What is an abusive business relationship and how to get out of one?
An abusive business relationship is one that just stresses you out plain and simple. It can be and will be a huge disadvantage to the growth of your business the longer you allow the abusive relationship to linger on.
Most abusive business relationships include:
- being inconsiderate towards your needs
- lack of trust
- often attacking your value and worth
- feeling as if you are walking on egg shells
- lack of communication
- controlling and a “know it all” attitude
- being taken advantage of
- domination and subjugation
To name a few…
If you feel or know that you are in an abusive business relationship, please don’t ignore the signs of abuse. Ignoring the abuse allows the issues to grow bigger. Start to curtail the interaction with the abusive person so that the abuse can stop or you can walk away a freely.
Here are three ways to tackle an abusive business relationship.
1. Understand that you cannot change the other person. In order for things to change you have to either call in reinforcement such as a coach, mediator, or mutual party to hear both sides of the story.
2. Set boundaries. Decide whether you are going to stick it out, or move on. Your abuser maybe dealing with some sort of trust issues that could have started in childhood, and may have very little to do with you personally. In most cases both parties are suppressing some heavy emotions that are hindering the business from growing productively.
Think about your working agreement…Was it clear? Was it focused? Was it a win-win? Were you clear on results and expectations?
3. Make better choices. Most of the time, alarms and sirens go off before we begin to engage in an unproductive or toxic business relationship. We see the signs, we hear the messages, but we disregard them in the hopes that our intuition and gut feelings are wrong.
Learn to pay attention to your instincts from now on. Make choices that are life affirming versus those decisions that will drain you physically, mentally and emotionally. Stay clear from chaos and drama.
Keep these three supportive principles in mind the next time you embark on a new business relationship. Just like any relationship it takes time to get to know one another. That is why dating is so important. It helps you to see the sirens, smoke signals and warning signs before you say YES.
A great book to read is called Click: Ten Truths for Building Extraordinary Relationships
George C. Fraser
Written by : Lucinda Cross
