When you hear the phrase “business development,” you probably think about business growth. You think about getting new clients and introducing new products and services. While business growth does require new clients, services and products, it also requires basic internal structures. The basic structures have to be present before a business is ready to become bigger, faster and better.
If one of the basic structures is not functioning, business growth slows down. When growth slows down or stops, business owners can panic and ignore daily needs while scrambling to cover expenses. If this happens, client relationships can be negatively impacted. If a business owner is highly distracted, conflicts may arise between business associates and partners. Depending on the relationships, conflicts can lead to lost time, money and damaged reputations.
The basic internal structures of a business support business owners regardless of what types of business they are running and what they actually do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. These basic structures are: physical health and mindset, a risk/ethics analytical matrix, financial foundations and your support networks.
This article addresses mindset as it pertains to conflict prevention. Your mindset is crucial to the longevity of your business. If you are excited about your business and your services/products, people hear your passion. People respond to positive feelings and enthusiasm. People buy from people they know, like and trust. If you genuinely love what you do and can articulate the benefits for consumers, they will listen.
Your mindset is part of you. You have fixed emotional set points that determine how you see the world and how you respond to trauma and stress.
How you see the world and operate in it determines how you handle conflict. Internal conflicts arise when your values, choices and actions are not in alignment. Conflicts occur in business partnerships, associations and employee/employer relationships when people are unclear about goals, expectations, role and boundaries.
Generally, how do you see the world? Is the glass half-empty or half-full? When you know yourself and how you see the world, you can formulate strategies that suit you. Trying to take actions that do not fit your personality can lead to frustration. Frustration can lead to loss of productivity. Lost productivity can lead to fear, partial or total paralysis and eventual financial losses.
How does conflict affect you? Conflict is part of life. Some conflicts are simple and short-lived. Some conflicts are easily settled with clear communication and compromise. Some conflicts resist attempts to “fix” them. The people involved cannot communicate. They refuse to see one another’s point of view. They are deadlocked.
People respond differently to conflict. Some people love conflict and thrive on it. They look for ways to create it and “stir the pot” to ensure that settlement attempts fail. Other people hate conflict and will go to great lengths to avoid it. They cave into other people’s demands, just so that they can “keep the peace.” They tolerate unpleasant situations instead of raising their concerns about unfair treatment.
How do you deal with escalating conflict and angry people? Some people are comfortable with angry people and can shut them down immediately. Others leave an unpleasant situation immediately and resume communications at a later date. Some people are paralyzed by anger. They cannot evaluate a situation or decide how best to handle a person who is screaming at them. They cannot advocate for themselves and let themselves be bullied by someone who is out of control.
Whether you are signing contracts for services and/or products with business associates, entering into a partnership agreement with someone or hiring employees, you will benefit from thinking about and planning for conflict prevention. Conflict is prevented when you get to know people whom you are forming business relationships with. As you get to know them. Define the relationship. Identify your expectations, goals, role and boundaries. Discuss conflict with your associates and agree how you will manage it so that it does not get blown out of proportion.
Decide how to formalize these conversations. If you want a written agreement, make sure that you both understand what is says. Create one that is flexible enough to live and breathe with your relationship. If you don’t want a formal written agreement, consider using a mind map or a less structured document. When people are clear about goals, expectations, roles and boundaries and have methods to resolve differences, they can focus on business growth and development.
For more information see Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman, Ph.D., The E Myth by Michael Gerber, A User’s Guide to the Brain by John Ratey, MD and books by Tony Buzan.
This article provides general information. This article is not intended to be, nor is it, legal advice. If you are in a business relationship that is not functioning according to agreements, expectations and legal structures, seek independent legal advice.
Learn more about the author, Karen Hallis.
Kare what a powerful article, starting from the inside out.
I heartily agree re an emotional set point - and think Seligman's book is the best starting point to understanding how to move from pessimistic (more conflict-prone) to optimistic (resilient, able to get along with more kinds of people).
His reminder re pessimism (Personal, Pervasive, Permanent) is life-changing
Karen, thanks for this reminder that we create our results by our attitude and by our response to others. It is also heartening to see a lawyer taking a strong stand on preventing conflict.
