Failure has gotten a bad reputation over the years. But here’s a fact of life: Everybody Fails! Failure is part of the success formula. People explore, initiate, and act on their hunches, and the information at hand. Most of the time they make mistakes, sometimes they screw up big-time. Gradually they cut out the stuff that doesn’t work: and keep the stuff that does.

People should be encouraged to fail—its part of risk-taking, learning, and success. There is a practical side of failure: partners learn from experience, become more resilient, and develop tougher hides. Many have taken the path of discovery and failed along the way only to try again, each time learning what not to do the next time.

Thomas Edison eventually succeeded by taking this path. So did Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford, Oprah Winfrey, and Walt Disney.

What’s the difference between partnerships that succeed and those that don’t?

Successful partners fail just like unsuccessful ones do. The difference is that successful partners think creatively about their mistakes. They learn, adapt, and act. They keep their focus on where they’re going. Failure spurs them on. They know that success is the best revenge.

Partners who become victims of failure take their downturns personally. They don’t use them as the terrific learning opportunities they are. Victim partners tend to repeat patterns that pull them further off course into a downward spiral.

Stay focused on your key targets, what you’re building and learn from your mistakes. Just never commit that mistake again. Make a “new” mistake instead.

Bottom Line

• Everyone fails.
• Don’t take it personally!
• The bigger the dream, the more likely it will fail – at least initially.
• In the face of failure, learn to control your emotions, especially anger and fear.
• Manage your thinking to stay focused and productive.
• Give yourself an “A” every time you fail; you’ve given yourself an opportunity to learn.

What’s important to you? What makes you tick? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What triggers you? What are you passionate about? How do you impact others? Are you easily motivated and energized? Or are you often frustrated, annoyed, and disengaged? Are you doing work you like, or are you just going through the motions?
As you go through the day, pay attention to your state of mind.

Every once in a while, stop for a moment and ask yourself, “How am I doing here? Is there anything I need to get off my chest? Am I avoiding a particular conversation with someone? How do I want to come across to my partner and others?”

Whether or not you are actually interacting with your partner and others, you are impacting them. You are not an island separated from others. Just as the water and wind between islands touch each island shore, your presence affects everyone in your company.

You are influencing the “emotional climate” and productivity of those around you. Your tone of voice, and nonverbal behavior “speak” volumes, even more so than your actual words. People pay attention to your underlying mood and attitude. You can’t hide your true feelings. You are a key contributor to the emotional climate of your organization.

Bottom Line

• Effective people pay attention to their thoughts and emotions.
• Your partner (and others) can sense your attitude and feelings, no matter how well you think you are hiding them.
• They will probably think the worst and take your “mood” personally.
• Ask your partner for feedback about your perceived attitude or behavior.
• Ask yourself if your current state of mind and behavior are getting you where you really want to go.
• If the answer is “no” then take steps to change how you are thinking or behaving. Ask yourself what’s really important. Then think about some actions that will contribute something of value to that issue, problem or result.

I learned about “A Weekly Focus” at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in the Colorado Rockies I noticed that the staff was extraordinarily cordial, personal, and crisp in service delivery throughout the resort. Intrigued, I asked the general manager how everyone was able to stay so focused and consistent. He suggested I attend their daily employee orientation meeting the next morning. That’s where I learned about the “Daily Focus Strategy”.

During the brief 15-minute meeting, the GM asked an employee to recite the organization’s mission statement, which was: “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” The GM then picked one of the mission’s 12 guiding principles as a daily focused action for that day. He chose, “Put a smile on every customer’s face through extraordinary service.” For that day, every employee would focus on giving extraordinary service that would win smiles from satisfied customers.

Partners may find it useful to create “A Weekly Focus” for them instead of a daily focus. You and your partner would choose a particular action to practice the entire week that would enhance the quality and power of your partnership. It could be something like, “Listen first, speak second” or “Keep every agreement.” A weekly focus provides an opportunity to more fully practice a key competence over a longer period of time. At the end of the week you could spend a few minutes together to assess the impact of your focused action. The following week you could choose another weekly focused action.

