We practice what we know—over and over—until what we are trying no longer works or has diminishing returns. At that point, we acknowledge that know-how or routine behavior won’t help us and we are ready to surrender to another way. When we utilize our inner resources to learn new pathways we innovate. That takes emotional labor.

It’s hard enough to cooperate when we work with people in person, let alone across various geographies. Distributed teams are becoming more and more prevalent, making our ability to develop and manage relationships that much more important.