“I want you to do X. What can I do to make X beneficial for you so that you would also want to do it, and we both profit from it?”
The mutual desire to want the other party to benefit along with you ensures continuous growth of all parties involved. For a business, this means the organization, its employees, and their clients.
How Does This Benefit Companies?
A Mutually Beneficial Arrangement (M.Be.A for convenience) forms alliances instead of hierarchies and gives rise to the spirit of one-ness.
M.Be.A creates a positive feedback loop, which improves performance and strengthens trust between teams. In a trust-rich work environment, employees don’t have to spend energy on watching their backs and protecting themselves from each other.
Some of the benefits of a mutually beneficial arrangement can be summed up as follows.
High intrinsic motivation
Low resistance and high productivity
Ownership of work
Work becomes fulfilling and rewarding
An integrated team with less friction
Reduced need for external incentives
Organizational and individual growth
Interest Breeds Interest!
When you know your peers and organization have your best interests covered, you give your best and more to the task. You work with a free and unburdened mind, and serve the common goal with greater vigor.
This increases individual productivity along with organizational output.
You can use this philosophy in every interaction, be it business or casual. You will see better results with M.Be.A’s than with the usual ‘I want the bigger piece of the pie’ attitude.
Is M.Be.A Really a New Concept
Nope, a M.Be.A is not a new invention. It is an impactful and well-recognised ‘influencing technique’ found in team-management studies. The concept of mutually beneficial arrangements works universally; it is a sustainable form of operation, which is even seen in nature.
Always getting what you want is not the goal; developing a culture where your peers always have your best interest in mind is.
M.Be.A and other allied empathetic philosophies create a profitable and sustainable professional ecosystem where the individual, the organization, and their clients flourish with each new interaction.
In the past decade, work cultures across the globe have transitioned from the ‘dog eat dog world’ to the ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours’, and are now moving into the ‘let’s grow together’ phase. ‘Mutually beneficial arrangements’ are the next step in the evolution of work culture.
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