Bottom Line

• Look over the posts in this blog and select one to put into practice for a week. Ask your partner to join you in this practice.
• Each week, try another weekly focus to practice.
• Encourage others on your team to also practice the weekly focus. Make it a group effort.

A partnership is a lot like marriage: the reasons two people stay together are usually not the reasons they got together in the first place. As life progresses, each person evolves and changes. Unless individuals adapt to the other person’s personal growth and development, the relationship can stagnate or even become antagonistic.

Personal growth and development occur at several levels. On the individual level, a person may experience changes in attitude, interest, abilities, and goals over time. What might be personally intriguing at age 30 may be less motivating at age 50.

A competitive basketball game may be replaced by a doze at the beach. Similarly, being the biggest sales person may be exciting when you’re younger while training and mentoring others to succeed may be more rewarding later in your career. In a successful partnership, each individual is attuned to the evolving interests, needs and competencies of the other. Within a partnership, partners must also change as the needs of the business change. For example, making an enterprise work when it’s in an early entrepreneurial state of development requires skills and competences that are different from a partnership that has weathered the obstacles of a start-up and has grown into a more professional entity.

Partners may find themselves evolving from a “fighting for our lives” kind of company, driven by constant sales, 60 hour work weeks, multitasking and a sparse personal life to a company characterized by excellent customer service, a more concentrated work focus, a shorter work week, and a focus on nurturing relationships.

As partnerships evolve, partners may learn to empower and mentor others, hone their negotiating skills and exercise better judgment. They learn to better harness their energy, impulses, and competitiveness. Empathy, generosity, and compromise become the standards for engagement.

Bottom Line

• As needs and motivations evolve, partners grow and change over time.
• Different skills and talents are required at different times in the life of a partnership.
• Successful partners appreciate the changing currents of life, adapt to each other over time, and develop compassion in the process.

• Where are we going?
• Why are we going there?
• Why can you count on me to get us there?
• What can I expect from you?
• How can we harness and enhance out combined talents, passions, and skills?
• What’s our plan of action?
• What resources do we need?
• How will we handle conflict and differences of opinion?
• Where can we take charge, make things happen, and self-initiate?

For Navigators, “the buck stops here” and “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.” Navigators don’t get caught in the blame game: “We got screwed,” and “It’s not our fault.”

Navigators examine what happened, critically analyze root causes, are hard on problem, and make corrective actions.
Navigators don’t lament and wait to be emotionally devastated. They know that action is the best antidote to anxiety and uncertainty. Navigators take actions, learn from their mistakes and never give up. They may call a “time out,” take a pause, and reflect. But it isn’t to lick their wounds. It’s to re-energize, re-focus, re-execute, and move forward.

As Wayne Gretsky once responded when asked what made him such a great hockey scorer, he said “I never skate to where the puck is. I skate to where it is going.”

Bottom Line

• Create a shared vision.
• Commit to shared personal responsibility.
• Learn from your mistakes.
• Give up blaming (especially each other).
• Success is the best revenge.
• Keep moving to your future.
• Get a backbone.
• Doing something is better than doing nothing.

What’a Victim Partnership? About 20-25% of Partnerships fit the description of Victim Partnerships. The Victim Partnership Beliefs:

• We’re screwed.
• We can’t fight City Hall.
• The competition got there before we did.
• We didn’t catch a break.
• It wasn’t our fault.
• Luck wasn’t on our side.

The Key Point: Victims give away power. Something happened to them, causing the upset and failure. They think “We don’t have control; We never really did.”

What’s the Payoff? If it’s someone else’s or something else’s fault, we aren’t responsible for what’s happening. Victims rarely examine their own behavior, take personal responsibility for their choices, or stop justifying their predicament.

Victim Partnerships aren’t aware that they are always responsible for what happens, that they are always in charge of their choices and actions, and that they always have total power over their lives. They may not have control over the result but they do have control with every step leading up to the result.

Bottom Line

• Victims tend to find each other out—The needy partner finds a controlling partner, a scared partner finds an acting out and risk taking partner.
• Their common denominator is:

I’m not responsible.
It’s not my fault.
Other’s did us in.

• So qualify your potential partners and find out if he/she takes personal responsibility for their results. •
• If he has a history of blaming other or justifying why things haven’t turned out successfully, cut the conversation off, get out, and find someone else who is personally accountable.
• Watch out for the resentful and angry person. They may be victims waiting for their next failure.

