how to have a successful partnership Tag

Where there is danger, there lurks opportunity; whenever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable.” - Earl Nightingale. Breakdowns are inevitable in a partnership, especially if there are big dreams, goals, and risks. In strong partnerships, partners may get upset, frustrated, or angry but they don’t succumb to negative thinking and pessimism. They don’t bring up the past; they learn to move on. They use life’s challenges as opportunities for learning, breakthrough, and recommittment to action. Resilient partners learn to “right themselves and regain their footing.” Similar to the experience in piloting a small sailboat where capsizing is a constant companion, resilient partners simply figure out what to do to get the operation back in position after a project “capsizes.”

Partners often disagree. Sometimes disagreements throw partners off task. Rather than simply recognizing there are different points of view or perspectives about some issue, partners can slip into a dangerous, locked in location: the world of right or wrong thinking; the power struggle. In the power struggle, partners get positioned into a single minded thinking, “My way, not yours” or “I’m right, you’re wrong.” Collaboration falls by the wayside, giving way to a more competitive, heels dug in way of communicating.