Have You Ever... Had an Elephant in Your Living Room?

One of my consulting sessions this past week was with a company run by two families. The two guys have been friends for a long time and now their wives are involved in the business, managing the day-to-day activities, whilst the guys are out doing what they do best, building relationships.

Growing Pains

Why I thought I’d share this with you is that it was a great reminder that when a business is small, everyone pitches in and does whatever is required. However, as the business expands this is no longer viable. Something has to give. And, in this case, my clients were starting to step on each other’s toes and needlessly duplicating the workload.

Now, from the outside, everything looked fine, everyone was working hard and putting on the brave faces. However, when we started to get to the heart of the matter, it became obvious that these four individuals were angry, annoyed and frustrated with each other.

Fortunately for this business, they were willing to talk about how this was starting to impact the business and if left unchecked how this could start to damage the relationships. The two women desperately wanted things to work with a minimum amount of fuss, but they felt trapped in an unworkable situation.

Communication

From my perspective, the only way this family could move forward was to start being honest with each other. They had to start speaking their truth about how frustrated they all were with each other and how the business was no longer able to cope with the increased workload. And, until they were willing to do this, they had to keep sidestepping the elephant in the living room.

But this is where it gets interesting. For most people, the reason they don’t speak up or state how they feel is that they don’t want to upset anyone. But in effect, by not speaking our truth, we inadvertently upset each other.

What to consider?

The moral of this story is that when you are in an unworkable situation, where you are holding your tongue, the first thing you need to do is to take responsibility for your own emotions and this is about being willing to write it all down on paper. By getting it out of your head (or body), and getting the issues down in black and white, you can then begin to have an intelligent discussion with the people involved to find a solution and get the issues resolved.

What I’m always clear about as a business owner is that I get to participate in the best personal development program as a result of having a business. There’s no escaping what I need to work on. There’s nowhere to hide and there’s no one to fool. And what I know for sure is that when you are willing to let go of the drama, it sets you free.

So, this week, which elephant in your living room are you going to take on?  

Naturally, if you have any questions regarding how to remove your elephant in your living room, then please drop me an email: louise@InvisiblePartnership.com

For further insights about this topic, we highly recommend reading

The Invisible Partnership
Chapter 8: The Power of Alignment

Telling the truth does not mean dumping on each other or proving each other wrong. If you are not aligned and working as a team, you will make things more difficult than it needs to be.

Louise Woodbury