You are always an integral part of an association, whether you are aware of it or not. The largely overlooked associations are the employer-employee partnership and professional partnership. Your ability to thrive, in your professional endeavors, at all times depends on how healthy your association is. Your growth also means more benefits for your partner, whether an employer or a colleague with whom you exchange ideas, services or products. In ecological studies, one is exposed to a variety of associations, including parasitic-where an organism, like blood suckers, feeds and survives at the expense of a host. The host may die thus leading to the death of the parasite. That's a detrimental association.
In a symbiotic relationship, both organisms survive and live together. A symbiotic relationship is the association where two different species live together, each benefiting, in one way or another, from its associate. Take a rhino and a certain species of birds-they live symbiotically. Each depends on the other for survival. The rhino has ticks that the bird needs for food. The bird helps the rhino in two ways. It remove ticks from the rhino's body and when it (the bird) sees an animal that might attack the rhino, it jumps up and down making the rhino know it is time to run for cover. They need each other.
If you build and treat your employer-employee partnership or professional association from a symbiotic relationship perspective, you increase your odds of always having a job, professional growth or business opportunities. The resources that you need to thrive under different circumstances will be within your reach in most cases.
Here are top on how to benefit from a symbiotic relationship.
1. Be governed by one motive-that, "What you do for yourself can get you by. What you do for others is what will get you ahead; whether in your profession, spiritual pursuits or relationships."
2. Know what the other party wants from the association. What skills do your think your employer needs to be profitable? What services, ideas or products does the other party want by associating with you?
3. You must be clear on what you want from the association before you waste your time, energy or even tangible resources.
4. Commit to give your best for the survival and thriving of the other party. Think about it, it's hard to be the first one to be downsized by a company that you have helped become profitable. It's hard for another party not to give you businesses if you have helped them succeed.
5. Always check with the other party to see whether or not it is still satisfied with your input, or your quality of services or products.
6. Be courageous enough to share ideas on how things can be improved, whether you are rewarded for your ideas or not.
7. Keep improving what you offer to the association, even when the improvement is not expected.
8. When things change, notify the other party before they learn about it from another source.
