The realm of business management is one that should not be taken lightly. Business partnerships, like any relationship, come with their own set of benefits and challenges. The only difference here is that there is a business that’s involved and its fate may very well be determined by how you are able to maintain your relationship with your business partner.
When there are several heads involved in a task, it’s inevitable that there will be some conflicts every now and then. But that, my friends, is a good thing (as long as these conflicts do not distract the team from the task at hand).
The inevitability of conflict should already give you a hint that your efforts should not be focused completely on the prevention of conflict, but rather on their peaceful resolution.
So, how exactly do you resolve internal business conflicts properly?
Plan Ahead and Delegate Tasks Accordingly
One of the most common causes of conflicts among business partners is when one partner feels that they’ve been doing an unfair amount of work. Milestones like an expansion phase, or the acquisition of new assets, or even simply entering a holiday season will all require a good degree of planning and delegating tasks. It’s really a matter of presenting a clear plan of action and laying out the responsibilities of each person involved. That way, there can be no question on the distribution of responsibilities.
Request For External Assistance
When settling business partner disputes, you don’t have to handle things alone. In fact, hiring a business dispute mediator may very well save your business relationship because of the neutral perspective that they are able to provide in assessing your situation. Couple that with their expertise in business matters and you should be able to make it past your differences in order to not only create a more potent business decision, but also a stronger business rlationship.
Utilize The Active Listening Stance
The reason why I mentioned that conflicts are a good and natural thing is that they allow us to gain insight from a perspective that is different from ours. We could be looking at the same truth, but our versions may seem different because of what we perceive from the situation. We want to bring forth our rationale in order to help solve the problem.
Taking time to step back (not literally) and to listen to the other party not only establishes an environment of open-mindedness, it also cements the fact that you value your business partners and their opinions on the matter.
Conclusion
See, there’s a big difference between an argument and a discussion. The former is an utter waste of time and energy, and is what truly kills relationship of any type. The latter is what we should all aim for, as it is in many ways the “proper” way to have a dispute. Never forget that the purpose of having a discussion is to eliminate a problem, not each other.
