Welcome to Opening Doors

CHANGE THE INTERACTION.

CHANGE THE EXPERIENCE.

CHANGE THE RESULT.

The basic building blocks of organizations are our interactions. This book offers a simple method for improving those interactions.

The work and the working environments of organizations are the sum of countless daily interactions. They are the very fabric and foundation of teamwork and collaboration.

While technology is enabling faster and better connectivity, human connection is moving at a much slower pace. In this time of so much change and so many unknowns and unknowables, our human interactions are not keeping pace.

Having clear interaction is critical, and yet we seem to find less time and less capability to understand each other. We expect Right First Time technological solutions, but we rarely expect or experience Right First Time human interactions. And while we may have tools to provide greater technological connectivity, we often lack the tools for human interaction connectivity.

Organizations are only as productive as the interactions that take place among individuals, teams, and work groups. Very few organizations address the quality of interactions, and—no surprise—very few organizations have been able to create the sense of excitement, energy, productivity, and shared mission that occurs when people truly join each other and experience strong, positive, collaborative, and productive interactions.

Opening Doors offers ways to have better, more productive, more satisfying interactions—Right First Time interactions—because increasingly, that first time may be only one of a few opportunities we get.

The Keys That Open Doors to Better Interactions, Teamwork, and Collaboration

Can you remember your early days on a new job? You felt excited, maybe a little scared. You saw doors opening for you to bring your skills to your team.

But over time, you became aware of how some doors closed when you felt judged by others. You stopped sharing a difference of opinion for fear of being seen as an outsider, and you did not feel safe to speak up. Other doors closed when you did not feel heard or took unneeded actions because you misinterpreted what people wanted or meant.

How often do the doors to greater teamwork and collaboration close—or never open—because people …

don’t trust each other?

don’t feel safe to speak up?

misunderstand each other’s intent?

don’t want to hear different points of view?

How much energy is wasted trying to figure out what is the right key that will unlock the door?

The power of the 4 Keys is that they work! They provide a common language to behaviors that is easily understood and that everyone can use. They open the doors to teamwork and interaction. And when the doors open, inside are the rewards of greater trust, collaboration, understanding, and breakthroughs.

Since we wrote Be BIG: Step Up, Step Out, Be Bold in 2008, we have seen the impact the book has made on people’s lives at all levels of organizations. People who once felt small found ways to be BIG—BIGGER than they could have imagined. People easily use the language of Be BIG; this alone helps them have the courage to raise issues and to challenge team members in a joining way to accomplish more together than they could alone. Be BIG continues to make an impact on how individuals see themselves, see their colleagues, and engage together as team members to achieve so much more. Just the notion of Being BIG and stepping up has changed lives.

The journey toward higher performance and the ability for individuals and teams to work more effectively together begins with Being BIG. That is an important start—to have the courage and to see the possibility of being better individually and collectively. But all too often, people struggle with how to Be BIG—how to unleash their own and their team’s potential. What is needed to help people Be BIG is to unlock the doors to improving human interactions, and the 4 Keys That Change Everything do just that.

That is the power of the 4 Keys—it is not magical; it is not complicated. It just takes a willingness to apply these behaviors to change your interactions.

This book is for anyone from the shop floor to the executive suite in search of higher performance, greater collaboration, faster and better decision making, stronger problem solving, and the ability to create breakthroughs. For individuals and teams in organizations around the globe, these 4 Keys have opened doors to improved performance. So …

if you want to experience greater trust, understanding, collaboration …

if you need to generate greater productivity and transformative breakthroughs …

if you are ready to achieve more with others than you can alone …

… then read on, and doors will open for you and your team members too.

A NOTE ABOUT THE VOICES IN THE 4 KEYS

In addition to the “we” voice—the voice of the authors, Judith and Fred—there are several other voices used in the book.

A voice explores the concepts of the book:

Appearing as first-person experience and is printed in blue type like this.

And as illustrated characters when providing their insights:

This voice appears in
typeface like this.

There is also an “I” voice that questions and has doubts:

“This voice appears in quotes like this.”

If this multiple-voice approach feels unfamiliar, we hope you will Lean into Discomfort and hang in there with us. We hope you will Listen as an Ally to try to understand the Keys from the perspectives of individuals who have actually worked with them. We hope the different voices help to clarify the Intent and Intensity of these Keys—what they are, how they are experienced by people in organizations, and how they work in real-life situations. And by Sharing our Street Corner with you, we hope it becomes clear that this process of listening to and joining with multiple voices—the reality of teamwork and collaboration—is the surest route to the breakthroughs we are all looking for in our organizations, our work, and our lives.