Professional Friendship, a Building Block for Cooperation
Kirjoittanut Jussi Meriläinen
As a celebration of Valentine’s Day, today’s InnoBlog lightly reflects on relationships as a central element in cooperation and professional friendship as a form of relationship.
Cooperation has a central part in day-to-day life in the Innovation Centre and it’s an important element in all our fields of expertise. It is essential when forming research-based business, and it should occur between researchers and companies. Inside university it is needed between faculties.
When a word is repeated enough, it starts to lose its meaning and fades. When repeated, cooperation is sounding more and more mechanic. Like a faceless handshake between organizations or comparing nameless CVs in teambuilding to gather the ultimate group.
And still all this interaction has a face. People work towards creating professional relationships and to form research teams and companies. They meet to establish common projects between different bases.
People as organizational interpreters
Many international company or research cooperations may be based on two employees with a decade of contact between them. A company can become a reality when a right person gets thrilled about another’s research. One employee with a base in university can be the mediator for a future joint project.
All this is possible when right people meet each other. Common interests and remarkable synergy benefits can be wasted if they didn’t meet. In summary: when people don’t get along and understand each other, neither do the organizations they are representing.
It takes time
The occurrence of these kinds of relationships is not random. They need to be worked on. The intensive networking is the day’s buzzword, but it underlines the sheer number of contacts. The focus is rarely on the professional friendship that is formed in cooperation and may develop over a long period of time.
Work related relationships aren’t usually referred as a friendship. Maybe they are found less sincere, because of the underlaying aim of benefit in their nature? Although the economic or other form of benefit may be the initiating factor, but can it alone create compassion and trust between people?
Jussi Meriläinen
Innovaatioviestinnän Yliopistoharjoittelija // Innovation communications Intern
+358 50 305 5741
jussi.merilainen@oulu.fi
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