What makes for a great match when it comes to thriving business partnerships and building successful working relationships?
Developing and maintaining real, authentic person centred skills cannot only foster meaningful day to day interactions with the people you work with but can also have the bonus pay off of resonating with the consumers, customers and members of the public you deal with on a daily basis too.
Every successful entrepreneur wants to drive their company to bigger and better heights and for that, internal working relations need to be as slick as the business itself. What happens when conflicts do arise, and indeed – can they be prevented?
Imagine two unstoppable forces coming together to share their creative wisdom and skillset, in order to foster a successful business. It might seem that the sky’s the limit, and nothing is unachievable until that first disagreement occurs. It can be derailing, destabilising and a shock to the system.
Anyone who works as part of any team anywhere knows that there is a time and a place for constructive criticism and feedback, and they must not be immune to that. The ability to accept it, move on and not lose your integrity is extremely important.
Exploring the middle ground is also important. Business partners can often get too comfortable with each other and then when an argument or conflict occurs it can escalate quickly and be hard to draw back from.
Communicate about problems before they blow up to insurmountable proportions. Here are five tricks to learn how to resolve issues in business.
Listen to, understand and accept other people’s points of view, no matter how different they are to your own. If you do this, the likelihood is that others will be more accepting of your views too. Listening actively is a core principle of negotiation and sound conflict resolution strategies and it allows questions to be asked and solutions to be found. If you don’t understand where someone is coming from, then ask them to explain and help you understand their motivation.
It’s good to state what you want, but you must also state why you want it to back up your argument. By doing this, the people you are talking to will better understand your position, your motivation and your potential end destination. For the same purpose, you can consider participating in conflict coaching programs; click here to learn more.
Always keep negotiations as open as possible and allow the other people involved in any conflict to meet you in the middle. There are some people who see compromise as losing, but it really isn’t. Compromise is a reasonable strategy that helps everyone achieve a little of what they want without having to lose face or give up entirely on their side of the argument.
Never openly discount any suggestions put forward. If other people around you can see that you’re willing to listen and seek other perspectives, then they will ultimately also be willing to explore what you’d like to achieve too.
We forget that nearly all of our communication is down to body language and the tone of our voice. Looking at people as they speak and hearing the tone they use and looking at the non-verbal cues they give away will make you aware of any undertones that develop in meetings. This will also give you an edge in any negotiations that take place.
These are just a few tips that you can use to help successfully resolve issues in business before they start, or before they become completely unmanageable.
Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay