How to Run a Business to Avoid Conflicts—and Why?

AVAlexander Volchek

What does one partner expect of the other? One wants to take out a lot of money now, earning a lot of net profit. They think their partner should always smile. They may allow themselves to want a hundred times more money than you do. Under no circumstances. “If someone does that, they owe the other person a million dollars.” They wanted your money, your freedom. What kind of partner was that? What did they want to get from you? Later, there will be an explosion in which you could lose a great deal. In business, of course, everything depends on me. In reality, of course, it depends on the partners and owners. Today we'll examine an important question: what causes the most conflict between business owners? Owner conflict doesn't just cause losses, destroy the business, reduce personal money, profit, revenue, and volume, give clients poor service, and leave employees and teams unhappy. In the end, we also lose ourselves. We don't just lose a partnership. Conflict between owners has an enormous effect on our inner state, experience, and perception. I had business conflicts in 2013 and 2014.

At Business Molodost, we were making around $20 million a year in revenue. My greatest concern when I woke up was my relationship with my partner. You wake up, and your first thought is how your partner feels and what they're thinking. I remember a friend saying, “Sasha, I think I need to replace my driver.” I asked why. He said, “For six months, every morning when I get in the car, I've had this strange feeling that my driver thinks something bad about me. I spend the whole ride worrying about it.” I said, “Interesting, isn't it? You hire a driver, pay him fairly good money, and spend several hours every day worrying about this.”

Hours worrying about it. A driver is one thing; a partnership is another. Business partnership is incredibly important and special. It isn't in our lives by chance. It isn't like which store we bought a phone from or where we buy groceries. It gives us a point of development in life, support for our inner state, and a sense of work and living through things. It may or may not bring scale, money, power, earnings, professional growth, and balance into our lives. I've had very different partnerships. The main conflict between partners comes from their expectations of each other. Interestingly, these aren't even necessarily about the business. The first major issue is what one partner feels and expects of the other. Perhaps they think their partner should always smile, communicate wonderfully, or agree with everything they do and say. Or they expect the partner to have a different opinion, speak up, and offer counterarguments. Or to work twenty-four hours a day, or always, for their entire life.

Or they think their partner should work more than they do, earns too much or too little, has a strange life, the wrong family, or the wrong relationships. They eat the wrong things, speak the wrong way, hire the wrong people, or do the wrong things. My expectations of my partner in another business are the most important point of conflict. There are other points, of course, such as a partner's expectations of the business itself. One wants to take out a lot of money now and earn a lot of net profit every month—

earn profit, taking out $200,000 for themselves every single month. The other says, “No, wait! Let's put $200,000 into growth and take $10,000 for ourselves. That's enough for me. What matters is developing the business. We'll sell it later and make a lot of money.” Or, “What matters most is investing so clients are happy and satisfied.” Their underlying positions start diverging. Sometimes a third partner creates a quarrel between two others, or a team of employees and outside people or circumstances cause misunderstandings between partners. But the first basic thing to examine is expectations. How can you resolve this source of conflict, minimize it, and use it so your business and you yourself grow and scale dramatically? To achieve major business growth, to grow as an owner and grow your business or businesses, you need fairly good communication between partners. That doesn't mean kissing every day, loving each other enormously, or being friends every day. It means a state of harmony, understanding, synergy, and complementarity in which you strengthen each other.

The first thing to do is something highly ambiguous. By the way, write in the comments and reflect on this for yourself. Write down what happened with your partner. What did they expect from you? In which business, circumstances, niche, and country? What did that bastard want from you? What kind of partner were they? What did they want to get out of you—your money, freedom, or inner emotional state? What exactly did they want to extract? Did they want to profit off you? Did they want power or scale? Or were they too quiet and lacking firmness? What did they want? Write it down and reflect on it. Next—

write it down and reflect on it. We'll discuss it further. The first and most important ambiguous action is to examine your own expectations of your partner. What do I personally expect? What do I want? I want them to think well of me and recognize me. I want them to say, “Sasha, what you did was great: the system you implemented, the team you hired, the strategy you devised.” To say we made a lot of money because of what I brought. What expectations do you have of this person or of what happens around them? Can you allow for your partner's right to stop working tomorrow? Can you allow for or accept their ability to leave the business? Their right and ability to change their view? They can come and tell you directly they disagree, or that they think the current management system and strategy are wrong.

