Swimming with Bad Company in Toxic Waters
How much do you value your sanity?
How do you define trust?
Could you manage two intimate relationships?
Successful business partnerships are like successful marriages; the more you know your partner, their strengths and weaknesses, preferences and pet hates, the more comfortable you feel being open.
Too many partnerships end in resentment and acrimony.
Unbalanced distribution of effort and value.
One of you cares more than the other.
One of you is a weak link.
It doesn’t have to be binary and there are ways of working effectively together and guidelines on how to recognise a partnership that is likely to turn toxic.
IT WILL TAKE WORK, CONSTANT WORK!
According to Steven K. Scott, the single most important strategy in business is Effective Partnering. Your choice of business partners can make or break your business.
A lot of times, it’s the trial and error that makes you learn what you really want in a business partner. Because, most of the time, we excitedly partner with those people who bring the money, skills and knowledge that we don’t have to, the table — not knowing that there are other things to evaluate in choosing those who will help us achieve our business goals in the long run.
As these qualifications and “desires” can differ from one business person to another, there are some things that should help us keep our over-excitement in check, and choose our business partners wisely and with eyes wide open.
Here are some of those points:
- Shared values, vision and goals are most important. This can not be emphasized enough. There are many decisions in a business journey, especially when it comes to money, that will go through the crucible of disagreements — and if the business partners have the same vision, compromises can then be considered.
- You should have a clear vision of what each of your skills will mean, profit wise. The benefits are commensurate to the amount of work that each person brings. This should already be decided on, even before the partnership starts.
- In this increasingly digital age, it can be so easy to become obsolete if the business does not go with the flow. A business partner who doesn’t want to learn or is afraid of these new advancements will be a difficult person to carry.
- Trust is important between business partners. After all, you chose this person because you know that he or she is able to deliver what is needed. If this basic trust is not there, then you’d increasingly be doing things that are not even supposed to be on your plate — because you don’t trust that the other is able to do those things.
- One basic premise of entering a business is you want to bring a solution to a need in the world; and each business person should have that mindset. If this possible business partner gets overwhelmed with the problems and do not create or do not have the capacity to create solutions to resolve them, then it’s going to be a big problem along the way.
- Compromise is key between business partners and this should be communicated well and early into the venture. If there are disagreements because of really differing ideas or opinions, hashing it out with your business partner to get a mutually beneficial decision is good. All parties must have the mindset of wanting the partnership to work out.
It takes time to really know what you want but if these things are on your mind, then the work of finding the best partners for your business journey will not be as nearly as difficult.
How about you? Do you have any experiences in finding business partners that you’d like to share?
Cheers,
Rob