]]> http://navigatingforsuccess.com/blog/business/navigating-partnerships/the-victim-partnership/feed/ 0 http://navigatingforsuccess.com/blog/business/dont-assume/ http://navigatingforsuccess.com/blog/business/dont-assume/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:34:03 +0000 Moss http://navigatingforsuccess.com/blog/?p=206 You are not that smart, insightful, or intuitive! You don’t always understand with accuracy what’s going on with other people. You may think you do but you may only be assuming or making up a false interpretation.

When trying to understand your partner’s behavior and thinking, its important to do something other than to guess. You need to observe and ask. Notice if you are feeling annoyed or judgmental. What assumptions are you making? When you don’t really know the facts, don’t make up a story and assume the worst. Take a moment and check tings out with your partner.

“I’m noticing something and want to check it out with you. You seem very quiet and distant this morning. Are you bothered by something? Have I done something to bother you? Or are you just absorbed about something?”

Then, listen and probe. See if your partner is struggling about some issue. Be empathetic and put yourself in his shoes. Be respectful of this thoughts and feelings. Sometimes you may be a great resource and comfort by making this kind of connection. It shows that you care.

Bottom Line

• We make up stories.
• We believe our stories.
• Most of the time we are wrong.
• Be smart and check things out.
• Don’t feel in love with your assumptions.

Over time, life’s events and circumstances can throw partnerships off track: lost customers, poor sales, reduced market share, internal strife, and key people jumping ship can wear a partnership down. Short tempers, blaming, and disappointments result. Partners may become fearful of messing up and failing to meet expectations.

Fear and suspicion replace safety and respect. Partners then avoid or criticize each other, second guess decisions, make assumptions, create faulty conclusions, and become obsessed with the many “What if’s.” What if he doesn’t follow through this time? What if he lets his ego get in the way? What if he yells at me? What if I don’t do it right? Self-fulfilling prophecies can take over: your partner does get angry toward you, in part, because of your own victim and annoying behaviors. If you’ve been avoidant, indecisive, competitive, withholding, etc, you are creating distrust or even fear in your partner.

Bottom Line

• Life’s circumstances can throw partners into mutual frustration, anger, and fear.
• If you keep your feelings to yourself and create bad consequences in your mind, your partnership will weaken.
• Do some self-examination and ask yourself if you’re sabotaging your partnership.
• Be hard on your fear: don’t let it get too strong.
• Fear: False Expectations Appearing Real

As you go through the day, pay attention to your state of mind and how you are feeling. Everyone once in a while stop for a moment and ask yourself, “How am I doing here? Is there anything I need to get off my chest? Am I avoiding a particular conversation with someone? How do I want to come across?”

Whether or not you are speaking or interacting with your partner and others, you are impacting them. You are influencing the “emotional climate” and productivity of those around you. You are not an island separated from others. Like the water and wind between islands touch each island shore, your presence influences everyone in your company.

Bottom Line

• Effective people pay attention to themselves
• Ask your partner for feedback about your perceived attitude or behavior.
• Ask yourself if your current state of mind and behavior are getting you where you want to go. If the answer is “no” then change how you are thinking or behaving.

Time passes quickly. What do you have to show for the decade of time you have already used up? Have you achieved your heart’s desires in your work? Marriage? Wealth? Relationships? Health? Personal development? Are your spending too much time “catching up?”

You and your partner spend a lot of time together. You might consider thinking about time differently than only time management or becoming more efficient. Try reflecting on how your past, present, and future are interconnected.

Past Time: Your challenges and victories. Your mistakes and failures. What you have learned. Your mentors and teachers. Your traditions.

Present Time: Today’s current reality. Today’s challenges and opportunities. Today’s call to action. Today’s health of your partnership.

Future Time: Desired results 5-10 years from now. Creating a future that inspires your partnership. Reconnecting to your partnership vision.

Bottom Line

• The past, present, and future all define you and your partnership.
• Appreciate the past.
• Align your present actions with your future goals.
• Let your imagination, dreams, and intentions guide you and you partner’s future.