Thank you for your post Kare.
Brain science is becoming more mainstream. Understanding how people tick is useful when running any type of business. People who work in marketing and advertising have known what a powerful tool brain science is since the late 1999s.
I really appreciate the wide web that Biznik has created. Your comment written from Sausalito reminds me that my writings have a large audience.
Regards, Karen
Regards, Karen
Thank you for your post Sue!
I appreciate your wisdom, as you too are an a lawyer and have seen conflict in action. Conflict is a given in life. However, it does not have to wreck preople's worlds. I have seen it destroy good people. Preventions is key.
Regards, Karen
Re brain and behavior, one of my favorite books is by Dr. Norman Doidge: How the Brain Changes Itself
Thank you for sharing these thoughts, Karen.
I was very involved in conflict education for a while there, so it's still a passion for me.
Conflict can lead to "lost time" and it also can lead to saving time. It is a clue that needs aren't being met. If that clue is seen for what it's worth, it can develop a business relationship and save time in the long run.
Thank you for your post Jessie.
Yes conflict can save time. It can be a huge gift. However, people have to be of the mindset that they can actually see that gift.
The conflicts that are mindless repitions of old patterns can be the ones that waste time and resources.
I appreciate all comments to this article! This is a topic that I never tire of talking about and debating. Thanks, Karen
Kare, Thank you for the Doidge recommendation. Have you seen "Brain Rules" yet?
Regards, Karen
Kare, thank you for systematizing in a neat and not pretentious way, general information that is essentially too vague to be operationalized , but gives off sparks and stimulates further thought. You are right about one certain thing: Our conventional 'Management Thinking' is helpless, coping let us assume with 'Interactive Complexity', because of the lack of an adequate perception of reality! These perceptions are already ' obsolete' and an urgent change in our 'MINDSET' (Unlearning0,as well as developing flexible methods of learning what is relevant for the new realities we cope with is a necessity. In order to meet the challenges of the 21'st century, it is vital to move away from the piece meal approach and view the tools , processes, and practices used to provide for any system of particular interest as a whole. It is not just the performance of the systems individual components that matters, but the relationships, interactions and interdepedence between and among them, and , ultimately, how they function together. -Success canot come from leadership and organization alone. Both need and they must be fused into a dynamic, synergistic relationship. Brain science, has to be taken into account but unfortunately it cannot dissolve the issues with which, some of us are stuck everyday. As anything else it also has it's practical limits! My modest opinion that it is worth thinking in our community of practicing professionals of some Trans-disciplinary approach, that can give us deeper insights in what we are all trying to clarify and achieve.
Thanks for the recommendation (you were positive about the book and it is a book, right?) I will look up Brain Rules
Thanks for the recommendation (you were positive about the book and it is a book, right?) I will look up Brain Rules
Dear,Kare Anderson, I am responding since I thought, that you wrote a response to my recommendations. Unfortunately 'Brain rules' was out of print, when I ordered it influenced by your recommendations,but they tell me it's on its way,with a DVD attached to it. If ,I were to recommend some books:-The creating Brain(the neuroscience of genius),by Nancy C. Andreasen MD,Ph.D,one of U.S., greatest living psychiatrists;-System's Thinking(Creative Holism for Managers),by Michael C. Jackson;- NO Problem, by Alex Lowy, who is with Feed blitz;-and "The project on national Security Reform(PNSR),Preliminary findings, by Sheila Ronis, ring a bell to me.. I still insist that you must not underestimate Trans-Disciplinary Design Thinking, since that is the hot potato nowadays!If you leave the discussions on a purely pragmatic basis without performing your own research, in order to implement it into practice , you are not going far. By the way I experienced difficulties in posting something nice on your post 'Love at Work',but may be this is a restricted territory, which you need to keep just for yourself!? I am pulling your leg.You are a lady that ,I can only admire.
Hi Kare,
"Brain Rules" was just released and explains the 12 ways to keep your brain healthy. It was written to promote brain health and have brain science become more mainstream. My favorite still is "User's Guide to the Brain.
