Conflicts in business are common, although there are no grounds for many of them. Take, for example, the relationship between a founder and an employee.
The first one thinks that no one gives a damn about the company except him. The other is convinced that the founder cares about nothing — only profit.
Don’t believe them? Each has accumulated a long list of “facts.” Give them the slightest reason, and you get an argument, a standoff, a strike, and terror.
Something is missing from this relationship, isn’t it? More precisely, someone. These two would not even have met if not for the third — their customer.
Business does not begin with the employee. And not even with the founder. The burdock’s hook needs the animal’s fur, the sail needs the wind, the flower needs the bumblebee.
What comes first is the customer’s discomfort, even pain, that everyone else ignores. But for some reason, our founder cares. And he decides to help.
The customer is freed from something that has long kept him from living and creating. What does he do? Right, he will thank and generously reward the deliverer.
It is not hard to predict what happens next. Soon, customers are lining up. The founder begins to suffocate under the demand and hires an employee.
Together, they can now bring relief to far more people. Notice that there is not even a hint of conflict between them. They are too busy.
Both are focused on the customer’s interests, not their own. As long as this remains true, everything inside the company is fine: loyalty, profit, et cetera.
But the moment they turn away from the customer, the temptation appears to wonder whether everything in their relationship is really fair.
Attention will gladly assemble the “facts” needed to defend one’s unfairly neglected interests. The other side will mirror it. And there is your conflict.
How do you stop it and reverse it?
Remember who and what brought all of you here in the first place.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.
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