Patterns in Relationships

I’m a big believer in the power of both personal and professional relationships; therefore, I have quite a substantial background in creating and maintaining them. Lately I’ve been noticing the tendency for patterns to occur in relationships. In my personal experience, it truly seems as though the entire course of most relationships is predicted by the behaviors that take place in the very beginning. I’ll explain.

Generally speaking, if a relationship (business or personal) is complicated and difficult in the beginning, it seldom changes. Take, for instance, an emerging personal relationship. If it takes four weeks to find a day that works for a date, or if someone cancels a date several times, one or both people probably don’t really care very much about the relationship. This is reflected both consciously and unconsciously in their actions.

On the business side of things, it’s largely the same story. I once had a deal in the works for a potential buyer for one of my companies. The terms of the deal itself started out extremely convoluted—this was to be a cash for a call (right to buy) process to own more of the company, after which the value of the company would be established at a future point in time based on a complex system. At that point, the buyer wanted to purchase the rest of the equity at that time’s present day valuation. I’m stating this as simply as possible and it’s still confusing; this was just one of the many terms that were “clear as mud.”

Needless to say, the deal fell apart, largely because it was a royal pain to unwrap what was happening.

With that said, here are some tips to help you evaluate relationships in the business world:

• Some people are addicted to evaluating deals, and you may be the current play thing.
• Some people want to continually push you to test their limits.
• Some people are just difficult.

If you can recognize these tendencies early on, you can save yourself quite a bit of trouble. They are unlikely to change as time goes on.

What works for me personally is avoiding the negativity present in the business world. I enjoy operating companies that create value and enjoyment for everyone involved.

Here are my tips for creating positive, successful business relationships:

• Work with people you like.
• Work with people who push your thinking to the next level.
• Work on situations where everyone involved (partners / employees / customers / investors) can win.

Likewise, in terms of deals, the best deals have terms that make sense and are reasonable. While there are contract terms that can take up many pages, the important deal terms should be simple and (relatively) easily understood by most people. Transparency is the best way to make sure everyone’s needs are met.

Thus, the minor message of this post is simple. If you’re chasing someone and you have to call them 15 times (business or personal relationships included), this is indicative of a larger issue. People don’t usually change substantially, especially not overnight. Don’t expect something different from people than what you have already experienced with them. Doing so is a sure-fire way to experience disappointment.