Or they may allow themselves to want a hundred times more money than you want. You want to earn $100,000 a month, and they say, “That doesn't satisfy me. I want $100 million. I want $10 million. I want growth and scale.” You're shaking inside, not only because you don't know how to do it, but because you aren't ready to allow yourself that goal, and they are. The first action is to work on your expectations. In fact, the only thing you can honestly do is remove your own expectations of your partner. Second—

of your partner. Second, try to speak to your partner gently, neutrally, and calmly. Under no circumstances should you say, “I watched a great video. Let's sit down right now, tell each other our expectations, and sign a paper saying we won't have any. If either of us does, they owe the other a million dollars.” Absolutely not. It means calmly trying to hear the person: what do you want now, in a year, in two years? What are your thoughts? When they say, “Our team is shit,” or “I want to fire that director,” don't immediately object: “Why? I like him. I think he's good.” Hear them instead. “What else? What other things are there? Why do you think that? Interesting. Good thought.” They'll probably start expressing negativity at some point. Try to respond neutrally. Imagine simply writing it down like a child who's been told, “Write.”

It makes no difference to you whether it's red or green, a hundred or ten thousand. It's all the same. You treat it equally, rather than as something that belongs to you personally. We're discussing the main conflicts today and, most importantly, their causes. You can resolve conflicts endlessly, but unless you understand the cause, nothing will happen. A partner may not want to grow, for example. You might find a point of growth and start growing, but your relationship won't strengthen. Your directions will diverge even further, and eventually there will be an explosion in which you could lose a great deal: money, freedom, emotions, your state, anything. Again, allow yourself to say, “I want to be human and act truthfully. So I'm removing my expectations of my partner.” You've come, listened, and looked—

you've come, listened, seen what they think, and begun taking certain actions. Time needs to pass. This absolutely isn't a matter of one, two, or three days. Some time has to pass, and you need to start the process. Notice that you start it because you know it's truly right, not to make your partner remove their expectations. It's the only possible starting point for the best, most appropriate growth in your relationship. It will lead somewhere. You're doing it, first, to have a great relationship and to grow as a business owner, entrepreneur, and person, grow your business, and earn a lot of money—or build an outstanding, well-known business, if that's your primary goal. After you go through this stage, you'll reach a fork. One possibility is your relationship entering an entirely new range you can't imagine because you've never experienced it. Relationships with expectations, especially mutual expectations, and relationships without them aren't just like heaven and earth. They're like the sky and a tomato. Completely different things.

It's almost impossible to imagine. It isn't simply strengthening your partnership so one plus one equals two, or three, as people say. It's one plus one equals Z, or equals a word. It's something else, the creation of something entirely new. Or your partnership will reach a stage where you'll probably start making further decisions: “I see our partnership is very particular. It's unlikely to bring us to the right place over time, and it will end.” Or you'll end the relationship and partnership, and that too will be a great personal point of growth. Most importantly, don't rush. Let time pass. How much time will become clear: two weeks, four weeks, four months—

four weeks, four months, one, two, three, or five years. At some point, you'll see very clearly, first, whether you've removed your own expectations of your partner, even if they're still a complete pig. Second, how much you've begun listening to their expectations, words, and actions. If your partner has expectations, you may hear most of what they say very negatively, whether they're expressing those expectations or sensible, good things that are right for you. It's natural for partnerships to end. I have a saying: over twenty years, I've had many different kinds of partnerships. Some were with strong technology entrepreneurs. There was the well-known partnership at Business Molodost with Petya and Misha. And I partnered with Andrey Rogachev, the man who earned Russia's first billion dollars in cash specifically through privatization and created a retail chain. These partnerships were completely different. Looking back now, at least, the best thing I could have done in them was take these two steps.

Write in the comments what you now think you need to do regarding your partner, together with them. Perhaps you'll want to ask their forgiveness, give them a gift, tell them something, or hear them. Don't rush. Start with your own expectations. If you describe your situation in a little more detail, I'll certainly try to reply and offer a recommendation or advice personally about your partnership. I've helped more than a thousand business owners—

a thousand business owners find the right inner state and their own core, so they can choose their next right action and take the right next step. Right now, you need the right next step for your partnership. In many places, business partnership is described as the same kind of partnership as at home, as though it's one sphere of life. There's also a wife or husband, a girlfriend or boyfriend. It's interesting that I met my wife in 1987, and we're together. I'll have just one wife. Partnerships can be very different, and you, as one person, can have very different partnerships. Don't lose the partnership. Transform it and gain more than the possibility of a next step: change your current way of being, your state, emotional state, personal business situation, firmness, support, and your team's management system within the company. That's what we discuss on this channel and what I talk about in these videos. Subscribe and like. See you in the next videos!