the same time that I came Paul Hersey hinges Combest chairman of the management department he was kind of a rising star in the leadership area and I heard you could talk a great leadership course so in the fall of nineteen sixty six I went
up to Paul Phyllis appointed Stanley Tucci great leadership course you mind if I sit in next semester and he said nobody orders my course you want to take it for credit you're welcome any walked away I thought that's really kinda nice in that you know rely on a P. a steam he did and the he was he was a good course I went home of course
you might chief %HESITATION advisor Margie and she said to me well is he any good as a teacher essays posted a great she so we'll get your ego out of the way and take his damn course are so which is exactly what I did I took the course and I wrote the papers with everybody else and in June nineteen sixty seven after the court's mercy comes
into my office uses Kenny said you know I've been teaching leadership for ten years I think I'm better than anybody but I can't write I'm a nervous wreck and they want me to write a textbook and I've been looking for a good writer like you I work full nag him you know I always lived allow but he had read my papers and I said well what
do we do it will be a great team you care right now I'm not supposed to OneNote what'll we do and so we wrote a textbook call management of organizational behavior the students loved because her see I don't know any big words and not and it just came out his tenth addition and sells more today than the nineteen sixties envoy and they are Gloria no one
will learn from that a couple of things I think your whole think about don't let anybody else tell you what you can do or can't do if you had a vision about what you want to do go for it have that vision you'll figure a way out to do it don't let anybody limit you in the other thing is that if you meet somebody who really
wants to accomplish something and you also want to accomplish something and together you can do it well that's a really powerful collaboration Paul wanted to write this text book so he could promoted to full professor and I wanted to write something so I could become a professor no in fact it was interesting I went to the dean after the book came out I said I criticism
ministry he said you can't quit I so why not he said I was going to fire you I still want to hear a lousy administrator which I guess I was and us so we finally agreed it was a photo finish between him firing me in my quitting %HESITATION and %HESITATION but that was my first big collaboration writing the second big one happen when Margie and I
moved here to San Diego and we were invited to a a cocktail party for authors in San Diego and I guess because I had a textbook I qualified and Margie met Spencer Johnson the cocktail party and Spencer at that time was a children's book writer some of you might even read some of his books his kids call value tales you know whole series of books like
the value of a sense of humor the story of Will Rogers an aunt Margie kind of broad Spencer over in me he said you two should write a children's book for managers they will read anything else done and that was the beginning of one of the most amazing collaborations around the one minute manager and we met in the first week in November we had a first
draft of the book by the end of December the book wrote us but the th interesting learning on that is sometimes the most interesting collaborations is when you both bring to the party very different things and here's a children's book writer an emerging guy in the leadership area working together and deciding this change publishing for businesses to write a parable %HESITATION hundred page book about this
one minute manager because I was a storyteller and he was a children's book writer and %HESITATION we were on the today show on September nineteen eighty two one week later one on the bestseller lists and missed never left for years and we just celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of that book can you imagine %HESITATION and so that was amazing collaboration of two people bringing different skills and
different things for the party a third collaboration I want to tell you about was probably my most fun one it was a collaboration with Norman Vincent Peale so me you might have heard of Norman he wrote a fabulous book if you haven't read it called the power of positive thinking you can not nineteen fifty two stills a major cell cellar he was eighty six years old
when I met him and a friend told me an interesting thing about collaboration really listen to this one because it's so important he said there are two parts of collaborating with anybody else one is essence in the other is formed essence is heart to heart values to values informants how are you going to do it and he said be careful in a relationship when somebody wants
to go to form right away because if they do that you'll always get bit right on the tail but as essences gotta come first and it was interesting at the time I had an idea of writing a book called the power of positive management so I went to a well known author in that hole positive thinking field see if he wanted to write it with me
and all he wants to talk about was for who is going to do one how we gonna divide the royalties what are we gonna do about marketing and all that so I decide to pass about a week later I get a call from Larry use who is the president William Morrow publishing company are publishers of time he said I heard you were disappointed your meeting week
