Why Partnerships Fail…And what we can do to prevent it
5 questions to ask yourself before your partnership is tanking
Like marriage or dating relationships, business partnerships struggle and eventually fail for a variety of preventable reasons. Did you catch that? Preventable reasons.
There are certain inescapable hardships that can crush any partnership [like a death in the family, depression, or filing bankruptcy], but most partnerships fail because they do not define and develop several factors we will cover in this series of five talks.
The first point of failure is this: partnerships fail to define their reason for business beyond making money. Let me explain.
I once did a (successful) conflict resolution for a partnership in a business [north of $100 Million] who referred to their company as “a cash cow with no soul”. This somewhat humorous label reflected the reality that there were no true values and no commitment to helping others that drove the partners — it was exclusively their ability to make big money. Once their partnership began to crumble, there were no shared values, no vision to help the community, and no other mutual place to grab on to so it became very personal and very subjective.
When partners don’t have a clear approach to make their values a real part of the conversation for how to do business and have no real intent to make their company a great place to work, it is often telling a story that the business might be great at cranking numbers, but it doesn’t care about people and when conflict comes, there is nothing worth fighting for.
What value does your partnership bring to others?
Your partnership goals and ambitions have to align with mutually held values and a sense of giving back. This doesn’t have to be a grand idea that stays out of reach, but something tangible that resonates with the soul of the company. If not, you are at significant risk for partnership conflict that can wreck your quality of life, your peace of mind, and eventually your company.
Punch line? Ask yourself what values your partnership has committed to upholding, how they are made actionable, and how your company makes the community you live in or your workspace a great place to be. If these ideas are vague or even missing, or your partnership is struggling, then let’s start a conversation and come up with a next step forward.
This is part one of a five-part series taken directly from
“The Rewired Group – Coaching Experience“.