In many ways, the peace in your company mimics the war in Ukraine.
On one side you have Putin and the Russians. They assert – rightly or wrongly – that a strong, NATO-aligned Ukraine is a threat. The presence of a well-equipped potential adversary is a compromise they are not prepared to accept.
On the opposite side, you have Ukraine – a country that has had a long, sad history of being “ruled over” first by the old Imperial Russia that included Catherine the Great, then, after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union. One can hardly blame Ukrainians for being skeptical about their prospects for long-term freedom given their history.
The reality is that both sides likely WANT peace. But only if it is on their terms.
Ukraine wants peace free of Russian control and influence. Russia wants peace by controlling a buffer state that sits between the form Warsaw Pact states of Poland and Romania – now both NATO countries.
Obviously, peace is preferred by both countries, but only if it’s on each country's own terms.
And that’s why there’s a war going on – the terms of both countries contain mutually exclusive requirements.
It’s the same in your business.
You can have peace in your business, but only if it’s on your terms.
If you have labor problems, there's no peace. Both sides have stipulations that the other finds unacceptable and while neither will declare war on the other and start shooting (postal employees perhaps being the notable exception), options could include strikes, lock-outs, or mass resignations.
All of this eliminates peace in the workplace.
But friction is not limited to just employees, though this is usually the most visible.
Points of contention can exist also between the business and its vendors, its customers, the government, its management or shareholders as well as its finances.
Any of these can disrupt a company's peace.
Hopefully, these events only happen in isolation. Typically, multiple events happen concurrently because a problem in one area – say finance – spills over into other areas like “vendors”
As business owners it behooves us to continually monitor the “peace” in the company and if needed, take aggressive action –“war”- to restore that peace. Sometimes it means negotiating better terms from suppliers and collecting payments faster from customers. It could even mean terminating a problem employee.
It may seem like a contradiction but sometimes lasting peace requires the ability – and the will – to go to war.
One way to head off conflict is to have solid marketing in place to keep the business moving forward and growing. If you would like to find out how we can help keep the peace, click below and meet with Parthiv .