or so ago he said have you ever thought about writing a book with Norman Vincent Peale and I said is he still alive amid my parents a gun whose church before I was bored and stay should not always you live is unbelievable and so I flew to New York and had lunch with Norman and his wife Ruth and Larry and I and our agent no I
tell you the three hour lunch there was not one mention of four there was all essence Norman Russi can tell me about yourself tell me about Margie tell me about what you guys low value of what this this is who we are and all and he ended up lunch Norman turned to Ruth and asked her the ultimate essence question he said Ruth should we write this
book with this young man man hours over forty years younger and he was Andrew said absolutely under one condition I so what condition is that so from now on we get together you'll bring your wife Margie the four of us will work on this together and it was unbelievable we would fly there and and this makes them for two days over a weekend with a tape
recorder and %HESITATION the form was not clear we started we ended up actually writing a book called the power of ethical manner integrity pays you don't have to cheat to win I want an impact two of them had in our lives not only in terms of our thinking about things but our own spiritual journey and all those kinds of things so you know how many of
you here would really like to make a difference in the world okay how many of you have a plan see what I is that most people don't have a plan but you know you have to think about how can you make a difference in the world what is your strategy but I guess my strategy has been to collaborate with other people five people who have a
message that maybe need to get it out that I could learn from what I could do something with the could maybe do you do a difference in the world and I think that's important for each of you here to think about have you met here somebody today was there somebody you know you're kind of fascinating about that might be really interesting to see if there's a
way you can work on something together so that one plus one is a lot greater than two because you know what the world is really needs is about is people who want to make a difference and we've heard that constantly the day you finally become an adult I think when you realize you who serve not to be served if you're here to give not to get
I think it's only appropriate I end my remarks with you about collaboration telling you a story from a good friend of mine John or burgers a wonderful pastor writer and wrote a wonderful book called at the end of the game it all goes back in the box and it's a wonderful story about him his grandmother when he was young his grandmother was a terrific monopoly player
and may never play monopoly and you let he said his grandmother was a vicious monopoly player when she played she act like she was the illegitimate child of an affair between Donald Trump and Martha Stewart and at the end of the game appear in the game she had everything she had nothing had nothing and grandma would get the smile on her face and she said John
someday you're going to learn how to play the game then one summer when he was about twelve or thirteen this kid moved next door who is an incredible monopoly player and John practice with this kid every summer there all summer because he knew his grandmother was coming September Boeing Graham arrived here and the housekeeper hugging and kissing uses grab how about a monopoly and her eyes
lit up Lesko John but he was ready for this time when he came out of the shooting who wiped his grandmother out in the end the game yet everything yeah Broadway hit part place she had not he said it was the greatest day of his life and his grammar smiled Lisa John now you know how to play the game let me tell you a lesson about
life it all goes back in the box so was everything you bought everything you cumulative the only thing you get to save a life is your soul and that's where you store who you love and who love you I love the ending of ghosts if you've seen that got more play recently because Patrick Swayze a diverse a story of this financial adviser who is killed by
a supposed friend ecosystem on earth as it goes through protect his girlfriend Molly played by demi Moore they use to communicate for this real character the Whoopi Goldberg plays Colin may and at the end of the movie his vengeance death info through Harlem move type of of Molly's apartment and also looks up in this white light is coming towards her note amazes their common for you
Sam he goes and stands in front of Molly and if you saw that movie he never told Molly he loved her Miley would say Sam I love you over at Sam say general and now with tears coming down the size he since Molly I've always loved you I'm really love you and she's quiet and she says it all and he turns to face still live he
turns back one last time the system Molly the remarkable thing about this is that you can take to love with you and that's all you're gonna take out of here and I want to tell you if you want to continue to grow and develop reach out to other people work with other people learn from other people and the love of people that's what it's all about
