Have you heard about the butterfly flapping its wings in south America and a typhoon strikes in Asia?
Well the point is that small matters with absolutely no connection can have a big impact somewhere else in the world.
In my case it has been proven to me to that small matters can have absolutely no connection, but still have, together, a big impact on your way of living or how you conduct your business
In hindsight I would say that several matters can lead to an even greater mistake or success dependable up on how you decide to connect the events.
But in most cases its more about not falling into the trap of proving your point by connecting the dots (events) you decide to see, rather than all the dots (events) that are really there.
For quite a while I have been puzzled about why a business clients supplier relationship has developed in the way it has, in the beginning I found the reactions from the supplier to be strange or at least out of proportion.
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It has taken a while because it not obvious that the supplier would like to share his view with us, and for that reason we had to work with several meetings to get any progress in the relationship.
Once we got a rough picture of their agenda, then we could start to understand both what has happened and what probably will happen in the future.
When you are up against a business relationship that is trying to impose their will on you, then it will probably take between three to seven times longer to reach an agreement.
The reason for that is that there is a huge difference in arguing or trying to explain the issues or constraints between you, when you are arguing , you are not a good listener in most cases.
Making sure you understand their agenda is of the outmost importance in your relationship, if you have your own agenda in order, then you are starting to understand how far away you are from each other and how big the gap is between you.
Closing the gap between you can be done in many different ways, but if you or your client is trying to secure the power balance to early, then it easily becomes a power game between you, that in the end will define a winner and a loser, for better and for worse.
Once you have gained an understanding it is not always my recommendation to tell them what your conclusions are, because not all business relationships like to be found out, and in those cases, it can trigger a new behavior or strategy that is not in your favour.
If you think you have the full picture, make sure you are asking open neutral questions over time that will give you confirmation of your view of the issues and the agenda they have.
If you know what you are doing, then your questions cannot be back tracked to your opinion or at least your own agenda and opinion of the situation.
That’s why it is so important not to only ask the questions that proves your point (or points) for that matter, the questions has to be spread out in such a way it gives you the right objective view of the situation.
So, the next time you are sitting on the other side of a dialogue where someone is imposing their will on you and asking you to do something you’re not really keen in doing.
Try to understand why that is important to them, prepare your own agenda, ask your own questions, do not just respond to their demands especially not in the same meeting.
Make sure you structure expectations in such a way that they understand that nothing is given away without getting something in return.
If they are unreasonable, I recommend you put your emotions aside and show them how unreasonable they are before you give them a more realistic counter proposal to think about.
If you would like to know more about the “butterfly effect” or if you prefer to get an outside view of how you can solve different business situations, give us a call, and we can take it from there.
Christopher Bell Blomquist
Managing director Scotwork Sweden
BellBlomquist Consulting.
www.scotwork.se