MBA2175 Q&A Wednesday: How do I stop arguing with my co-founder?

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Hey Omar, Love the podcast. I've been listening for months now and I got a question for you. Me and my co founder have been arguing a lot lately and some of these arguments have been pretty heated to the point where the whole day is a waste and we're unable to focus on what we need to do because we're so amped up. How can me and my co founder not argue so much and focus on our goals and getting things done? I'd love your help with this question. Thanks so much Phyllis Phyl because anybody who has a co founder or a partner in business is going to experience some sort of disagreement or confrontation at some point. Now it sounds like this is happening frequently with you and your co founder and you want to nip it in the bud, which is great. And I want to say right off the bat, this is not uncommon. Phyllis, your business is your baby. You and your co founder are probably really passionate about what you do, really care, and that's why they're heated. That's why they're high volume sometimes and very passionate. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about why does this happen, how to kind of plan for it and how to have more constructive conversations so you can get things done and make decisions a little bit more quickly. Because these arguments can go on and on and not actually come to a resolution. And you ask the right person. I'm somebody who has had a co founder for over a decade, so I know firsthand what Phyllis is going through and I've run through the paces. I know what works, what doesn't and how to make sure how to handle these confrontations, these arguments. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. If you, your parent or spouse served in the military, you could join our family. Our members saved an average of $70 a month on auto insurance when they switched. Tap the banner or visit usaa.com join today to check your eligibility restrictions apply. So Phyllis asks, how do I not argue with my co founder? Huge, huge question. So important. Let's get into why this happens in the first place. Well, like I mentioned at the top of the episode, you're both invested, right? You care a lot about what's happening. So it's natural to have heated discussions about the topic at hand. Number two, you're probably under a lot of pressure. You're the head of the business. You're responsible. That pressure comes with tension and may cause us to get animated and get argumentative even. But that's okay. Let's recognize it and move on. But let's dig a little deeper. Why else, psychologically, emotionally, why does this happen? Well, it has a lot to do with the feeling or the drive for power and control. You're an entrepreneur for a reason, because you like to be in control. You want to do things, create things, make things happen. So does your co founder. And when they believe in something very strongly, they're exercising their right to be powerful and be in control. This often looks like somebody who wants to make decisions on their own. And the other co founder feels like, hey, you didn't include me or one person maybe being a little bit too forceful with the decision making process. Or the discussion, wanting to drive home their opinions and with the way they want things done. Now, you got to recognize that this is natural, this is going to happen. But how we handle how we react to it is our responsibility too. Another reason why this can happen, where people get heated in an argument, whether it's in business or elsewhere, is respect and recognition. People want to feel respected. They want to feel like their work is recognized, that their opinions matter, that they have a voice, and this is why they might raise their voice so they could be heard. Sometimes this is very unconscious. This is just like trying to get their selves to the table, right? To have a voice at the table. And this could be some of the reasons why, the underlining reasons why these arguments happen. Another thing is you're close to all of this, right? You are so close to the business. You care about what's happening, like I mentioned. But when you're dealing with the business and the decisions of the business day in and day out, sometimes we feel like, hey, I know what I'm talking about, I know how this is. I think I'm an authority on this idea and so does the other person. So the combination of all these things, it really can create a lot of tension and a lot of heated battles. So one of the things I like to keep in mind and maybe even practice is just recognize these things at the start of a discussion that's starting to get heated to say, hey, I respect you, I respect your opinion, I respect your authority. You matter, your voice matters. Let's make sure both of our ideas are heard. We're stressed, we're very close to it. I understand that you want to have some control over, over the decision, recognizing, getting yourself in front of it and just voicing these concerns that, hey, I understand you have these concerns can really just put things in perspective and bring the temperature of the room down a little bit, calm the situation down. Because it's like, yes, this is why I'm doing it. This is what I'm feeling. You're acknowledging how people feel yourself and the person across from you. The next strategy I want to voice is questions. Questions are really good at just putting things in perspective and asking yourself these questions and your co founder. So when things start to get heated and they're like, this is how we should do it, this is what we should do, is to ask the question to yourself and to your co founder, why is this so important to you? Talk to me about why this is so important. One, this is going to make the other person and yourself Evaluate. Is this really that important? Maybe I'm getting heated over something that's not going to have a huge impact on my business or my customers or my bottom line. Secondly, if it is important and it is impactful, you get to voice why you think that. Because maybe you're not seeing that perspective. Maybe you don't see the reason behind all this fury and all this drive and all this energy behind the argument. Maybe you're like, what's the big deal? So this question, why is this so important to you? Is really important because what I found is when I hear Nicole's answer to this, sometimes I'm like, oh, actually, I don't really value those things that much. Or maybe that doesn't seem important to me, but she seems so passionate about it, and it's very important to her. It might be a good idea for her to make the decision on this because the stakes are higher for her. It means more to her than I do, and I'm happy to let it go for this situation. And I learned this technique from Jason Fried and David Hannemeier Hansen, who are the founders, co founders of Basecamp. And that's how they kind of resolve a lot of their issues. Another thing I want to mention in this situation is when things get heated, we sometimes generalize. We say, you always say that. We go to extremes and say, this never happens and it exacerbates the problem. So try not to use superlatives in your language, because language matters. Language creates ideas, and ideas create emotion. And this fuels and makes the argument even more hot. Talk about the actions that are bothering you and not the actual person. Don't say, you always do this or you are cheap. Say, sometimes you are thrifty when it comes to buying office supply. And I really like good office supply that lasts and