I am going to look at the books that Michael suggested.
I am glad to see that this conversation is still "live." -Karen
Hi Michael,
Thank you for your thoughts! You have obviously given this area a lot of thought. I would be curious to know about the general population's knowledge about brain science where you live. I am going to look at the books you suggested. I appoligize for my bried post, but I worked all day and am tired.
Regards, Karen
Hi Karen,
Thank you for your response. Since you are a holistic attorney and integrative thinker(Integrative thinking shows us a way past the binary limits of ' either/ or'. It shows us that there is a way to integrate the advantages of one solution without canceling out the advantages of an alternative solution, affording us, in the words of poet Wallace Stevens,"the choice not between, but of."), I am sure that you will find the 2 books and the Report, useful for your work. I would add to the list:-Prof.Russell Ackoff's 'The Re-Creating Organization- A Design of the Corporation of the 21'st Century; -Designerly ways of knowing,by Nigel Cross;-and' Whenever stuff happens'- A Practical guide to solving problems permanently,by Jeanne Sawer. That should give you the competitive edge in your intellectual en devours! Concerning, 'Brain Research' in Bulgaria, you may be surprised to learn that we and the Chinese,were the first to have National Institutes in the world dealing with the such problematical issues. Our Institute, although it had strong international relations perished in the period when western democracy took over.The Chinese Institute in PEKING, is clearly the strongest in the world and the number of gold medals they took on the latest Olympiad Games is one of the obvious indications of it's potential. Our general population's knowledge about brain science is at a level where one can only wish for more. Psychologists deal with these issues, but their impact on the population as a whole is insignificant. Being educated throughout the world, 2 Fulbright Grants in the U.S., etc, I consider myself to be one of the world's Top Experts on 'Informational, Psychological and Intellectual Conflicts(Wars), with NON- Linear Science heavily involved. So that you can trust my judgment in issues that I advise you, as vice - versa ,I can trust your legal advice, if lawyers can be trusted at all (Joke). Thanks again, for accepting me in such a prestigious professional society. I enjoy reading everything that is posted, since a lot of common sense can be found her , which unfortunately is in deficit throughout the world!
Since this Business development/conflict article has stirred so much conversation & community here, perhaps these tips on dissolving conflict sooner will be of interest http://sayitbetter.typepad.com/say_it_better/2008/08/more-about-diss.html
Kare,
I am sure that your innovative mind will pin down the most relevant and creative stuff, to be discussed!
There must be some misunderstanding or slip up in the line, not to be able to simply dissolve(like aspirin in water) such minor problems like chaos, complexity(Structural +Interactive), disorder, terrorism,global warming,etc, by using boundary - less thinking, integrating the potential energy of our mighty management theories to start thinking together, rethinking, redesigning(1,2,3,4,5,6, and simply sliding on a thinking road map)." In or into harmony or coherence"- "Which way ought 'WE' to go from here? We shall take the path of purposeful action to unleash our Potential+Secret Power, starting to constructively connect those around us( achieving endless intellectual bliss among us, beginning to dance and embrace the "MARKETS' we will jointly create, working together, investing together, designing together, building together, learning together,' thinking without thinking','managing without managing', learning to unlearn, focusing on what is unknown, doubting(any given facts, propositions, beliefs, assumptions), developing and adopting novel methods, working with conjectures and staying tentative ("research as a paradigm of practice", in contrast to " profession as a paradigm of practice" that will focus on expertise, time tested methods, accumulated experience, standards of performance, and so forth.
Kare, I found something in the web that you may find useful and try to incorporate:
Complexity a. Managers must approach operational problems from a holistic systems perspective. Systems perspective defines a system as “a functionally related group of elements forming a complex whole.” The entire earth is a system, which like most systems is divisible into sub-components which are themselves systems. Each of these systems has a structure of independent parts that interact. Some of these parts interact with parts of other systems. It is the number of parts and the ways in which they interact that define the complexity of a given system. (1) Structural complexity is based upon the number of parts in a system. The larger the number of independent parts in a system, the greater its structural complexity. (2) Interactive complexity is based upon the behavior of the parts and the resulting interactions between them. The greater the freedom of action of each individual part and the more linkages among the components, the greater is the system’s interactive complexity.
