Business Partnerships Are Hard: Part 1 – Saying I’m Sorry

The business partnerships I’ve been in are hard.

Looking back now, I can see that a lot of the problems stemmed me coming into the venture full of pride of ownership and pride of the gifting and/or financial contribution I was bringing to the table.

So when things didn’t go right, my pride would puff up and I would begin to criticize, point fingers, play the blame game, and deflect the conflict back at my partners.

Oh, and forget about me ever saying “I’m sorry.” (laughing out loud).

Now I’m different. I’m a Godpreneur in various business Partnerships with other Christians and non-Christians.

I’ve learned that apology is the cure for pride.

Apologizing to our business partners is hard work. Saying I’m sorry and changing our business behaviors is even harder, and what makes it so hard for us is pride.

Being in a partnership always to some degree involves each person fighting for control. It’s like being in the longest game of tug of war where the only way to stop struggling is for someone to fall.

When our behaviors in the business partnership are driven by pride, we want to win every argument about money, always be right about a client. If we see difficulties in the operations is our partner’s fault, we bring up our partner’s admitted shortcomings of the past, and explain away or deny our own sins and weaknesses that we brought into the partnership.

We need to change our mindset entirely on this partnership dilemma.

Partnerships can be the very thing that God’s put into our lives to continue to mold and shape us into the likeness of Christ, thus becoming the best Godpreneurs possible.

We need other people’s input and critique to know how we sound, how we look, how our actions affect other people in the business. In humility, we need to realize that we aren’t quite as brilliant and tough as we think we are.

The Bible says:

“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you” (Romans 12:3).

When your business partner has an issue with something you did or didn’t do, develop the habit of stopping for a moment and asking yourself “How did I contribute to this issue?” The golden nuggets you’ll discover will propel you and your business to heights you could have never imagined.

Then, ju