it's quality. I don't like to save money here. Talk about the actions and not the person, because when you say that about the person, it sounds like an accusation and an assassination of character that never lands well. And it doesn't really help the argument. It doesn't actually get you what you want or get the other person to see your perspective. Another thing I think is really important is that when you feel things are getting heated, remind yourselves, hey, what do we do right? What are we good at? How are we great as a team? How can we use those things to solve this problem? So you might say, hey, we're good at dividing different responsibilities. We're great at our team culture. We're great at coming up with plan of action or operating procedures together. So sometimes it's good to go about the problem or making that decision through the things you're good at. So if you can't make a decision about something or maybe something is very important to you, say, hey, okay, so if we went down this decision, if we said yes to this, if we were going to implement this, what would this look like? Let's go through this because this is one of the strengths, going through the whole plan and the operating procedure in this example. And this brings the conversation to a positive light. It brings you to your comfort zone, brings you to your strength as a team. And then you can have a healthier argument about, okay, maybe it won't work out now that we've planned it out, or maybe it will work out if we tweak a few things. So leverage your strengths as a team, what you guys are good at. Take the argument or what you're talking about and implement some of those strengths. Put it through that filter to just put you in the right mood, to put you in the right mode. Sometimes when things get really heated, somebody is dominant over the other, meaning that that person just keeps talking and talking and talking and doesn't listen and doesn't allow the other person to voice their opinion or to voice how they feel about the situation. So one technique is a 30 second technique, which one person has 30 seconds to say what they want to say and the other person has to listen and be attentive. In those 30 seconds they can't talk. And then after the 30 seconds is up, it's the other person's chance to talk and the other person to listen. So you never speak more than 30 seconds at a time. This allows you one, to listen and to calm down and not to build yourself up and get all angry and get in a fury talking for more than 30 seconds. Two, it allows for a discussion. Three, it allows you to be a little bit more selective about how you use language because you only have 30 seconds. So you're trying to be compact and not go on tangents. This is super helpful when you have no control over the discussion and things are getting a little haywire. If you, your parent or spouse served in the military, you could join our family. Our members saved an average of $70 a month on auto insurance when they switched. Tap the banner or visit usaa.com join today to check your eligibility restrictions apply. To wrap up today's lesson, I want to just emphasize a question that really has helped Nicole and I. When we're having an Argument. When we're having a heated discussion about something, as co founders, one of the things we like to ask each other is what's most important right now. Sometimes it's not the right time to talk about this. It's not important. It's a bit of a waste of time because it's not relevant to what we need to focus on right now. What's most important right now is a good question to ask because it's like, what's most important is xyz okay? Does this have any bearing on XYZ right now? No. Okay, let's park this discussion for some other time and allow each other to think about it, walk away from it a little bit and maybe come back with a fresh perspective. Most things are not that urgent and don't need to be discussed and argued with immediately. I found over 95% of things that maybe are a heated battle are something that we can just park for later. Think about it, come back with maybe a different perspective or a broader perspective because it's just not that important right now. Let's not waste any time arguing about it right now. Last but not least, don't be discouraged. Let's say you're having a good run. You're not arguing, you're not fighting, you're using some of these techniques and then you have a big blowout or something like that and things don't go well. One day, that's okay. This is going to happen. It's natural. You're in a relationship with your co founder, you're working together, you're stressed, you're tired, you're really trying to make it happen. You both have good intentions. But the point here is that don't beat yourselves up because you had an argument once in a while. Just remember that you don't like it and to pick up the pieces and move on and be positive and say, okay, how do we prevent this from happening again? How can we just wrap up this conversation in a positive way and a positive result? But one of the worst things is people just get angry that they got angry. Right? They get upset that they got upset. That compounds things. No reason to beat yourself up. Just keep moving forward and recognize that, hey, this is a process and it's going to take some time for us to get better at it. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you got a question you want to ask, just like Phyllis did, go ahead and email me@omarr mba.net I'll make sure to answer it right here on Q and A Wednesday. While I have you, make sure you hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode. Also, by following our podcast, by hitting subscribe, you get access to our archives of over 2100 business lessons. Go ahead and do that right now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Sometimes we forget that our co founders are people that are close to us personally. We know them for so long, whether they're an old friend, maybe even a family member, or even just somebody that you've been working with day and night for years. So there is a personal relationship in there too, that's embedded. And we only get really heated and argue with people that we care about, really, because there's emotions involved and there are stakes, right? There's some stakes behind it. Someone started shouting at you on the street that you never saw before, never know, have no relationship. You just kind of be like, okay, whatever. And you just ignore you and walk away. It's not going to really hurt you or affect you. It's the closest people to us that affects us. So just understand that this is going to happen. Anytime you know somebody very well, you're going to have some heated discussion. And one more thing, everybody has a different threshold to arguments. Some people are fine with having arguments and they have. They grew up in a loud family and an argumentative family and debate and all that kind of stuff and they're fine five seconds later. Some people are not like that at all. It affects them deeply, emotionally, and they're pretty much done for the day, maybe even for the next couple of days. So understand the way arguments affect people are different and to be sensitive to them. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of. Lifelock. How can I help? The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't. One in four tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud. What do I do? My refunder. I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix this. 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