Structural Complexity. It is possible for a system to have many parts and therefore great structural complexity, but to exhibit almost no interactive complexity. Machines function this way. A microchip may have billions of internal circuits and therefore great structural complexity, but its responses to a wide range of inputs are entirely predictable. It is therefore interactively simple. Similarly, an automobile driver knows when he puts his foot on the accelerator that his vehicle, which is constructed from thousands of parts, will go faster. (1) Such systems demonstrate linearity, because they exhibit proportionality, replication, additivity, and demonstrability of cause and effect. Proportionality means that a small input leads to a small output, a larger input to a larger output. Push down lightly on the accelerator, the car will go slowly, but push down heavily and its speed will increase. Replication means that the system will respond the same way to an input under the same conditions. Replication also allows cause and effect to be demonstrated. Thus, a driver knows that changing the position of the accelerator causes the speed to change. (2) Additivity means that the whole is equal to the sum of the parts. The additive nature of linear systems legitimizes analysis. Analysis reduces the system into progressively smaller components in order to determine the properties of each. In a system that exhibits little interactive complexity, the properties of the whole system can be understood based upon the properties of the components. The most effective way to study such a system is systematically and quantitatively using the analytical problem solving. Unfortunately, the operational problems confronting commanders at all levels are rarely linear.
Interactive Complexity. Interactive complexity makes a system more challenging and unpredictable than structural complexity. These systems are non-linear because they are not proportional, replicable, or additive, and the link between cause and effect is ambiguous. They are inherently unstable, irregular, and inconsistent. The most complex systems are those that are both structurally and interactively complex. However, even a structurally simple system can be interactively complex and therefore unpredictable. Take for example, the highly interactive dynamics associated with a small group of friends. A system composed of people is inherently interactively complex because people have great freedom of action and links to many others in their society. (1) Reductionism and analysis are not as useful with interactively complex systems because they lose sight of the dynamics between the components. The study of interactively complex systems must be systemic7 rather than reductionist, and qualitative rather than quantitative, and must use different heuristic approaches rather than analytical problem solving.
Finally, I also use the characteristics of complex systems by Flood and Jackson http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Systems-Thinking-Directed-Readings/dp/0471930989/ref=sr15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221056450&sr=8-5 (http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Systems-Thinking-Directed-Readings/dp/0471930989/ref=sr15?ie=UTF8& s=books&qid=1221056450&sr=8-5)
a large number of elements; many interactions among the elements; attributes of the elements are not predetermined; interaction among elements is loosely organized; they are probabilistic in their behavior; the 'system' evolves over time; 'sub-systems' are purposeful and generate their own goals; the 'system' is subject to behavioral influences; the 'system' is largely open to the environment.
I hope this is helpful,
Hi Michael,
Have you publised your work?
Either/or is fed to children in the US from the time they first enter school. It is easier for most people than integrative thinking, I think.
I was an expert witness in a case a few years ago. As I was cross-examined, the attorney kept asking me questions that required a binary thinking answer. I gave her answners that reflected my my integrative thinking mode.
The attorney could nto function with my answers adn gave up asking me more questions. I thought that was very odd. I wrongfully assumed then (but do not do so now) that a person with many years of education could immediately see that there were many ways to think about situations and could regognize styles of thinking. I also assumed that after recognizing a different style of thinking, this person would be able to flip from one mode of thinking to another. I was wrong.
