15 September 2009
Want a Successful Business Partnership? Don’t Withhold.
Posted by admin under: Navigating Partnerships .
Successful partners keep an open line to each other. They keep each other informed and up to date. When someone gossips about your partner to you, you ask them, “I’m not sure why you are telling me this. Have you already mentioned it to my partner?”
Don’t get caught up in gossip, especially if someone tells you it is confidential.
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Successful partners share relevant information and possible solutions with each other. Their intention is clear: to create successful outcomes, not hoard the information to look good at some later time.
Successful partners share their emotions with each other. They say things like. “I’m concerned. Maybe you are too. Let me tell you how I feel about our meeting earlier today. I want to get something off of my chest about something you said about my project. When you said, we need to scrap the project without talking to me first, I felt upset. Can you understand why your comments upset me?”
The Bottom Line
Successful partners don’t harbor grudges or resentments. They know how they feel and are committed to eliminating or reducing the tension that they experience by talking it out. Withholds lead to resentments. Saying what’s on your mind leads to clarity and problem solving.
- Don’t withhold information.
- Don’t keep secrets.
- Don’t keep your feelings to yourself.
- Don’t keep stories that other people tell you about your partner to yourself. Don’t keep solutions to yourself.
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2 Comments so far...
Sofia Clark Says:
15 September 2009 at 2:52 pm.
My father used to said that “the fastest sinking ship was a partner-ship”.
I started a corporation with a person I knew for a very long time because I thought that he would help make our business stronger, but it was the worst mistake I have ever made. He just did not do his share and was very dangerous around the money. After that error, I have been flying solo.
moss jackson Says:
16 September 2009 at 10:17 am.
Hi Sofia,
Thanks for you comments. I can appreciate you father’s insight. Most partnerships do not work out well, either from the financial or personal perspectives. The most important place to start is at the beginning: are the partners aligned on where the business is going, what their individual roles and responsibilities are, and do they possess the values and personal compentencies to keep their word and get the job accomplished? Is more prospective partners understood the need to qualify a partner candidate and do the work up front, they would probably make better decisions to create a partnership or to walk away from it early on.
