The Obstacles to Working Together

“Most of life is an interdependent, not an independent, reality. Most results you want depend on cooperation between you and others.”    
-Stephen Covey

The various obstacles which keep us from working together include (at various times or in changing circumstances):

  • Lack of...  trust - respect
  • Lack of... voiced community expectation - awareness
  • Lack of...  perceived need for each other
  • Lack of... urgency - (complacency)
  • Lack of...  models - examples
  • Lack of... habit - tradition
  • Lack of...  structures and processes that bring us together regularly with that goal
  • Lack of...  skills - leadership capacity for bringing folks together for effective action
  • Lack of...  common focus - to make the changes so that we ARE working together 

and last but not least:  the PRESENCE of FEAR: that “we” will lose territory if we try to work with “them” (“they” will try to take over what “we” are doing)