Keep this dialogue going! Regards, Karen
Hi Kare,
Thank you for the link to your blog. Your posts are thoughtful and thought-provoking. Your website is a vast resource of useful information. I saw your book. I will go back and look at it later. Thanks for following this thread. Regards, Karen
Hi Karen,
Of course I have published and posted in the 'Harvard Review','Business Week' etc. Unfortunately in the near past, everything of true value was classified as 'Strictly Confidential',which is a shame , since I have always been far ahead from Russians and Americans, although Prof. R.L. Ackoff, was my first Fulbright Mentor,30 years ago. I am fully aware what is taught in the U.S. I would like to take the opportunity to ask you as more knowledgeable if its true that they took out studying 'Formal Logic' out of University Law Education? If this is true and i read a hell of research papers on the issue this is quite a 'Strange' decision!?! Concerning ' Integrative thinking' it will be wise to read what Roger Martin, thinks on the issue you raise that either/or is much easier for most people, but it has its definite limits. It is a pleasure for me to communicate with such a charming lady like you.I do hope that I was of some help. Kind regards. P.s., But let this be our secret - My heart belongs to Kare Anderson, who lured me into everything. I consider her a 'Genius',without being afraid to use the word!
Karen
What a goldmine! Thank goodness i am on several plane flights so i can read some of those recs.
Sorry you had trouble commenting on the blog.
Suggestion to you all: as well as biznikers hosting events and seminars, what if we had people such as the commenters here, lead telebriefings? It is another, low-cost way to learn from each other - and get to know each other better.
Oh I look forward to meeting so many of you oen day in Seattle.
Hi Kare,
Telebriefings: great idea, but first a clarification and organization question.
Would they be a class (or series) for people who are integrative thinkers or people who are interested in the concept? Or would this be a briefing as in lecture? Or could this also include a blog where people can post? Or all 3?
I wish I had about three days of quiet time to read your website and these posts again.
I wonder who else is out (in Biznik and outside Biznik) there that would be interested in this commuity that seems to have sprung up from my very first artucle?
-Karen
Hi Michael,
Yes they (the prowers that be) took formal logic out of the US law school curriculum. The curriculum is devoted to material that is on the bar exam. We had room in our schedules to take three classes that were outside standard legal classes. I took courses on negotiation, mediation and client counseling.
I teach courses in law, ethics and risk and always bring my own material into our discussions. We have spirited class discussions. I listen for thinking and point it out to my students. In my employment law class, it is essential that my students can hear discrimination (nto just words) but also thinking. Bias is also something I teach them to get a feel for. Bias often leads to discriminatory acts.
I would love to read your work but apparently cannot.
You are creating my winter reading list for me! Thank you. amason.com has made it easier for me to get the books I need.
Regards, Karen
Dear ladies, I will go for anything that you decide as appropriate! I must admit that I enjoyed your wonderful company and profound comments very much! I was wondering how to post an image of myself, so that you can visualize me? A Friend of mine criticized me for staying hidden! Your blog due to me has some fans also in distant Bulgaria! Unfortunately they are still shy to participate,but this will also happen very soon. I hope that I will look de4cently in the company of so many glamorous and smart ladies! Regards from Sofia. Karen, you can get in touch with practicing attorneys,who will be happy to answer questions of common interest. Going international is not a bad idea!
Karen, it is me again. I read your post, after I posted mine. Instead of reading all these books and spending a fortune in amason.com, feel free to ask me anything that has to do with thinking that crosses your mind and I will deliver the information you need digested like an intelligence report. I can't stand books that are enormous-they always remind me of graveyards where old information is buried. As Chuang Tzu says"The men of old; Took all they really knew; With them in their grave. And so Lord, what you are reading there; Is only the dirt they left behind them." I can email you a very nicely written book-'Logic for Lawyers" in Pdf, format. Complexity, uncertainty,risk and chaos are my favorites. Just ask and you will receive the top of the line as they say in the U.S. But let us not forget that Mr.BEST lives by definition in L.A. By the way I like your teaching approach as being very sound. Regards,Mike.
Hi Michael,
Thank you for your offer regarding not having to buy books. I am going to look at them all and see which ones I can get from my local library. Saves me a lot of mooney. I need to read other people's books, so that I can see which writing styles are effective and which ones are not. I am working on two books and need to seother people's work.
Thank you for your compliment about my teaching approach. I enjoy it. A teacher has to enjoy teaching. If she does not, then she should do something else. It is a lot of work, and I absolutely love it.
Regards, Karen
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