One of the independent experts who supports me in my business is my programmer, who has been working with me for about three years now.

My tech guy (as I like to call him) and I are in the midst of several big projects. In working together, it reminds me about how awesome the dynamic is when you work with someone with whom you have an ongoing relationship. Not to mention just being able to hand over work to someone else who knows what they’re doing so that my brain stays free for ideating (to borrow the term from the IBM commercial).

That’s not to say that I just throw work at him and forget it. It’s a participatory process.

I need to pay attention to his questions as they come up, and respond in a timely manner.

I appreciate his skills, attention and responsiveness, and give him the respect of responding quickly when has a question or needs feedback from me.

He is doing work that is important to me, after all, and it would be both rude and wasteful to make him wait on me for an undue amount of time.

The wonderful thing is that there’s a mutual respect that occurs in this dynamic, one that creates a whole other creative level for brainstorming and innovation to occur.

And for clients, it’s like this when you work with an Administrative Consultant as well.

The participatory process that is inherent in the collaborative partnership is why clients are able to accomplish so much more with an Administrative Consultant.

The back-and-forth give-and-take creates a synergy that allows you to work together at a higher, more productive level.

And the longer you work together and get to know each other, the easier and better all of that gets.

You can’t get that kind of dynamic working with someone impersonally or only occasionally on a transactional basis.

It’s something that only comes by working in close, one-on-one partnership with someone over a period of time.

The longer you work together, the more your shared body of knowledge and intimate familiarity grows and the more cohesively and intuitively you are able to mesh, think and work in sync.